Brannan Plan

During World War II, agricultural products were in very high demand by the fact that food was needed overseas. The government encouraged maximum production by setting prices for farm products well above the market-clearing level. This ultimately led to overproduction.[2] While the demand for agriculture during the war was high, these wartime conditions proved to be unrealistic when the war ended. Following the war there were large farm surpluses. Subsequently, prices stemming from the price support became higher than consumers were willing to pay.

Prior to Brannan's proposal, the Agricultural Act of 1948, a revision of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, had recently been implemented. However, this act had merely extended the price support programs of the wartime law that would soon expire; something had to be improved. With the need for reform, Charles Brannan proposed for "Production and price adjustment with a definite income objective," which quickly became known as the "Brannan Plan."[3] The goal was to provide high prices for corn, wheat, tobacco, cotton, milk, eggs chickens, hogs, beef and lambs. The political assumption was that American farmers were so morally critical to America that they should be given higher incomes, regardless of marketplace supply and demand. The plan was opposed by the business community and by the nearly unanimous farmers organizations, except for the left-wing National Farmers' Union, which was its chief sponsor.[4][5]

In the free market, the prices that yielded were considered to be unfair to farmers. Under the traditional support system, the government would raise the price to a "parity" price, at which consumers would not be willing to buy as much. In turn, the government would purchase excess supply, leading to large amounts of storage. However, under the Brannan PLan, the government would allow the surplus to be sold for whatever price it would bring.[6] Consequently, the price would drop to that determined by the market, resulting in an elimination of the surplus. To compensate for the low prices, the Treasury would write checks to farmers for the difference between the high parity price and the low new market price. All together, consumers would pay lower prices for farm products, resources would not be wasted producing food simply for storage, and farmers would benefit by receiving the parity price while producing the quantity demanded at the market price for the surplus.

Brannan's plan was opposed largely by conservative Republican representatives. Leading counterarguments included the belief that one hundred percent of parity (or more) was too great a price differentiation and granted on too many commodities, the burden on taxpayers would become too serious, and that only supporting farmers and not other groups would raise ethical concerns. Senator George Aiken believed the matter of support levels was "a fundamental concern not only of economics, but of philosophy of government as well." The Brannan Plan would "require either huge payments from the Treasury or detailed and severe controls over agricultural production and marketing."[7] It seems that despite Brannan's merit and effort, much of Congress agreed that his plan valued farm prices at unrealistically high levels.

Aside from failing to garner enough congressional support, a contributing factor to the Brannan Plan's ultimate failure to be adopted was its overarching political context. Firstly, there was a good deal of political unrest after Truman's victory in the 1948 presidential election. In utilizing agricultural policy during his first term and representing the "blue-collared" American, Truman surprisingly received support from Midwestern farmers and upended heavy-favorite Republican opponent Thomas Dewey.[8] Consequently, the Republican-controlled Congress made it difficult for Truman and Brannan to approve the plan. However, perhaps more importantly, Brannan's proposal came at a time when the Cold War was taking off and the battle against communism was gaining public attention. This shift of attention made farm policy revision seem less necessary.[9]

• Benedict, Murray R. "Farm policies of the United States, 1790-1950: A Study of their Origins and Development." New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1953.
• Christenson, Reo M. The Brannan Plan: Farm Politics and Policy (University of Michigan Press, 1959)
• Dean, Virgil W. An Opportunity Lost: The Truman Administration and the Farm Policy Debate (University of Missouri Press, 2006) online
  • Dean, Virgil W. "The Farm Policy Debate of 1949-50: Plains State Reaction to the Brannan Plan." Great Plains Quarterly (1993): 33-46. online
  • Dean, Virgil W. "Charles F. Brannan and the Rise and Fall of Truman's 'Fair Deal' for Farmers." Agricultural History (1995): 28-53. in JSTOR
  • Dean, Virgil W. "Why Not the Brannan Plan?" Agricultural History (1996) 70#2, pp. 268-282. in JSTOR
• Flamm, Michael W. "The National Farmers Union and the evolution of agrarian liberalism, 1937-1946." Agricultural history (1994): 54-80. in JSTOR
• Matusow, Allen J. Farm Policies and Politics in the Truman Years (Harvard University Press, 1967)
• Thompson, Robert L. "Agricultural Price Supports," The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.