Bureaucrats Will Be Our Defense Against Zombies

That's what I learn from one of the leading scholars of zombies, Dan Drezner, and his post (which cites another post which cites CDC).

Let's Spread Out SNAP Payments

In the old days people would have a hard time stretching their monthly welfare/food stamp benefits over the whole month.  These days "food stamps" are no longer stamps, or even paper; they're bits on a debit card.  I assume it would be as easy and cost no more to issue food stamps weekly instead of monthly 

There's research showing that people whose money comes in weekly spend more wisely than when the same amount arrives monthly. So why don't we change the payment issuance schedule to weekly?

Ad Hoc Disaster Isn't Real Money

From Farm Policy, quoting Mr. Stallman of the Farm Bureau:

“Farmers are willing to rely instead on Congress passing temporary ‘ad hoc’ disaster bills, he said. Spending on such bills typically is added to the budget deficit rather than being taken from the farm bill.

The point being is the political debate is always about authorizations (the farm bill) and appropriations (or the omnibus appropriation or the continuing resolution), never about the contents of the actual deficit.  That permits smart legislators to play games with spending, because all the pundits just assume the deficit is the result of the policies which are debated.  

How Old Am I? II

When skimming an entertainment column in the NY Times, I saw Peter Townshend was doing a memoir.  I said to myself, I didn't know Princess Margaret's true love was still around.

I gather The Who are some new rock band? 

Poor Timothy Geithner

Slate's piece on Dominique Strauss-Kahn's compensation says:

DSK's compensation and expenses are in line with his peers, the small handful of central bankers and finance ministers at the helm of the global economy. The president of the World Bank, for instance, makes almost exactly same amount. As per the bank's most recent annual report, Director Robert Zoellick earns $441,980 in salary, plus $79,120 for living expenses.

What's missed is our Treasury Secretary, arguably the most important of that "small handful". He earns $191,300, a cut of more than 50 percent from his NY Fed job. And I'm pretty sure ordinary government travel regulations apply.  He probably could get business class on long trips, seems to me I remember some other Cabinet members successfully arguing the point, but no $3000 hotel suites.

Changing the Pension System

A factoid from today's Post article on possible changes: "About 80 percent of federal employees are under FERS."  That says to me about 20 percent of federal employees have 25+ years of service, because they're still under CSRS, and therefore wouldn't be affected by current proposals. 

As usual, I like to see graduated changes: if they do change the contribution percentage I'd either phase it in over a few years (particularly years without a pay freeze) and/or phase it in with new employees getting the full hit and the older employees taking the smaller hit. 

Sherrod Still Negotiating

That's the word from the Post.   As I read the Jackson Lewis Civil Rights Assessment I thought I was seeing repeated suggestions that USDA hire Jackson Lewis for follow-on work.  I'm not clear whether Sherrod's group would be doing that, or whether it's two separate areas of work.

[Updated: corrected the name of the firm doing the assessment.] 

Another Reason to Encourage Immigration

Tom Ricks at Best Defense has a short post on the problems of creating a cover story in the age of the Internet for undercover intelligence work.   Any native-born American has a Facebook page by the age of 13 or younger. That means the only people for whom we can create a good cover story is an immigrant.

Bureaucratic Palimpsest

In the old days, the really old days, they'd take the parchment on which some guy, such as Plato or Aristotle, had written his thoughts, scrape off the ink, and reuse the parchment for something more important, like a to-do list for one's better half. But sometimes you could still read the original writing--a palimpsest.

When I was at ASCS/FSA you could still sense the presence of the old Agricultural Conservation Agency (which was a predecessor of ASCS specializing, as one might think, in the old Agricultural Conservation Program.  And now, reading the Jackson Lewis Civil Rights Assessment, you can see the carryover of the Farmers' Home Administration/Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service divide, even after 15 years.

[Updated: corrected the name of the firm doing the assessment.] 

More on Supply Side Solutions for Healthcare

I posted earlier on some measures to increase the supply of healthcare professionals.  The Post has an article today; seems the Republicans refuse to fund a measure in the Obamacare law to increase the supply.