Michael T. Belongia finds that the large and rapidly expanding surplus of dairy products in the United States can be traced directly to the production incentives offered by the dairy price support program. He shows, by applying elementary economic principles, why effective price supports will create surplus production and, moreover, why the surplus will grow over time if limits are not placed on production. Belongia then applies the same economic principles to recent milk price and production data to evaluate the likely impact of changes in the dairy price support program approved by Congress in 1983. He finds that these changes are likely to have little, if any, effect on current surpluses and will offer no solution to the problem of larger surpluses in the future.