Work for FSA--Michael Roberts Predicts Disaster

Roberts has a take on the corn situation, and observes it's likely the good weather we've had in the Corn Belt the last 15 years won't hold.  That means more disaster work for FSA.

Those DAmn FSA Bureaucrats Force Money Into My Pocket

That's the position of a Republican candidate for Congress in Indiana. Even if it were true, which it's not, there's always the "conscience fund" at the Treasury, which accepts donations.

IRS, FSA , and Adjusted Gross II

Still dealing with PC problems, but I need to get back to this subject. Here's the Iowa State's pdf paper
and a paragraph from it:

In the fall of 2010, FSA offices received a list of people who the IRS claimed did not send in their CCC 927 forms to Fresno. Those farmers then began receiving official notices of the delinquency in the mail. It is believed that the problem involves the unfamiliarity of the IRS with the CCC forms. The IRS has been notified of the issue and is being further advised as to the nature of Form CCC 927 and how it is to be processed.

In my hurried reading earlier, I was confused by this.   Rereading and reading between the lines here's what I understand:

• some farmers participating in the program sent their CCC-927 forms, authorizing IRS to tell FSA whether their AGI was above the limit, to IRS in Fresno
• since this was the first time for the process, some IRS people in Fresno didn't know what the forms were and what to do with them (probably particularly in the case of misaddressed forms)
• some farmers who were supposed to send in their forms didn't
• FSA presumably gave IRS a list of tax ID's of program participants who should have supplied CCC-927's.
• IRS matched the list from FSA against their list of CCC-927's received.  They gave FSA a list of ID's for which they hadn't recorded a CCC-927, either because it got lost, was misprocessed, or was never sent.
• FSA broke the list down by county and sent it out.  (Maybe I missed it, but I would have expected a PL notice to have gone out as well. So for this and the next steps, I'm relying on Iowa State.)
• The FSA county offices notified their program participants that no CCC-927 was recorded, meaning eligibility for payments was in question.

That's as far as I'd go without seeing FSA procedure.  These sorts of matching efforts between bureaucracies are difficult to work through. If the producer knows she mailed the form, she's going to be mad, and scared about maybe losing her payments, or at least going through a lot of hassle.  If he didn't mail the form, he's maybe going to lie and say he did, because who's to know.  Either way the poor person at the counter in the county office is going to take some heat.  Eventually, after some time, the systems will get worked out and expectations established, but not this fall.

Dems Are Wrong

They're planning to push a $250 payment to seniors to make up for the absence of a COLA for social security (and, I'd assume, Civil Service retirees).  I understand the politics, but it's not right.  If the COLA formula is right, you adhere to it, regardless of the answer it gives you.  If it's wrong, you fix it.  If you want retirees always to get a little boost, make the formula more complicated (I love complications) and take it from prior or future years.  But the total disbursed shouldn't be subject to political motives.

Tax Cuts and the Stimulus

An article this week on the $100+ billion dollar Obama tax cut, which no one ever heard of.  I regard myself as well-informed, and I may have been vaguely aware of the cut back when it was passed, but it soon slipped my mind.  As it happens, the stimulus package included the cut.  It seems as if it's part of the packaging problem Obama has had. He loses on two counts:

• because the tax cut was included in a bigger legislative package, it didn't and doesn't get the publicity it would ordinarily rate
• because people equate "stimulus" with "spending", Obama's seen as a bigger spender than he should be.  That's given the ordinary usage of American politics, which says spending is only when the government writes the check, not when tax breaks are given out.

Resume Speed and Mayor Fenty

We're back home, although still with PC problems, so there will be a slow resumption of blogging.  One thing I noted in the Post was Mayor Fenty's last hurrah, or at least his last opening/reopening of a DC library.  I was sort of casually aware he'd been active in the area, but the Post piece gave him lots of credit, both for facilities and for his support of the libraries.  The best bit of news in the piece was the fact that circulation of books etc. from the libraries is up 125 percent.  As Mrs. McNamara and assorted first ladies have said, reading is fundamental.

IRS, FSA, and Adjusted Gross Income

Some problems in the process, apparently.

[Updated: Rereading the post at the link, I'm confused, and I'm losing faith in the underlying article. Will try to return to the subject soon.]

Get Coffee from Your Local Bureaucracy

Megan McArdle views Starbucks as a model bureaucracy.

Slow Posting

Between computer problems and travel over the weekend, blogging is apt to be light.

The Cost of Farm Programs

Is down and likely will continue down, given last Friday's crop report (cutting corn production and carryover, with cotton still at a buck).  See this graph (average of about $12 billion for the last four years).  Cato back in 2002 predicted the 2002 farm bill would cost at least $170 billion over 10 years.  So much for predicting the future. (Which isn't to say that the various programs can't be challenged and shouldn't be reformed or dropped, just that foreseeing the future is difficult.