Imperial Valley press. (El Centro, Calif.) 1907-current, 1936-01-07
EDITORIAL PAGE
WEDNESDAY.
January 8, 1886
THE AAA DECISION IS
THE BIGGEST EARTHQUAKE

The supreme court decision on the
legality of the AAA has shaken the ma
ton from one end to the other. Today,
everyone is trying to perceive clearly
what to expect, but not even the best OBJ
servers can see the length of their arms
into the clouds which obscure almost all
of the wreckage.
More people are directly affected
than were Immediately touched by the
revocation of the NRA In the latter
case, employers and business firms were
the ones Immediately involved, whereas
in the AAA matter, every farmer across
the broad land is wondering just where
he has been left, what he is to do.
With the tumbling of the AAA struc-
ture about the ears of farm population,
government officials, politicians and all
the industries directly and indirectly at
filiated with agriculture, the reverbera-
tons reach into the markets of the world.
The supreme court justices themselves
reveal in attitude and demeanor as we'll
as vitriolic termonology and biting
phrases, that this highest tribunal of
the nation underwent violent conflict in
dividing into majority and minority OPT
Mons.
1t is too early yet to say what is to
be expected. in fact, it is impossible to
forecast very much with any degree of
certainty.
Verg Fep Facts Only this much is
Are Knourn. known, although
the realm of fact graduates off so rapid
" into the field of conjecture that the
experts themselves fear to speak less
they be stepping too deeply into the
realm of conjecture.
In declaring the entire agricultural
adjustment act unconstitutional, the su-
preme court equally condemned the
Bankhead cotton act, the Kerr-Smlth
tobacco act and the potato control law.
by indicating it would rule when specific
cases involving those laws were acted
upon. The foundation for the decision
was that the plans are involuntary and
that the Federal government cannot con-
troll crop production by agreement or
payment of bounties exceeding low
limits.
Just exactly what becomes the status
of the almost one billion dollars already
collected by the government in process
ing taxes is indefinite, but it would ap-
pear that processing tax payers may sue
to recover their shares. Although the
court did not determine the status of the
two hundred million dollars in such
taxes which have been impounded, 1t is
probable that in a later decision the
court may declare that the taxes do not
have to be paid, or that the professors
must pay the taxes and then sue to re-
cover them. Even more serious doubt
surrounds the question of whether the
government must eventually pay some
S6O0,000,000 in bounty payments called
for under contracts now in effect.
Anyone's guess is as good as the next
fellows but it would appear that farm
ers probably will continue to receive
from the government bounty payments
reimbursing them for reductions made in
crops until expiration of their present
contracts with the government. 1t ap-
pears equally certain that for reduced
crops now in the ground that the gov
eminent must take bounty payments.
All of which blows the budget sky
high. Bounties cannot be paid with air,
and to get money, new taxes are inev-
liable unless some new trick of gov
ernmental finance is evolved which would
only further shake the economic struc-
ture.