"[4] 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.
Leading counterarguments included the beliefs that 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 supporting farmers but not other groups would raise ethical concerns.
Vermont Republican 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.
In the 1948 presidential election, Truman received heavy support from Midwestern farmers and scored a surprise upset over the Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey.