Unkept Promises and Laws

Via Agweb and John Phipps, Jim Wiesemeyer reports:

The lengthy time it took to get the disaster aid package completed is one of the reasons why House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) wants a permanent disaster aid program as part of the new farm bill. But as with any new program under that debate, funding has to be found and that is becoming increasingly hard to obtain. Some budget offsets could be found via reduced direct payments, but some farm-state lawmakers are fighting that suggestion, including Senate Ag Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

Of course, Congress has repeatedly vowed, no more disaster aid. But "Congress" isn't a person so it can't make promises. Situations change, politicians change, and promises go out the window.

[Update: See this Omaha World-Herald article--disaster programs are in trouble when a paper in the heart of farm country is skeptical.]

Food Stamps II

A commenter (ed. "A"--"the one and only comment, for which you ought to be truly grateful.)* on the posts about living on food stamps challenges me to think further. Perhaps a Q and A format is appropriate:

1 Do I think it's possible to live reasonably healthily on food stamps? Yes, I do. It requires a lot of work and thought, and a good bit of knowledge, but it can be done. I'm less sure of the "organic" lifestyle--I agree with the commenter that the writer was a special case.

2 If my wife and I were told today to start living on $21 a week each, could we do it? Yes. We've the background and knowledge and the free time. Even more important, we've got a starting inventory of staples, like cooking oil, flour, beans, rice, and sugar. And most important of all, we live a quiet, steady life (knock on wood), one that's adapted to long range planning and stable habits. That's very different from the hand-to-mouth life of someone living day-to-day--you don't have the money to buy a 10 pound bag of rice, it's just one vicious cycle after another.

3 Are food stamps intended as the sole source of food dollars for their recipients? No. USDA's Economic research Service has an interesting article on the whole issue of food stamp spending here. (I was surprised by the spending patterns--I had the usual preconceptions.)

4 Which is larger, $21 a person per week or $326 per month for a family of four? Mathematically, they're about equal, but feeding four on the budget is not four times as hard as feeding one. Both workwise and moneywise, feeding four should be more efficient.

5 Do we have irrational expectations of food stamp recipients? Absolutely, read Jason De Parle or the book I just finished, "Off the Books" for some insights. (Plan to post on "Off the Books" separately.)

6 Is good food available in the inner city? That's an example of the sort of irrational picture in our mind we have--food stamp recipients and "inner city" are synonyms. It's just as difficult to get fruits and vegetables in a small town as in the big city, at least in the off season. Where I can walk to two big supermarkets, whole wards of DC and whole counties in rural America don't have one. (When I lived in DC, there were 3 small supermarkets (one Safeway in the basement of an office building around 11th and F, one about 1200 11th St, and one around 1800 P) I could use. I think they're all gone, although there is a Whole Foods in the area now that it's been gentrified. Small urban supermarkets don't carry large economy sizes, because people can't carry them, don't have the money to buy, and don't have the cars nor parking space to do pickups. We're talking close-in NW DC here, not Anacostia or east of Rock Creek Parkway.)

7 On the third hand, while we debate eating on $21 a week, much of the world lives on $1-2 a day.

* Adopting the habit of a few bloggers of splitting their personality in order to try to be funny.

Great Memorial Day Post

See this memory on Dwelling Place of Dragons: evokes childhood, the mystery and dread of the unknown, and recognition of the past.

I Was Right, Right, Right

Wrote a post earlier in the week about living on food stamps. Today an affirmation of my position--that it is possible to live on them--in the Post. The writer not only lives on $25 a week, but makes lunch for co-workers and lives organically.

Dieting and Food Stamps

There have been a number of articles about people, mostly politicians, trying to subsist on $21 a week, the amount allowed by the food stamp program. This article in the LA Times is one of the latest. It seems to me many of the articles are unrealistic in several ways:

• the first mistake is to say, you start the week with $21 and no food on hand and you end the week with $0 and no food on hand. A more realistic cost accounting would look at the cost of the amount of food consumed during the week. If you use a third of a bottle of cooking oil, then your budget is charged with a third of the cost.
  
• a second mistake is not buying in bulk
• a third mistake is buying processed, not ingredients.

Avoid those mistakes and I think it'd be possible to live on the food stamp allowance, reasonably healthily though not with all the fruits and vegetables now recommended. And certainly not enjoyably. Rather like living without TV; it's doable, but no one wants to.

Hats and Dust

Got the wash Post Sunday magazine today--it had an article on the building of the Pentagon, including a picture showing a bunch of workers building forms and pouring concrete. What was amazing was they are almost all wearing hats. I remember seeing photos of men going to baseball games, all in hats, but this is on the job.

Then Ms. Laskas in her column addressed the issue of dusting, as in: no one dusts any more.

Standards have gone to ??

Databases and Private Enterprise

Apparently private enterprise can do what FSA can't--put its database of farm program payments attributed to individuals on-line. Unfortunately, it requires a subscription, but see this link. From the article:

Echoing this perspective, Jaeger adds that historically, payment data has been published by lobbying organizations that have often presented the data in ways that support their agendas. “We know there are many who have well founded perspectives that differ from those propagated by these groups and our objective at Your Farm is to provide a venue for those views to be expressed,” he says.

The 1614 Database contains approximately 64 million records with information related to more than 2.3 million entities and individuals. The database provides information for $56 billion worth of benefits. Due to the size of the 1614 Database, FSA has indicated an inability to make the information available online.

“We like big ideas,” said Jaeger. “So we figured out how to put the information online. It’s about farmers. We believe they should have access to it.”

And the Rumors Started Flying in the South Building

This bit from the House Ag committee work on farm bill, via Brownfield:

As we've asked other committee members to withdraw their amendments 'til we get to the full committee, I would ask the gentleman to consider withdrawing it until next year," Holden urged Space. "And respectfully, the reason I say that to my friend is that, in consultation with the chairman of the full committee and with Mr. Lucas, next year we plan to have a reorganization of USDA."

Holden didn't say whether the USDA reorganization would focus specifically on the roles of FSA and NRCS in EQIP. But he suggested the reorganization would be much more sweeping.

"Again, after consulting with the chairman of the full committee, we believe any amendments that would come either in this subcommittee or in any subcommittee or in the full committee dealing with the transfer of responsibility or authority," Holden explained, "we'd like to wait 'til next year when we have a reorganization of the entire Department."

Those Despicable Bureaucrats

Shankar Vedantam in yesterday's Post has an article describing how we view others. Here's a quote:

Wesleyan University social psychologist Scott Plous said one dimension of the phenomenon is known as the actor-observer bias. When we do something wrong ourselves -- drive 60 mph in a 40-mph zone, for example -- we explain our actions in terms of situational factors. We say we are speeding because we are running late, or that we got held up at work. But when we see someone else do something wrong, we are far more likely to link the behavior to the nature of that individual.

It's described as the difference between "situational" understanding and "dispositional" understanding. I think it can apply to bureaucrats as well. When people cuss and moan about "faceless bureaucrats", I think it's true that they lack the bureaucrat's understanding of the rules being applied. So the bureaucrat knows the situation and applies the rules. The citizen, who just got screwed (or feels he did), only knows that some bastard screwed him by mindless application of some rules.

Welfare Farmers

The LA Times editorial page makes the linkage that many will make--between welfare (foodstamps) and farm programs.


But Jim Wiesemeyer has a nuts and bolts article on the actual crafting of the new farm bill that suggests opinion may swing towards a straight extension, which will disappoint many. (The logic is that "pay-go" rules mean new programs require new taxes or cuts in old programs, both of which may be too painful to pass. So simplicity is easy and an extension of 2002 may seem attractive.)