Faceless Bureaucrat

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

The Legislative Cycle--S.385 Analysis

Here is the text of S. 385, from Thomas: My comments in bold.

109th CONGRESS 1st Session

S. 385

To amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to restore integrity to and strengthen payment limitation rules for commodity payments and benefits.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

February 15, 2005

Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself, Mr. DORGAN, Mr. HAGEL, and Mr. JOHNSON) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

A BILL

To amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to restore integrity to and strengthen payment limitation rules for commodity payments and benefits. [You wish--I'm dubious.]

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

[Almost always a name, often skewed to form a good acronym, as in the "Patriot Act".]

SEC. 2. PAYMENT LIMITATIONS.

[the permanent authority for limitations]

(2) in subsection (c)(1), by striking `$65,000' and inserting `$30,000';

(3) in subsection (d), by striking `(d)' and all that follows through the end of paragraph (1) and inserting the following:

[big thing here is including certificates]

`(1) LOAN COMMODITIES- The total amount of the following gains and payments that a person may receive during any crop year may not exceed $75,000:

`(A)(i) Any gain realized by a producer from repaying a marketing assistance loan for 1 or more loan commodities under subtitle B of title I of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (7 U.S.C. 7931 et seq.) at a lower level than the original loan rate established for the loan commodity under that subtitle.

`(ii) In the case of settlement of a marketing assistance loan for 1 or more loan commodities under that subtitle by forfeiture, the amount by which the loan amount exceeds the repayment amount for the loan if the loan had been settled by repayment instead of forfeiture.

`(B) Any loan deficiency payments received for 1 or more loan commodities under that subtitle.

[ouch, presumably it wasn't reported to IRS before. I wonder how many paid taxes on it.]

(4) by adding at the end the following:

`(h) Single Farming Operation-

[This removes the two entity rule. I read this as doubling the separate limitations for each category of programs/benefits. ]

[ "covered by this section" means that farmers can still get more money under disaster programs.

[I'd read this as limiting husband and wife to $250K.]

`(j) Regulations-

[270 days--if the law is passed by July 1, then the final regs should be out by March 1, 2006 covering the 2006 crop year.]

[Okay, what does "primary control" mean--see below]

`(B) in the case of a person that in the aggregate owns, conducts farming operations, or provides custom farming services on land with respect to which the aggregate payments exceed the applicable dollar amounts specified in subsections (b), (c), and (d), to attribute all payments and gains made on crops produced on the land to--

`(i) a person that rents land as lessee or lessor through a crop share lease and receives a share of the payments that is less than the usual and customary share of the crop received by the lessee or lessor, as determined by the Secretary;

`(ii) a person that provides custom farming services through arrangements under which--

`(I) all or part of the compensation for the services is at risk;

`(II) farm management services are provided by--

`(aa) the same person;

`(bb) an immediate family member; or

`(cc) an entity or individual that has a business relationship that is not an arm's length relationship, as determined by the Secretary; or

`(III) more than 2/3 of the farming operations are conducted as custom farming services provided by--

`(aa) the same person;

`(bb) an immediate family member; or

`(cc) an entity or individual that has a business relationship that is not an arm's length relationship, as determined by the Secretary; or

`(iii) a person under such other arrangements as the Secretary determines are established to transfer payments from persons that would otherwise exceed the applicable dollar amounts specified in subsections (b), (c), and (d); and

[This is the messy part--will need further discussion. Basically it's trying to say, write your regs so the schemes used in the past won't work.]

[Problem area--more discussion.]

SEC. 3. SCHEMES OR DEVICES.

Section 1001B of the Food Security Act of 1985 (7 U.S.C. 1308-2) is amended--

(1) by inserting `(a) In general- ' before `If'; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

[Bumps up the penalty from 2 to 5 years.]

SEC. 4. REGULATIONS.

(a) In General- The Secretary of Agriculture may promulgate such regulations as are necessary to implement this Act and the amendments made by this Act.

(b) Procedure- The promulgation of the regulations and administration of this Act and the amendments made by this Act shall be made without regard to--

(1) the notice and comment provisions of section 553 of title 5, United States Code;

(2) the Statement of Policy of the Secretary of Agriculture effective July 24, 1971 (36 Fed. Reg. 13804), relating to notices of proposed rulemaking and public participation in rulemaking; and

[An instance where Congress has set requirements on the one hand but here, in the fine print where no one except those interested will notice, lifts the requirements.

(c) Congressional Review of Agency Rulemaking- In carrying out this section, the Secretary shall use the authority provided under section 808 of title 5, United States Code.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Food Guide (revised)

A guide to almost all the restaurants in the DC area. (Where does he get the time and money?)
--Revision------
Hmm--is ethnic food the reason we're so fat? There is a correlation between the variety of food in stores, and the variety of menus in restaurants, and the growth of the American waistline. In the past we may have gotten habituated to our diet (my mother, rest her soul, had a limited set of entrees which weren't very good) and become satiated quickly. But with the variety available to us, we don't become satiated. Another instance of the paradox of too much choice .

How Do We Bind Outselves for the Future?

The Schiavo cases turns up interesting points:

Robert P. George on Terri Schiavo on National Review: "it is a mistake to assume that people can make decisions in advance about whether to have themselves starved to death if they eventually find themselves disabled. That's why living wills have proven to be so often unreliable. One does not know how one will actually feel, or how one will feel about one's life and the prospect of death, or whether one will retain a desire to live despite a mental or physical disability, when one is not actually in that condition and when one is envisaging it from the perspective of more or less robust health."

Kausfiles cited this. Prof. George has a point, but it's true of many attempts to bind ourselves in the future. When Odysseus roped himself to the mast, he was making a commitment for the future. When Barry Bonds (presumably) took steroids, he was making a commitment, just like the bargain Faust made with the devil. Perhaps one of the marks of civilization, which may have evolved through religion, is our ability to conceive the future and to make commitments (the religious call them "covenants", the lawyers call them "contracts", the accountants talk of "current value"). In the discussion of Social Security on C-Span this morning, we're projecting the future not just 75 years, but forever. Did the Greeks or Shakespeare talk this way; the gods, honor, children, reputation were their visions of the future.

Certainly many minds change--GI's want out when they face going to Iraq, people want out of marriages, etc. etc. Prof. George is constucting a straw man, unlike a contract a living will can certainly be adjusted and updated along the way with no penalty.

What's the Argument for Death

Interesting point in the Slate Fray on Schiavo by Thrasymachus:

Slate Magazine: "Ah, but why wouldn't I want to be kept alive in that condition? Isn't that the fundamental question that divides the two camps on this issue? Put a certain way, Johnson's argument is the very soul of reason: If I ever end up in a persistent vegetative state, then either I'll end up unconscious and won't care a bit, or I'll have some rudimentary awareness and won't remember anything but being in a persistent vegetative state, and will therefore have no desire to die. So why not just keep me alive? What's the argument for death?

Part of the 'argument for death,' I suppose, is dignity. I don't want to end up lying slack in some bed, making random twitching expressions and having my friends and relations consider it a 'red-letter-day' when my glassy eyes appear (perhaps) to reflexively track a balloon. But again- why should my concern for my dignity now have any bearing on how I'm treated then, when I wouldn't care about it a bit? Isn't that just vanity?"

Other than vanity, which might also be called the "yuck" factor, there are better motives for accepting death in such instances: ending the ordeal for relatives and friends, allowing them to get on with life; ending the burden and expense for caregivers and the community; and finally, making a "good" ending.

Against the Conventional Wisdom

John Kenneth Galbraith is one of my heroes. Not only is he Scots-Irish and one of the early bureaucrats in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, but he gave the world many terms, including "conventional wisdom". The implication is that the wisdom is more convention than wise, which is the argument of a Columbia U. economist here, in relation to agricultural trade and subsidies:

Arvind Panagariya: "2. About rich-country protection and subsidies in agriculture. Contrary to the common belief, their removal will hurt the poorest countries.
*
FT article, FT Editorial and the exchanges with Dr. William Cline and Professor Pranab Bardhan.
*
Six fallacies associated with agricultural liberalization debunked (NEW full-length article: December 20, 2004) "

Among my many (un)qualifications is the ability to enter the dispute, but it shows there's more than Oxfam's side.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Richard Hatch and the IRS, Redux

Richard Hatch backed out of a deal with the IRS. There was a radio report that he claimed that IRS never told him how much taxes he needed to pay on his winnings. But in this report:

"Hatch’s lawyer, Michael Minns, told AP Radio that under California law, Hatch should have been classified as a CBS employee and therefore CBS was responsible for withholding taxes from his winnings.

“He was under the impression that they were either going to withhold from the check or pay the tax, and apparently neither occurred,” Minns said."

This seems weird to me. If you win the lottery, everyone knows that taxes come out of the face amount of the prize. If he was an employee (not really, because the payment went to a company, not him personally), then the check wouldn't say $1M.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Little Billy Gates Benefited From Not Having a PC

I can't help commenting on this, particularly the title, from the LA Times:

Little Billy Gates Benefited From Not Having a PC: "We're raising a generation of computer and computer game addicts who are doomed to fail in school, not because the system is obsolete but simply because it's a lot more fun, and a lot easier, to hang out on the computer than it is to read 'A Tale of Two Cities.'

If Gates had been brought up in this kind of environment, what are the chances he'd have had the focus and creativity to build a company like Microsoft?"

My memory is that while Gates didn't have a PC, he did have access to his school' s minicomputer. There's a bit of truth in the article, Gates benefited by being on the borders when a new ecological niche was opened in the economy (like the land rush when Oklahoma was opened to settlement, or the oil rush when John D. Rockefeller set up his trust). To the extent that PC's and the Net are a more mature technology, there will be fewer opportunities in that field. But obsessive people will find ways to build things and access to the world's knowledge has got to help, not hurt, in finding what to build.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

The New York Review of Books: The Flawed Report on Dan Rather

Not having studied the report, I shouldn't comment on this review from The New York Review of Books: The Flawed Report on Dan Rather:

"The report concluded that CBS failed to hire appropriate experts to clearly verify its statements and did not establish a 'chain of custody' for the documents. CBS, according to the report, rushed to judgment on the basis of inadequate evidence, did not promptly acknowledge flaws in its program, and broadcast a false and misleading report.

CBS did rush to make inadequately verified allegations public and it was slow in responding to criticism. The report's conclusions on the other points are not, however, persuasive. Surprisingly, the panel was unable to conclude whether the documents are forgeries or not. If the documents are not forgeries, what is the reason for the report?"

What bothers me is that there's no recognition that the documents are obvious fakes. The report may not be able to prove it, given the origin of the documents is fuzzy, but the overwhelming weight of evidence cries "fake".

x

R.I.P. "Information Superhighway"

According to the NY Times, In Land of Lexicons, Having the Last Word, the information superhighway is no more:

"The downside of the new ease with which citations can be found, Ms. McKean said, is that words sometimes enter the dictionary too quickly. 'We occasionally take words out,' she said. 'We thought they were working, and they just ended up not.' She cited the term 'information superhighway,' which was removed from the new edition of the O.A.D.[Oxford American Dictionary], explaining, 'People aren't using it as much, and if they are, they're using it in a jokey way.'"

Issue: why do metaphors fade; why did "information superhighway" die? IMO the term has too many syllables, "net" and "web" are shorter terms. Ease of use is always vital. It was also used in the context of a vast construction project. That may have been true back in 1999, when every roadside in Reston was being cabled with fiber, but no longer. Finally "superhighway" is also, at least to an aging driver who never enjoyed the interstates, a slightly intimidating term, while that's not my experience of the web.

The web is no longer strange and frightening. We don't worry these days so much about people developing anti-social tendencies on the web; we see too many blogs trying for the biggest audience possible.

In Defense of Grandstanding--Schiavo

Congress is busily engaged in inserting itself into the Karen Schiavo case. Is this political grandstanding? Of course, but that's what politicians do. Pointing with pride and viewing with alarm, taking forthright stands on the side of the angels and courageously attacking the evils of the world.

I believe Oscar Wilde said something like: "hypocrisy is the lip service that vice pays to virtue". IMHO there's something like that going on here. Our leaders strut and pose and thereby reassert our shared values. ("Our shared" is loosely used: the values of the vast majority, the knee-jerk reactions of those who are not leisured retired bureaucrats or those who get paid to think and opine.) But as a good liberal I hasten to find the exculpatory facts for those I might otherwise criticize. It is, after all, to those in the grandstand to whom our leaders are appealing. And "grand" stand implies a vast audience, although those who have watched basketball and mourned for the days of purity might be brought to admit that playground athletes grandstand for each other. It's the old Darwinian sexual selection, each putative leader posing as the bigger defender of morality, as having the bigger ....

If one can't gain consolation by the image of members of Congress comparing their members, I can think that every day spent on political grandstanding represents one less day available for these clowns to work on issues like liberty and equity, fairness and justice.