Government Performance and Results Act II

Government Executive reports on Senate passage of an update to the GPRA, sponsored in part by Sen. Warner (has yet to pass the House and may not make it before adjournment). It sounds to me to be fairly reasonable, except as follows.  This paragraph struck me:

When developing or making adjustments to a strategic plan, the agency shall consult periodically with the Congress, including majority and minority views from the appropriate authorizing, appropriations, and oversight committees, and shall solicit and consider the views and suggestions of those entities potentially affected by or interested in such a plan. The agency shall consult with the appropriate committees of Congress at least once every 2 years.

Based on schoolbook theories of government, it would seem that Congress should be initiating reviews of such plans, rather than the agencies initiating the consultation. 

And my big concern is definition: it applies to "agencies", which if I understand means USDA, not NRCS and FSA.  Unfortunately, as Sec. Vilsack has no doubt learned by now, his control and oversight of subordinate agencies in the department is rather limited.  You have a puzzle: how does USDA do a plan which makes sense at the FSA level? 

I should note under the current GPRA FSA and the other components of USDA do their own plans.  Of course, FSA hasn't updated its webpage since July 2007, so one can assume the new administration isn't much relying on the plan to guide the agency.

Telework and Televote

If Federal employees can telework, why can't Senators televote.  (Sen. Wyden is having prostate surgery.)

"Faceless Bureaucrat"

Via Kevin Drum, the Google Ngram Viewer. It's a database of text from Google Books together with software which searches and graphs the occurrence of a phrase. The phrase, "faceless bureaucrat" first appears around 1958.  Usage rises steadily from 1964 to the 1980's, then has been up and down but mostly up since then. I wonder what was driving the usage.  Anyhow, as Kevin says, it's a great time waster and the NY Times says it's been used for a scholarly paper.

Interest Rates and Competition

I shouldn't venture into this subject, but I'm confused.  If I understand, which I probably don't, the Fed continues to make money available to banks at a low cost but the mortgage rate is rising.  How does that happen? Shouldn't the banks be competing to make loans, and therefore keeping rates low?  Or is the home mortgage market subject to frictions and problems which make it not very competitive?

Why You Can't Keep Them Down on the Farm

Roving Bandit quotes a professor on 7 reasons you can't keep people down on the farm (phrased as "reasons urban growth is a reasonable and natural phenomenon". (economies of scale, centrality,diversity cover some of the seven). The same rules mean bigger cities grow bigger.

Meanwhile Megan McArdle had a recent visit to China and an interesting post on rural life, including observations on how the government is trying to slow the rush of people to cities:

Yet even this level of income is achieved by substantial government intervention.  In part to slow the pace of urbanization to a manageable level, in part because they're worried about food security, and in part presumably just because they don't want the farmers to starve, the government offers some pretty hefty subsidies to rural communities.  The crop prices are supported above market levels; the houses, appliances, and someday cars, are acquired with substantial discounts through government programs.  According to our hosts, without those subsidies, it's not clear that there would be anyone left on Chinese farms.  Chinese agriculture is amazingly productive, as I mentioned, but it's also amazingly labor intensive, and tends to be done on a small scale; they can't compete with the massive farms of North and South America.

Why the Food Movement Should Like High Estate Taxes

A common refrain against the opponents of the death estate tax is it will harm family farms. It will force the sale of farms which have been in the family for generations.  Assume a 1,000 acre in Iowa, valued at $7,000.  If husband and wife are the owners, then the exemption has to be at least $3.5 mill (which I think is what House Dems want).  But of course, some farms these days are larger.  So what happens if the estate tax is applied: presumably the owners sell off some land.  Selling land puts more land on the market and presumably improves the chances for aspiring farmers to break into the business.  That's what the food movement would like, more and smaller farms.   So the food movement should be pushing for lower estate tax exemptions.  And I don't see a free market rationale for preserving the larger farms--if bigger is better, as most commercial farmers think, the new owners will simply assemble land parcels into a new, big farm.

House for Sale

Here 
[Updated: Ipswich, MA]

The NRA Is More Powerful Than the Farm Bureau

Why do I say that?  The Post has been running articles on guns, and yesterday's piece describes how, when the ATF revokes a gun dealer's license, games can be played so a relative gets a license and the gun shop goes on as before. Apparently these games  over who is the entity receiving the license are permitted by the terms of the relevant law(s) and the way Congress has directed the ATF to administer the law.

While the supporters of farm program payments such as the Farm Bureau have exerted influence over the payment limitation provisions of the law, including issues of who is considered the entity receiving payments, they don't seem to have been quite as successful as the NRA.  The last I knew, FSA was still looking for paper entities.  It may not be a great distinction, but when the issue is payment limitation, FSAers will take anything they can find.

A Juxtaposition

In today's Post there was a report that some hotel workers had their assignments changed because someone didn't want them working on the same floor where the party of  an Israeli cabinet officer had rooms. They were Muslem, apparently.  Separately an update on Richard Holbrooke's last words mentioned the names of an attending doctor and surgeon, one possibly Arab and one born in Pakistan.  One wonders what would have happened if the Israeli cabinet minister had been injured in a traffic accident and rushed to the ER where Holbrooke was treated.

A Liberal's Wet Dream

Via Matt Yglesias, NY Times has an interactive website for the new Census data.  Looking at the tract in which I reside (western Reston/eastern Herndon south of Toll Road BTW I think the center of the Internet) the racial ethnic distribution is:
white 39%
Hispanic 24%
black 14%
Asian 22%
other 2 %

Median household income $84K

Odd figures for housing: the median unit is at $507K, up 97 % from 2000 to 2009 but the median rent is $920, down 2 %.  I frankly can't believe the house price, unless it excludes townhouses.  The discrepancy between the rise in housing and the decline in rental rates is interesting.