The people's voice., 1958-09-12

/
the office of Sherman Adams, assist
ant to the President, when the COM
mittee vote was being taken. The bill
was killed.
A vigorous atomic energy program
for rural electric co-operatives and
municipal power systems was crushed
and a bill to restore to the REA Ad-
ministrator authority to pass upon
important REA loans died in COM
mittee.
NEW ECONOMICS LEAD
Organized labor was unable to OBJ
tain recognition by Congress of the
need to expand purchasing power of
the people to keep pace with vastly
expanded capacity to produce goods
and services. Unprecedented invest
ment in new plant and equipment
keyed to automation today outruns
the ability to consume. Administered
prices keep price levels high. Labor
economists emphasized this imbalance
before recent hearings of the Joint
Economic Committee; but virtually
none of the "orthodox" university
and industrial economists testifying
recognized the need for purchasing
power to keep pace with productive
capacity.
Congress did, however, expand So
cial security benefits, which is a major
step in the direction of increasing
the purchasing power of low-income
groups. Each Congress since 1850
has made some move in this direction,
not primarily to promote balanced
economy, but because the number of
voters receiving social security bene-
fits has increased enormously-from
an original 26,00O,OOO to 74,OOO,OOO.
There are now 127,000,00O holders
of social security cards. Payments for
social security will now be 21a per
cent of wages paid by employees, and
a like amount by employers, insteadI
of 2 IL per cent as formerly. Every |
three years this is to be increased |
until rate of u per cent is reached |
in 1869.
Unemployment compensation as
sistance to states was extended from |
26 weeks duration to 80 weeks for
states which desire to take advantage
of additional federal funds made
available. Also, in support of unem-
oloyment an emergency" bill to
stimulate activity in the sagging con-
'truction industry through $1.8 bill
ion of federal housing loans and
was passed.
7ARM LEGISLATION
In no area of law making did the
modern concept of planned economy
lash more openly with the 18th Cen
ury theory of the beneficent. self
egulating market place than in farm
egislation. Secretary of Agriculture
Benson, supported almost solidly by j
he Republicans, and backed by many ,
Democrats, has held to the theory I
hat agricultural .surpluses could be t
educed effectively only by permit G
ing the market to determine prices. {
Some of the larger farm organiza- ,
ions have maintained that only in :
larkets for farm products is there
ruly free price competition; and
hat the farmers must therefore be I
rotected against ruin by support Q
lechanisms which maintain farmer T
power. This is also the t
iewpoint of some liberal econo- $
lists. Decline of farm prices has q
elped to bring about concentration o
farming in larger and larger farms, t
18th the disappearance of hundreds n
thousands of small marginal oper- 1
tions. k
Benson has maintained that this is t.
5 it should be in the interest of hold e.
Ig down the cost of living to town
nd city dwellers, who are the vast II
ajority of citizens today. His pro- L
osal has appealed to many industrial y
orkers as logical. +
Farm leaders point to the small L
lrmer as the historical bulwark of IL
zee American institutions, and de- L
ore his disappearance before the A
'rporation factory farm. The Il
'mplex of conflicting and harmonic Il
g interests between farm and labor IN
cups remain largely unresolved. IL
The result was legislation in the pl
'th Congress that routed the Farm OF
oc all along the line. At the begin W
ng of the session Benson asked for