Takes the Bureaucracy a While to Catch Up

Politico runs a story saying the online application for marriage licenses in NYCity still said "groom" and "bride".  It was quickly changed.

I hate to think of all the forms and processes and databases which are going to have to be changed to handle same-sex marriage.  I can predict with great confidence there will still be "husband/wife" blocks and fields existing long after I'm dead, maybe still in 2040.

Post and Times Agree on Immigration: It's Down

They don't agree on why--according to the Post things are so terrible in Mexico potential immigrants from Central America are scared off and don't cross Mexico into the US; according to the Times things are so great in Mexico potential immigrants decide to enjoy the good life in Mexico.

They aren't exactly in conflict, but two sides of a many sided coin.

The French Do It Too

What's "it"?  Tinker with bureaucratic tricks to help, or seem to help, their farmers.  A quote from Farm Policy, emphasis on the last clause:

“The French government has, to its credit, been responsive to the problem. The state-owned railway operator, SNCF, is subsidizing the transport of cattle feed, the country’s banks are helping with solvency concerns by giving borrowers some leeway, insurance companies are postponing client payments until the situation improves, and the government has just injected €800 million ($1,162 billion) in funds into the agricultural economy, bringing the 2011 single farm payment forward.”

Back in 1981 the farm economy was tanking. One of the methods Congress and the administration used to help was to make advance deficiency payments, issuing the money before we knew what the actual payment rate would be.  Unfortunately, as is the rule with Congress, a one-time expedient often turns into a permanent tactic.  Having shown ASCS (as FSA was then) could handle making advance payments (at least we didn't wholly screw the pooch to quote "The Right Stuff"), they then made that a regular provision, first of deficiency payments then of direct payments.  The tradeoff, because there's no such thing as a free lunch, is that administrative costs went up, because some portion of the advances were unearned, either because of individual faults or unforeseen disasters which changed the average market prices, meaning we had to try to collect the money back.

Why Americans Don't Like Bureaucrats

Because we fought a revolution against them--one of our grievances against George III:

" He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

Happy Fourth of July

The Art of the Knife, in Academic Life

Dan Drezner was an early blogger and was also refused tenure at the University of Chicago, two facts which may or may not have been related.  He and his wife write about the denial 5 years later here.  Dan's essay ends thusly:

I don't know if the University of Chicago's department of political science would change its mind if it could go back in time. It has moved on and will no doubt soon reclaim its historical status as a great place for international relations. I have moved on as well.

Somehow the penultimate sentence casts some doubt on the ultimate one.

Great Bureaucrat: Montgomery Meigs

A rare celebration of a noted bureaucrat in the Washington Post magazine.  The bureaucrat? General Montgomery Meigs, who had a number of accomplishments, including building the acqueduct which still supplies water to the District, builder of the Pension Building, quartermaster general during the Civil War, savior of Fort Pickens in Pensacola Bay upon outbreak of the Civil War, builder of the Capitol Dome. 

The Architect and the Master Bureaucrat

Lots of people attack bureaucracy along the lines of James Scott's "Seeing Like a State", arguing that a master plan, or "scheme" as the Brits would say, is always suspect because it takes no account of local knowledge and local realities.  That line of attack can be persuasive; I'm sometimes tempted to buy it and turn in my liberal's stripes.

But then I read a post like Walter Jeffries and my temptation fades away, which is rather ironic because Walter is a fervent opponent of big bureaucracy and bureaucratic schemes like NAIS (for identifying farm animals). Walter and his family have a farm in Vermont, very energy-efficient. For maybe the last 12-16 months they've been actively engaged in building a butcher shop.  They've got the foundation and walls up, with lots of work yet to go.  Walt's post lists all the complicated factors he has to take into account, ending with the fact that all his design work will end up in concrete so he can't afford a mistake.

Now building a butcher shop is complex, but not nearly as complex as building say the Freedom Tower in lower Manhattan, or any other large building or development.  But we expect architects and building engineers to be able to pull it off, and they do, normally.  So too I expect Walter to pull it off.  The success of architects and Walter renews my faith in the idea that human reason and sweat can actually create things which work, things which can include bureaucracies.

Israel and Dairy

Via Marginal Revolution, an interesting post on cottage cheese in Israel.  It says the early settlers saw dairy as challenging, since cows weren't expected to thrive there.  It reminded of two other articles: one on the revival of farming in Gaza--although the Israeli settlers' greenhouses were looted after Israel withdrew from Gaza, some of the land is now growing vegetables; the other on growing tomatoes in Florida in the winter.  The common thread is that the soil and maybe climate aren't well-adapted for the agriculture, but it's possible to do well financially because of their location.  In the Israel/Gaza cases you've got the advantage of serving a local populace and being much closer than rival sources of the products.  In the case of Florida tomatoes, you've got the advantage of winter in the North.

A Field Is a Field Is a Pothole?

This from FarmPolicy was a blast from the past for me:

In other developments, a program announcement yesterday from USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) stated that, “[RMA] Administrator William Murphy today announced a change in qualification requirements for farmers in ‘prairie pothole states’ who want to obtain prevented planting insurance. The change is intended to assist farmers who have experienced difficulties due to excessive moisture in their fields over recent years. Beginning with the 2012 crop year, a crop must be grown on the acreage at least one of the previous four years if a farmer wishes to qualify. The states of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota are covered by the change. All other policy provisions must also be met.
“‘The requirement to be able to bring an insured crop to harvest in one of four years improves program integrity,’ said Administrator Murphy. ‘It also helps to meet the needs of farmers in the Prairie Pothole region, where some acreage has not been available to plant since the 2008 crop year due to flooding and excessive moisture conditions.’”

 Way back when (1981 I think) the North Dakota state specialist called in to be sure we meant a change in our procedures pertaining to potholes.  (Potholes result when a retreating glacier leaves a block of ice behind with glacial till around it.  The result is a low area which will fill with more or less water depending on the water table. ) In the early 80's the weather had been dry, the potholes shrank, the farmers farmed the dry margins, and they wanted it eligible to be designated as out of production for our production adjustment program (i.e., set-aside/ACR). Now the weather's been wet, the potholes expand, the farmers can't farm the wet margins, and they want it to be eligible for prevented planting payments.

From the viewpoint of people like Ducks Unlimited, this is all crap.  Farmers should not be encouraged to plant around potholes--the land should be in permanent conservation cover because the potholes are indispensable habitat for wildlife.  It's the modern version of the sheepmen versus the cattlemen wars of the 19th century.

Clinton Rossiter and the Roles of the American President

Clinton Rossiter was an interesting man, a professor of mine.  He wrote a book called "The American Presidency" and taught a course on it.  One of the themes was that the President had many different roles.  I think that's being ignored in the liberal angst over Obama's deficiencies as what I think Rossiter called: "Chief Legislator".  The meme is that Obama is not a good negotiator; he doesn't play hard ball well enough; he gives away the farm too early in the negotiations. People cite LBJ as the polar opposite; someone who played the game very well, always searching for an edge and a master of persuasion.

The meme may well be true, but one thing worth remembering is the many (16 maybe?) roles of the President.  Not every person will do every role well.  Nor is a person's performance under his own control, much is dependent on circumstances.  Beating up Obama may feel good to liberals, but they ought to stick pins in their Sarah Palin doll instead.