Polling

Last night for the second day in a row I took a phone call from a polling service, using an automated system.  They asked roughly similar questions, though last night's was a bit more detailed, particularly on the demographics (i.e., religion). 

If I recall, and my memory is fading, this is the first time I've been polled solely on politics, excluding the calls where the Dems reassure themselves I'm still a rock-bound Democratic voter who will vote/has voted.

FSA and CCC: the Magic Numbers

Are 8.2 and 7.6.

What does that mean? Based on a very fast skim of the OMB report on sequestration, FSA would take an 8.2 percent hit to its administrative funds, and CCC would take a 7.6 percent hit to part of its funds. I don't understand the CCC calculation but the cut amounts to $469 million, with a good portion of the $19,175 billion either exempt or offset.

[Update: Appendix B has a breakdown of sequestrable versus exempt.  Unfortunately I can't copy the text, but something called the "Discrimination Claim Settlement" is sequestrable.  Is that Pigford, or the women and Hispanic?]

In Which I Trash the Sammies

The "Sammies" are awards ( 2012 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals ) to federal employees for service to America.  This year's awardees are described in this Post piece. 

Of course they all appear to be big shots, which sort of makes sense because bureaucratically speaking, the higher you rise in an organization the greater your impact and thus potentially the greater the contribution you can make to the U.S. 

Somehow today this logic falls flat to me.  If I've got a rich uncle who dies and leaves me money, lots of money, I might just set up a series of awards for employees at the lower end of the pay scale, people who went far beyond the bounds of their job description. Seems to me performance by lower-paid employees could be much more extraordinary, all things considered, than the jobs done by GS-14's.   Maybe set the cutoff at GS-7, or at GS-12, but no higher.

Beyond the challenge of identifying a rich uncle, the next step is figuring out an impartial way to make the awards.

Best Sentence Today (Nun)

"What a difference a nun makes."

That's from a Project on Government Oversight post about oversight of nuclear weapon facilities. (The "nun" in question was one of a group of protesters who roamed through a supposedly secure facility, causing a big shot at Energy to change his mind.

Call an Ambulance for the Right Wing

I worry for their hearts when they hear Jane Fonda is playing Nancy Reagan. (I wonder whether Alan Rickman can change his voice enough to be convincing as Ronald--probably he's a great actor.)

MN Famers on Congress " we’re hopeless"

So says Rep. Collin Peterson--his constituents don't expect action from Congress on the farm bill.

From Farm Policy.

[Updated: Politico piece on the current status.]

[Update 2: Politico report on rally for farm bill]

A Fat Tax

Sarah Kliff has a post at the Post on a possible "fat tax" on milk--boosting the price for the high-octane stuff.  I know the difference, but I remember my father checking the butterfat content of our milk; was it shown on the milk check, or was it a separate process--however it worked it affected the price we got for our milk.  As she writes in the post, butterfat is an expensive part of the milk.

The study on which she writes looked at supermarkets which priced low fat milk lower than full fat milk. 

Posting Feedback on Government Sites

I think government websites should post their metrics online.  Usa.gov takes the first step towards that--a journey of a 1000 miles begins with one step.

I suppose I'm being a little hypocritical, since I don't give my own stats.

Apparent Inconsistency: Rebecca Felton

Who was Rebecca Felton?  The first woman to serve in the US Senate.  Also "a prominent society woman; an advocate of prison reform, women's suffrage and educational modernization; and one of the few prominent women who spoke in favor of lynching."  She was from Georgia.

Mentioned in "American Tapestry, The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama" by Rachel Swarns, which I'm finding interesting.

The Paradox of "Food Insecurity"

ERS has its annual report on food insecurity.

There's a paradox here: the number of people receiving food stamps is at an all-time high. The number of "food insecure" people is high.  The number of obese people is high, with the poor having the highest proportion of obesity. This seems to me to amount to a paradox.

What's going on?  To analyze it, there's four characteristics of people:

1. poverty
2. "food insecure"
3. obese
4. receive food stamp

Receiving food stamps is a binary attribute: you either do or you don't during the time frame, the other three are more scalar, but government surveys convert them into binary attributes.  With 4 attributes, there's 16 possible combinations, ranging from: poor and food insecure and obese and receiving food stamps to not poor and not food insecure and not obese and not receiving food stamps.

It seems we don't have good data to map the distribution of people into those 16 combinations.  We can assume we know how the world works:

 In one conception, the people getting food stamps are the poorest of us; everyone who is really poor gets food stamps and only the poor get food stamps. In that world, everyone who is poor and obese gets food stamps. Implications:

•  food stamps are well distributed
• the food insecure get food stamps but don't manage them well.
• the food insecure are also obese, perhaps because they binge eat.

In another conception of the world, the world of the poor divides into two portions: one set is poor, no food stamps, and food insecure; the other set is poor, gets food stamps, and not food insecure.  Implications:

• food stamps are poorly distributed
• food stamps fill their role of preventing hunger and the only social problem is getting all the poor to participate in the food stamp program.
• NOTE: the missing issue is where are the obese in this conception.  

Now the ERS report says 57 percent of the food insecure participated in a food program (food stamps, WIC, and a third program), but they compare apples and oranges: food insecurity is for a calendar year, participation in food stamps, etc. is for the month before the survey, meaning a family which suffered food insecurity in January, goes on food stamps in July and is surveyed in August would count as food insecure.

What's my point: the ERS work lacks essential information.  Of course, in their defense I can imagine their surveyors would be reluctant to carry a scale and tape measure with them on their interviews so they could check the BMI of the respondents.   One of the prices we pay for privacy is the lack of information to make good policy.