For Rep. Lucas, Relax

From the Enid, OK paper, Representative Lucas worries about the sleep of FSA employees:

"The change would be a nightmare for Farm Service Agency employees, Lucas said, who would have to dig up the old records and figure out what things were like back in 1949, then try to explain it to farmers and ranchers.

“The world has changed dramatically in the past 60 years,” Lucas said. “It’s like the Middle Ages compared to now.”"

He can relax. We tried in the 1990's to update and data load the old wheat allotments into the system. The data was so bad that management then said, forget it. That was 15 years ago or so. The data hasn't improved since. If anyone in the South building thinks there's any possibility of doing wheat allotments, they're smoking something.

Games Congress Plays

I'm feeling cynical today. A link to a discussion of the House Ag proposal for a farm bill. Two sources of savings:

–requiring growers to sell their crops when they claim loan deficiency payments. Some farmers have collected windfalls by claiming an LDP when market prices are low and selling the crop when prices are higher.

–ending windfalls to growers who manipulate the rules for loan deficiency payments.”

I wonder how this provision of law was described when it was put into the last farm bill (I'm too lazy to check). Now it's described as a "windfall", but someone wrote the language that made it possible. Maybe Congressional staffers and Congress people don't know what they write?

They also are playing their usual game with accounting rules and provisions. How do you cut the cost--drop payment in the last year. (Same way Bush cut the cost of his tax cuts--which is now coming due.)

FBI Fails Again

Some time I ago I blogged about the FBI's IT system. (See here for one.) Their problem is that each field office was its own empire, with its own files and, until the rise of terrorism, they never really had to transfer data across field office lines. This article seems to say it's still a problem. The Immigration Service is going ahead with issuing green cards to applicants whose FBI background checks aren't complete.

There's not enough background in the piece to know whether it's really fair to blame the FBI for not making progress. It's possible that some of these applicants date back to the dark ages before the FBI got even half-modernized.

I do like the philosophy though. I believe in 80/20 rules and getting the most bang for the buck. As long as there's a tracking system to ensure that USCIS knows which green cards were issued on the basis of incomplete data and to follow up with the FBI to work them through.

Easier Tax Returns

Freakonomics highlights a proposal by Prof Goolsbee--have the IRS prepare the return (for the majority of cases that are simple. It's the sort of thing I really like (my comment is about no. 44). A commenter refers to a British site, seems several countries already do this sort of thing.

South Dakota Swampbuster Case

"Swampbuster" is a provision, originating with the 1985 farm bill, which prohibits farmers who get farm program benefits from draining wetlands. That's the over-simplified version. This article describes a case in SD where a big partnership (brothers) receiving big bucks ($2.5 mill in 10 years) is fighting a determination by National Resource Conservation Service. There's enough description to show some of the complexities involved, though it doesn't say when the violation is said to have occurred.

Inputs, Outputs, Procrastination and Heaven

Here's an interview in a Mauritius newpaper with Paul Romer, a noted economist (hat tip--Marginal Revolution) (the interview is on causes of growth and is interesting in itself):

Many governments try and measure the inputs that go into their education system like the number of teachers on their staff list, the number of students enrolled, but that’s not what you should measure. What should be measured are the outputs. Part of the goal of the government should be not just to spend more resources but also to get more productivity, more learning for the resources that you’ve got.

This reminds that the Government Performance and Results Act also pushed the same theory. The strategic plan for each agency is supposed to focus on outcomes and outputs, not inputs. But I've a problem with procrastination. And often I make New Years resolutions to overcome the problem. In the past I often focused on outputs/comes--I wanted to be more organized, to accomplish specific things. Of course I failed. Why? For one thing I always was overly optimistic--I think it's true of most people, we overestimate how good we are and how easy the job is--we forget Murphy's law. So when I failed to accomplish things when I expected to, I beat myself up, removing the motivation to accomplish.

So this year I tried something a little different--if I spend at least 1/2 hour a day working on something that's difficult to bring myself to do, then I earn some self-indulgence after supper. Note I'm focusing on inputs, not outputs. The logic is that, if I work, I do accomplish something, maybe not as fast as I want or expect, but something. So far, over a month in, I've had better success with this resolution than previous ones.

So, should this work for governments? Perhaps not, but an initial focus on inputs does reflect a commitment to the job. If a President spends an hour of his/her time on an issue, it's important. If it's an hour a week, it's very important. That's behavior that provides good signals to the flunkies, regardless of the output of the meeting.

And how does this ramble tie to heaven? Mauritius is not Mauretania (the big island off Africa). But, according to Mark Twain, it's the prototype of heaven--from wikipedia:

The island is well known for its natural beauty. Author Mark Twain, for example, noted in Following the Equator, his personal travelogue, "You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius".

Agency Consolidation--Even in Maine

We once said: "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." That was in the days when Maine's election day was earlier than the rest, so they served as an advance indicator.

These days, Maine is just one of the crowd. This piece outlines problems the governor is having in streamlining his natural resource agencies. It sounds familiar.

Better Than Pollan and Kingsolver?

No, I haven't read the book (The Fattening of America) but no two people are going to be better writers than Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver. That said, this interview
makes me think the analysis is better.

Alzheimer's and Total Weirdness

Long ago, Cornell's School of Agriculture had a cow whose stomach (one of them) was visible--I think they'd opened her up and installed a plastic window--allowed them to observe the process of digestion. That struck me as gross.

But then I started worrying about Alzheimer's. So this report of mice with glassed brains (so scientists can watch amyloid plaque form in the brain) strikes me as marvelous ingenuity, totally tasteful.

Our Up-to-date Government: OMB

This may be unfair, but I linked to this Government Executive article touting Bush's e-government:

President Bush's electronic government initiatives saved agencies $508 million in costs during the 2007 fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The goal of e-government is to "improve services to citizens, to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the government and to provide savings to the taxpayer," according to OMB's memorandum. To achieve those goals, the Bush administration is developing governmentwide IT services provided by one agency or service provider to manage cross-agency functions such as payroll, training and travel management.

But when I clicked through to the OMB memo, I found an August 2006 memo.