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===Agriculture===
===Agriculture===
Truman won the farm vote in 1948 by charging the GOP shoved "a pitchfork in the farmer's back", but was unable to get new farm programs passed. His second secretary of agriculture, Charles F. Brannan promoted the Brannan Plan, intended to bring widespread changes to farm policy. Brannan proposed to replace market price supports with direct income payments to farmers. His plan set ceilings on the amount a farmer could receive and limited the program to farmers who did not exceed a set production mark. The Brannan Plan was supposed to foster the "family-sized farm" while providing affordable food for consumers. While Brannan could count on support from the left, especially the National Farmers Union (which was small), labor unions (which were powerful), and consumer groups (which were weak), he was opposed by leading farm economists and the national Farm Bureau (which was large) and the national Chamber of Commerce (representing business). The head of the Farm Bureau decried the plan as intrusive, a form of "creeping socialism," and expensive. The Farm Bureau, dominated by conservatives, resisted any curbs on full agricultural production. A bloc of Midwestern Republican and southern Democratic congressmen opposed replacing market mechanisms with outright government payments to farmers and setting limits on supports to individual farms. The Brannan Plan went nowhere and instead, the conservative farm bloc passed the Agricultural Act of 1949 with high price supports.<ref> See Dean (2006)</ref>
Truman won the farm vote in 1948 by charging the GOP shoved "a pitchfork in the farmer's back", but was unable to get new farm programs passed. His second secretary of agriculture, Charles F. Brannan promoted the Brannan Plan, intended to bring widespread changes to farm policy. Brannan proposed to replace market price supports with direct income payments to farmers. His plan set ceilings on the amount a farmer could receive and limited the program to farmers who did not exceed a set production mark. The Brannan Plan was supposed to foster the "family-sized farm" while providing affordable food for consumers. While Brannan could count on support from the left, especially the National Farmers Union (which was small), labor unions (which were powerful), and consumer groups (which were weak), he was opposed by leading farm economists and the national Farm Bureau (which was large) and the national Chamber of Commerce (representing business). The head of the Farm Bureau decried the plan as intrusive, a form of "creeping socialism," and expensive. The Farm Bureau, dominated by conservatives, resisted any curbs on full agricultural production. A bloc of Midwestern Republican and southern Democratic congressmen opposed replacing market mechanisms with outright government payments to farmers and setting limits on supports to individual farms. The Brannan Plan went nowhere and instead, the conservative farm bloc passed the Agricultural Act of 1949 with high price supports.<ref> See Dean (2006)</ref>
Brannan justified his plan of direct assistance to small farmers, by reasserting the importance of the small family farmer as the foundation of American democracy. However in the [[Grange]] small farmers opposed the plan because it too closely resembled welfare and would undermine their self image as independent [[yeomen]] and successful entrepreneurs. Brannan sought to protect the small farmer against competition from the large companies, but the plan was not accepted by Congress because farmers self-image would not allow for welfare.<ref> Karen J. Bradley, "Agrarian Ideology and Agricultural Policy: California Grangers and the Post-world War II Farm Policy Debate," ''Agricultural History'' 1995 69(2): 240-256, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/3744267 in JSTOR]</ref>
==National Security==
==National Security==