A Veto Forthcoming?

Commenter CDCaddy says the farm bill should be vetoed. This NY Times article describes why Bush's veto will be overridden.

"Few pieces of legislation generate the level of public scorn consistently heaped upon the farm bill.

Presidents and agriculture secretaries denounce it. Editorial boards rail against it. Good-government groups mock it. Global trading partners formally protest it. Even farmers gripe about it.

But as Congress proved again last week, few pieces of major legislation also get such overwhelming bipartisan support — enough, in the case of the current farm bill, to override the veto expected by President Bush any day now. The Senate vote on Thursday, 81 to 15, was the widest margin for a farm bill since 1973, when food stamps were added.

Daryll Ray: We've Been Here Before

One of the people who has been around long enough to remember, Prof. Daryll Ray shares memories of the 1970's vis a vis the current state of agriculture here.

I'd Be Crying If I Weren't Laughing

I don't know what Yogi Berra would call it. In part, it's "deja vu all over again", but it's also the situation where you don't know whether to laugh or cry. What am I talking about:

1. Congress just passed a new farm bill. Although the changes in FSA programs for 2008 don't look too major, doing the ACRE program for 2009 will be. And handling the changes in payment limitation rules, particularly attribution to individuals, will be hard.
2. GAO just released a report on USDA's attempts to modernize their IT systems. Some excerpts:

"USDA never completed the MIDAS requirements development process because key program officials lost confidence that the process would be an effective solution to meet USDA's future business needs and consequently withdrew their support...

"According to USDA officials, as of October 2007, they had spent approximately $18 million to take steps towards achieving these objectives. For example, they had expanded telecommunication channels, acquired more sophisticated firewalls, and had a contractor prepare the first draft of process flow diagrams of selected program delivery processes....

"Until USDA addresses the inconsistent tracking of users’ reported problems and the lack of clearly defined roles and responsibilities, it may not be able to establish a solid foundation for achieving and sustaining stability in the farm program delivery systems. As a result, the department faces the risk that its stabilization plan will not ensure that it is able to successfully deliver benefits to farmers in the future...

Why am I crying and laughing? Well, when we first installed System-36's in the county offices, it was in the same general period as the implementation of the 1985 farm bill. By the 1990's, we were working on Info Share, a project to share information and computer systems among ASCS, SCS, FmHA, etc. (all obsolete acronyms now) and the new farm bill. By 1996, another new farm bill and a project to merge the IT and administrative ends of NRCS, FSA, and RD. (I retired toward the end of 1997.) And to modernize the IT.

Now, some 11 years later, USDA is still in the same situation vis a vis IT systems. They seem to have dropped the idea of cross-agency coordination, but they're no nearer having documentat6ion of their business processes and they're facing the criticism of GAO. And facing implementation of a new farm bill. Time for employees to take the buyout.

The only redeeming feature is that agriculture is in better shape today than in 1985/6, so USDA/FSA screwups won't hurt farmers as much as they might.

GAO, USDA, and Discrimination

Here's a link to the Post article on GAO testimony on a GAO report charging USDA continues to mishandle discrimination cases. Here's a link to the report.

A History of Forms

If I didn't have my own personal energy crisis, I might try writing a history of forms. "Forms" are critical to the bureaucrat, even if no one else cares. They go way back in history--some of the earliest forms of writing are, in effect, filled out forms. The Catholic Church had forms for indulgences, which spurred Luther to anger. In our own history, here's a link to forms relating to imports/exports for a specific vessel back in 1803. (It's part of a "Today's Document" release from the National Archives.)

Food, Fat, and Wiki-How

The slow food movement has hit wiki-how, as I learn this morning.

And the Washington Post has the second part of a five part series on obesity in America.

The Benefits of Advancing Technology

FSA has long used aerial photography as a way to measure acreages devoted to crops. To be accurate, the photography has to meet certain specifications and be adjusted to the topography. (This photography establishes field boundaries, not the crop planted.) Because it's been expensive, states have been flown in groups in different years, so the whole country is covered over the course of 5 or more years.

But this year it seems the effects of GPS and other technology have reduced costs and increased accuracy. From FSA's notice to its field offices:

"2008 marks a transition from annual acquisition of 2-meter imagery and a 5-year cycle for 1-meter base imagery to a new acquisition cycle. Annual 2-meter coverage has been discontinued, and the cycle for 1-meter base replacement imagery is moving from 5 years to 3 years. Consequently, all States in 2008:
• will be acquired in 1-meter resolution
• can be considered base replacement.
2008 recipients include States up for base replacement and States with existing partnership agreements in place. Because of the 2008 bids being significantly lower than estimated, 3 additional States are also being acquired without cost-share funds.

Interesting and Depressing Statistic

Here's a post (reached via Marginal Revolution) with some depressing statistics. Turns out non-college Republicans and Democrats are reasonably close on whether global warming exists and is caused by human activity. Or, if not reasonably, the difference is only 21 percentage points. But college educated Reps and Dems differ unreasonably, by 56 percentage points. In other words, the more education you have, the more you differ.

This does grave violence to my remaining goo-goo tendencies. Good government types, perhaps descended from the Progressives and Social Gospelers of 1900, believe in good, solid facts and, with a religious fervor, if one could only lift the cloud of error from people's eyes, everyone would believe the same, meaning there would be peace and love in the valley.

A Parallel Universe

Mother Jones interviews Ken Cook on the farm bill:

"MJ: So the president is threatening to veto the bill because it does too much to help the wealthy?

KC: Honest to god, he is. I've been describing it as a parallel universe."

BMI and Global Warming

The LATimes notes a letter published in Lancet, a medical journal, along the lines of my earlier post.:

"Now, in a letter published Friday in the medical journal Lancet, two scientists write that obese people are disproportionately responsible for high food prices and greenhouse gas emissions because they consume 18% more food energy due to their greater body mass -- and require increased quantities of fuel to transport themselves and the food they eat".

Of course the suggestion is as welcome as a suggestion that people should give up second homes, or any other measure of consumption, in aid of the greater good.