R.I.P. George Buddy

I'm one of these people who tends to be a day late and a dollar slow in keeping up with social [demands, needs, everything I think of has a double Freudian meaning].  I'm sorry.  George Buddy, the blogger at Buddy's Bemusing,died on Feb 4, 2011 after lung surgery.  I'll miss him.

The Return of the Vicious Budget Cycle

I commented somewhere yesterday on the reason deficits are important--it leads to the vicious budget cycle where an ever increasing portion of the budget goes just to pay interest to fat cats bankers. Today the Post has an article on it. An excerpt:

Starting in 2014, net interest payments will surpass the amount spent on education, transportation, energy and all other discretionary programs outside defense. In 2018, they will outstrip Medicare spending.

 I remember the Clinton administration struggling with this. I'm a little afraid that people who weren't grown by then (Yglesias, Ezra Klein) may not have those memories.  It's well and good to point to the fact that inflation is low now despite the Fed's monetary easing, but it's very easy to get behind the eight-ball, to the detriment of needed programs.

The Fading Rural Economy

John Phipps describes the closings of local services.  Unfortunately, economics says big farms are more efficient than small, meaning the farming population declines, which puts all the services on which farmers depend under pressure.  Add on the competition from bigger outfits, the easier transportation from cars and good roads, and there's a big current to row against.

Coppess Out

According to Farm Policy:

A news release yesterday from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Chairwoman of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, indicated that Jonathan Coppess had been named Chief Counsel for the Committee.
The release added that, “Jonathan Coppess served most recently as Administrator of the Farm Service Agency (FSA) where he oversaw nationwide agency operations including implementation of the safety net programs from the 2008 Farm Bill. Prior to serving as Administrator, he served as the agency’s Deputy Administrator for Farm Programs and previously worked as a Senate aide, focusing on agriculture, energy and environment issues and working extensively on the 2008 Farm Bill. Coppess grew up on his family’s corn and soybean farm in Ohio and earned a law degree from the George Washington University Law School.”

 Generally speaking, this is bad for FSA. Most past administrators I remember have served a full term--4 or 8 years.  Since any political appointee needs a period of brainwashing by the career bureaucrats learning the ropes, the longer the better.  That's assuming, of course, the appointee is capable of learning.

Fantasy Documents

Thanks to Dan Drezner, who was commenting on NY's manual for law in the midst of disasters as described in the Times today, I'm introduced to the concept of "fantasy documents".  From the Amazon product description for the book:

How does the government or a business plan for an unimaginable disaster-a meltdown at a nuclear power plant, a gigantic oil spill, or a nuclear attack? Lee Clarke examines actual attempts to "prepare" for these catastrophes and finds that the policies adopted by corporations and government agencies are fundamentally rhetorical: the plans have no chance to succeed, yet they serve both the organizations and the public as symbols of control, order, and stability. These "fantasy documents" attempt to inspire confidence in organizations, but for Clarke they are disturbing persuasions, soothing our perception that we ultimately cannot control our own technological advances.

For example, Clarke studies corporations' plans for cleaning up oil spills in Prince William Sound prior to the Exxon Valdez debacle, and he finds that the accepted strategies were not just unrealistic but completely untenable. Although different organizations were required to have a cleanup plan for huge spills in the sound, a really massive spill was unprecedented, and the accepted policy was little more than a patchwork of guesses based on (mostly unsuccessful) cleanups after smaller accidents.

While we are increasingly skeptical of big organizations, we still have no choice but to depend on them for protection from large-scale disasters. We expect their specialists to tell the truth, and yet, as Clarke points out, reassuring rhetoric (under the guise of expert prediction) may have no basis in fact or truth because no such basis is attainable.

 It rings true to me, and I might add other documents to the fantasy category: strategic plans, for example. I've always thought those were paper exercises divorced from reality.  Environmental assessments and economic impact statements also might fall into the category.

ID Numbers in India

The Economist has an interesting piece on India's attempt to give each person a biometric ID.  I've always liked the idea, because I'm a bureaucrat and it's a bureaucrat's dream.  India, with its British civil service heritage, has a much better chance of carrying the project through than we have in this country, even though it's also a federal republic and its central government seems to be weaker than the UK's.

Kinsley Calls Me a Fine Person

That's Michael Kinsley in his Politico column suggesting we shouldn't want housing prices to rise.  He suggests the lower housing prices, the easier for people to buy.  Current homeowners who are looking to upgrade should also like lower prices.  Only those current homeowners who aren't looking to upgrade really benefit from high prices. 

I think he's right, at least about my being a fine person, and probably about housing prices. Certainly reading the narrative in All the Devils Are Here, which is a fine book BTW, suggests the housing bubble was a disaster for everyone.

Hypocrisy--Tea Flavored

From Farm Policy:

As a sidebar with respect to farm spending and the tea party, Jonathan Ellis indicated on Saturday at the Argus Leader Online (SD) that, “A new poll of 401 South Dakota tea party supporters is available today. The poll is the most comprehensive public analysis of the movement in this state…[and]…Eighteen percent have an immediate family member who receives federal farm subsidies. Yet 47 percent think federal farm payments to farmers and ranchers should be left at current levels or increased.”

Rummy: Bush Was a Bad Bureaucrat

That's what I get from this Politico piece, based on a Wall Street Journal interview, arguing Donald Rumsfeld critiques Bush and his administration for being bad bureaucrats. 

Defense Appropriations

The draft House appropriations language includes the 2011 DOD appropriations act. Skimming through, I get the sense of lots of history being buried there, lots of lobbying done.  For example Section 8068 requires military facilities (PXs and clubs) to buy their wine and malt from local distributors. They are permitted to buy liquor from the lowest cost vendor.  Or Section 8074 freezes the Pacific fleet command setup to that in place on October 1, 2004. What's the story there?

I also note they're banning the use of ARRA funds for signage (not in the DOD part, but the other part of the bill).