12—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 16, 1972
Kuhfuss Blasts Govt. Spending
The major problems facing
farmers in 1973 and in the 93rd
Congress are inflation, labor
relations, international trade, the
drafting of a new farm program
and farm bargaining legislation,
William J. Kuhfuss, president of
the American Farm Bureau
Federation, said in Los Angeles
this week during an address to
the 54th annual meeting of the
Federation
The Federation is the largest
general farm organization in the
world with more than 2 million
member families in 49 states and
Puerto Rico There is no Farm
Bureau m Alaska.
“The best farm program,”
Kohfuss said, “is one that en
courages expanded outlets for
trade. The 62 million acres of
production that we are now ex
porting are practically equal to
the 61 million acres that are being
held out of production by the
government programs in the U
S in the past year.”
“To increase the exports of
those crops that we can produce
efficiently would enable us to
reduce the number of acres held
out of production The over
supplied domestic market could
be relieved if a sufficient volume
could be sold satisfactorily in the
export market ”
“The alternative is to restrict
output, produce for our own
needs, strangle our productive
capacity and ability, and live
within a depressed economy with
a limited number of jobs. I do not
like this alternative.”
The current Agricultural Act of
1970 expire December 31, 1973,
and the 93rd Congress will be
faced with drafting a new farm
program or extending the current
law.
Voting delegates of the
member State Farm Bureaus
will adopt policies on a new farm
program during the convention
sessions this week.
“Inflation is a serious threat to
the economic stability in our
economy today,” Kuhfuss said,
“not only for farmers, but all
citizens. The individual farm
family’s net spendable income is
based on the long established
formula: unit price of the food
and fiber produced, multiplied by
the volume marketed, less the
costs of production, including
taxes, equals net income.”
“The continuing rise in farm
costs limits the net return to
farmers. Farm production ex
penses in the first half of 1972
were estimated at an annual rate
of $46 billion, about $2 billion
above 1971 Farm prices have not
kept pace with farm costs. As a
result, farmers have been
operating at 75 percent of
parity ”
Kuhfuss pointed out that most
economists recognize that
government spending in excess of
income is the primary cause of
inflation, but the Administration
and Congress have failed to bring
federal expenditures into line
with receipts.
“The Congress—your Senators
and Representatives and mine—
are responsible. Are we as in
dividuals giving the kind of
direction to out legislators we
should to achieve fiscal
responsibility?”
“Farm Bureau in 1972 made
line-by-line recommendations to
the Appropriations Committees
of both the House and Senate for
reducing appropriations for
fiscal 1973 which called for cuts of
nearly $23 billion in new spending
authority, and nearly $l5 billion
in expenditures.”
“Unfortunately, Congress did
not accept these recom
mendations because we as
taxpayers apparently have not
convinced House and Senate
members that we really want to
cut government spending.”
“The tragedy of all this is that
big government spending is a
twin of increased centralized
government and it is going to
require a total national effort to
slow down and eventually halt
this runaway plunge toward
national bankruptcy leading to
the doom of enterprise and
freedom as we have know it in
America.”
Kuhfuss also called for national
legislation that would provide
speedy arbitration of dock strikes
“that can shut down the shipping
lanes to our foreign customers.”
He pointed out that the Taft-
Hartley law has been “wholly
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inadequate” in transportation
disputes, and said we need
legislation applicable to the
transportation industry such as
the Packwood bill. Farm Bureau,
he said, should aggressively
support such legislation in the
93rd Congress.
On the secondary boycott of
food products, Kuhfuss said;
“Farm Bureau is not opposed to
the right and privilege of farm
workers to organize and bargain
collectively for the commodity
they have to sell-which is labor.
We are opposed to the violation of
certain principles which we think
are guaranteed in the United
States Constitution and which the
United Farm Workers leadership
is ignoring. What’s wrong with
workers having a say by secret
ballot on whether they want a
union to represent them? What’s
wrong with having the same
protection for agriculture as
provided for industry which
makes a secondary boycott
unlawful?”
The Federation president also
called for legislation to improve
farmers’ bargaining power with
handlers and processors.
“Legislation is needed,” he
said, “to require good faith
bargaining between farmer
representatives and handlers if
farmers are to be properly
represented at the bargaining
table.”
Kuhfuss said he was optimistic
about the future of America and
agriculture “provided we retain
the competitive enterprise
system in which supply and
demand are the primary
determinants of market prices.
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The use of productive resources
and the distribution of output
should be motivated by the profit
system.”
Secondly, he said, we must
stem inflation through sound
monetary and fiscal policies.
“Third, we need guideline
legislation that will keep groups
in our economy from exercising
monopoly power or promoting
selfish interests to the detriment
of the public interest. We must
restrain monopoly whether it be
in agriculture, business, labor, or
government.
“Fourth, we must reduce
government dominance in the
management decisions of in
dividual farmers and individual
businesses.”
“Fifth, we must be a part of the
total world trade and market if
we are to do our just share in
raising the living standards of
our fellowmen throughout the
world and help preserve peace
with a healthy and dynamic
economy here in America.”
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