Why Congress Drives Program Developers Crazy

Yes, I was crazy by the time I retired.  Chris Clayton reports Sen. Grassley is guessing a 1-year extension of the farm bill.  Where does that leave the MIDAS people.  I don't know.  If I were in their shoes a year or so ago, there would be these choices:

• develop to support current programs, in which case if Congress does its job, you've wasted your efforts
• develop to support current programs, minus the direct payment and counter-cyclical ones which the conventional wisdom says are going to bite the dust, in which case if you believe Grassley you've missed the boat and need an emergency effort
• develop to support only the basic records, with some sort of bridge to existing software to provide support for ongoing programs, in which case you run the risk of hanging counties out to dry, sort of like the SURE program under the 2008 legislation.

I've no idea which way they went; maybe there's another option which is better.  But it points out the difficulties of software development scheduled to coincide with farm legislation.