President Reagan`s new farm budget asks what his previous agriculture budgets have asked–a step back from the fiscal abyss of open-ended farm welfare schemes and a return to a farm economy run on free market principles. Mr. Reagan would reduce overall government farm spending by 18 percent
–from the $54.1 billion to be spent this fiscal year to $44.6 billion. Those who complain that this is a major slash should note that farm spending for the fiscal year preceding this one was $45.1 billion. The budget for fiscal year 1981, the year Mr. Reagan took office, was $24.6 billion.
The President would allow $4 billion in spending for loans at minimal one-percent interest and other assistance to marginal farmers. Complainers should note that there is no similar assistance provided for marginal steel companies and other troubled industries.
He would leave nearly all farm income support programs in place. The chief flaw in his proposal is that it makes modest reductions in cost while retaining the underpinnings of a system which continues to tax Americans to pay farmers to grow food no one buys. With the national debt now more than $2 trillion and government warehouses filled with record crop surpluses, this is a system the country cannot afford much longer.
Some farm state senators and congressman are crying that the President is soaking farmers this year to pay for continuation of his defense budget. A lot of defense money is being misspent, and the Pentagon budget deserves a good squeeze, but the agriculture budget deserves a hard look on its own account. In no way is Mr. Reagan soaking farmers. Too many still will be dependent on a federal payment for their livelihoods. The recent huge increases in farm spending may reflect farmers` hard times, but certainly not any solution for them.
The 1970s are over. Most of the world is now self-sufficient in food, and many countries are growing vastly more than the market will bear. Even the European Common Market, long an overproducer of heavily subsidized, cut-throat-priced farm goods, now appears to realize this. Its members are considering a proposal to freeze price supports for its 11 million farmers and cut back on production so that surpluses may be sold off.
But this is one area in which Congress again will want to push the administration into greater spending. What Congress ought to do is to give the President the farm budget. It is, if anything, more than enough.
