THE PUBLIC MIND: TERM LIMITATIONS MIGHT BE THE ONLY WAY TO CONTROL CONGRESS

To the Editor:

In 1986, the Department of Agriculture paid dairy farmers to take 1.6 million dairy cows out of production and then take a five-year vacation. Taking the dairy cows out of production cost cattlemen $25 million in the first week alone.

While U.S. farmers are being paid by our government to take millions of acres out of production, the farmers in Canada, Argentina, Australia and Europe have planted 14 million new acres since 1980.

The government has forced our farmers to destroy 3 billion oranges, 2 billion lemons, and hundreds of millions of pounds of nuts and raisins, and has generously rewarded farmers for taking 61 million acres out of production each year.

The government and consumers have spent $260 billion on farm subsidies since 1980. This could have bought every farm and barn in 33 states.

The cost of farm programs was about $20 billion a year and consumers are forced to pay $10 billion a year in higher food costs.

When the 1985 farm bill came before Congress, the U.S.D.A. said it would cost only $61 billion over five years but it is way over that.

In 1987 alone, payments to farmers to idle acreage cost the economy 300,000 potential jobs and $4 million in lost sales for the "farm input" industry.

The U.S.D.A. and Congress sees farm productivity as a problem but it should be a national asset.

Over the past four years the government has pumped $81.2 billion into the farm economy.

The median family income has been stagnant for the past 15 years but the number of millionaires rose from about 600,000 in 1980 to an estimate 1.5 million in 1990. The number of persons with assets over $10 million went from around 25,000 to an estimated 100,000 in the same period.

During the 1980s, the net worth of the 400 richest American nearly tripled. The top one percent of Americans control one quarter of the nation's wealth and the new budget promises to make them richer while middle and low income families pay more for insurance and all the necessities of daily living.

The deep pockets crowd in Washington continues to look after its own. One example is in the ever increasing pensions. Take the case of Jim Wright, who resigned in shame. His pension now is $88,212 a year and his total lifetime benefits will probably approach $2 million. There are now over 350 retired congressmen and at least 160 of them can expect to collect more than $1 million each. The unfunded liabilities of federal retirement programs are much greater than the cost over $486 billion. Up to half a million federal retirees make more now than when they were working.

Rachel Flick, writing in the September Readers Digest, finds ways to slash $50 billion from the deficit just by eliminating needless, wasteful expenditures. As an example, in 1989 with corn selling on the open market for $2.26 per bushel, taxpayers paid each participating farmer $2.84 per bushel. Total cost of $3.5 billion would have helped establish ethanol production facilities and the price of corn would now probably be higher than it is and maybe gasoline less.

We suspect that the major foot dragging in the search for alternate fuels is the fear of offending the oil industry. PAC money to congressmen might also disappear.

So while the real dollars of middle and low income families continue to dwindle, Congress finds ways to increase its income.

Today, Congress has 47 committees and 232 subcommittees, each with its own staff. The top salary for a Senate staff director is now $95,715. Congress is maintaining a great bureaucratic empire of invisible aids. It has been estimated that Congress spends two-thirds of its time on reelection and less than one third on congressional business.

The only way out is to change the laws to limit congressional terms of office for it appears that all sense of ethics, honesty and, yes, morality is lost in Washington.

Wayne V. Decamp

Jackson