Deja-Vu, Disaster Program Weaknesses--I

Interesting testimony from GAO on the Risk Management Agency's operation of the federal crop insurance program. Briefly put, RMA reinsures private crop insurance companies for the policies they write and losses they take on crops, mostly field crops and fruits.

GAO found a number of problems, which take me back to the late 1970's when ASCS was operating a crop disaster program through its county offices, and I was involved in its administration in DC. The deja-vu ones include:

• farmers getting indemnities in multiple years (sometimes because the coverage levels (yields) are set too high)
• farmers dividing acreages into separate insurable units. There's a rational basis--for example hail on the Great Plains may cut a swath through the wheat. If you have 10 1,000 acre fields each insured separately rather than 1 10,000 acre field insured as one you increase the chances of having a loss on one or more fields. But there's also a reason to cheat. Because wheat is wheat, as Gertrude Stein didn't say, you can shift your actual production among different fields, possibly boosting your yield history (for future years) and/or creating a indemnifiable loss on another field

Shock, Shock--Dems Play Politics

It's not a high point in the history of the Democratic Party when they take umbrage at the Iraqi Prime Minister criticizing Israel. I see Brad DeLong agrees. But since al-Maliki is also a politician he should understand. Every politician has hot button issues among his or her constitutency to which obeisance must be paid [ed.--does one pay a button?]. Hopefully none of the posturing will affect serious issues.

Why Farm Programs--Blame the Founding Fathers

There are a number of reasons for farm programs. One is the Constitutional Convention, with the bargain between the small states and large States that gave us the bicameral legislature. While we no longer are an agricultural country, as we were in 1790, farmers still retain enough influence to affect Senatorial elections in most states. The result is bipartisan support for farm programs. There's no way to build a coalition against farm programs per se. You have to make the case on budget grounds or perhaps as part of the free trade discussion.

Openness in Government--Coburn/Obama as a Cure for Problems?

Senators Coburn and Obama have sponsored a bill that would "require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to establish and maintain a single public website that lists all entities receiving federal funds, including the name of each entity, the amount of federal funds the entity has received annually by program, and the location of the entity. All federal assistance must be posted within 30 days of such funding being awarded to an organization. " See Coburn's website
(Obama seems less active and he's not much of a blogger). This proposal has been greeted enthusiastically by the NYTimes, and Wash Post. While the Post editiorial commends the proposal in the context of their recent articles on farm programs, it fails to mention that we've had a database of farm program payments for 12 years now. Granted, it's not run by OMB but by EWG,
a private entity, but it's based on USDA data. Not to be a gloomy Gus, but during the time the database has been available, farm subsidy payments have increased, not decreased.

Disaster Aid for Livestock, Wash Post Stories

The Post continued its series on agriculture programs this past week. See the links here.

If I weren't trying to catch up from hardware problems, I'd blog a bit more, but these points strike me (albeit with minimal research):

1. Neither program was a permanent yearly program, authorized by the 2002 farm bill. Instead there was a combination of administration action using the Section 32 authority (an obscure provision dating to the '30's, that's dusted off every decade or so for a one-shot deal) and Congressional action by sticking provisions in appropriations acts. That's different than the programs they covered last week--the continuing ones.
2. Regardless of whether the policy is correct, it's harder for bureaucrats to implement one-shot programs. There are several reasons including: a one-shot program usually is late before it's started, the bureaucrats are scrambling to get it in place but have little or no experience with it, and there's little chance and no real incentive to improve and learn from mistakes. Even if the OIG and GAO look at the program, the bureaucrat will say: "yes, we messed that up. We promise, if those [expletive deleted] in Congress ever give us a similar program to try to do better.
   

I think there's a parallel with Congressional earmarks--

Catchup

Well, my computer is fixed and I'm busily trying to catch up. Will probably take a couple days to do so.

Backup--Confessions of a Reformed Sinner

Yes, backup is important. I've had a home computer for over 16 years now and have not regularly backed up. But now I've lost both my new PC and my old (backup) PC. Although the new one is still under warranty, figuring out the problem has been slow. Before they would agree to replace parts I had to agree to reinstall the original software. That is, they restore the original software from the hard drive, wiping all of my programs and data. :-( Not wanting to do that, I had to get a new hard drive and pay to have the data copied from old to new. Now I'm waiting for next week and the arrival of the repair person. Meanwhile my whole routine is disrupted and being very anal, routine is critical to my happiness.

Lesson: backup is worth it.

Posting from the library, one of Franklin's better inventions.

Backup--Confessions of a Reformed Sinner

Yes, backup is important. I've had a home computer for over 16 years now and have not regularly backed up. But now I've lost both my new PC and my old (backup) PC. Although the new one is still under warranty, figuring out the problem has been slow. Before they would agree to replace parts I had to agree to reinstall the original software. That is, they restore the original software from the hard drive, wiping all of my programs and data. :-( Not wanting to do that, I had to get a new hard drive and pay to have the data copied from old to new. Now I'm waiting for next week and the arrival of the repair person. Meanwhile my whole routine is disrupted and being very anal, routine is critical to my happiness.

Lesson: backup is worth it.

Slow/No Blogging

Currently dealing with equipment problems at home, so will not be doing much blogging until those are resolved.

One thing I noted--the British suicide bomber who had his video played on Al Jazeera is described as having a Yorkshire accent. That says something about the different levels of acculturation.

The Pollan/Critser Farm Program Narrative

A summary of Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, and Greg Critser, Fat Land, as they deal with agriculture programs: farming was undeveloped in the 1920's, went into crisis in the 1930's when the New Deal came up with the "Ever Normal Granary" program, after the war farming became mechanized, industrialized, using nitrogen fertilizer developed by the scientist who developed poison gas, but still was mostly okay until Nixon and Earl Butz. Butz, the racist Secretary of Agriculture destroyed New Deal farm programs, encouraging full production "fence row to fence row". This led to cheap corn, which was used by big business using the Japanese invention of high fructose corn syrup to make big soft drinks. Cheap food meant the fast food outlets could "supersize" their meals to get more business. As a result, Americans overeat and get fat.

[This is based on memory, oversimplifies, but is not totally unfair to the writers. As you can tell from my tone, I quarrel with the narrative.]