The Benefits of Decentralized Government

One of my pet ideas is the weakness of the federal government, but it turns out that in at least one respect, we're too centralized.  The Office of Personnel Management makes the snow decisions for the feds in the DC area.  In Canada, there's no central decision making body according to this Gov. Exec. rerun of a Wired report.  Seems to me some decentralization in the US might work better--let the USGS in Reston have a different decider than SSA in MD.

De Minimus Benefits

From Tuesday's Farm Policy:

" Some states, such as New York, will make a $1 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program  payment to low-income people in order to automatically qualify them for the maximum federal food stamps Standard Utility Allowance for 12 months.
“According to a source tracking the farm bill talks, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that raising the minimum energy subsidy states would be required to make to $20 would be enough to disincentivize states from utilizing the loophole, potentially saving the government $8 billion over 10 years.”

We used to have a "de minimus" provision. I'm ashamed to admit I don't remember in what connection, but the idea basically was that something was too small to worry about.  A similar idea applied to certain small claims, whether it was $10 or $25 I forget.   But why shouldn't the government have a blanket policy: no payments, no claims if the amount is less than $20 or whatever?

Community Gardeners Are No Angels

Grist links to an article on some problems some community gardens face.  Our garden too has locks on the gates and people complain of stolen produce and tools. 

The White House Garden

I've failed to keep up with the White House garden.  Maintenance on it was shut down during the government shutdown in November.  They've had a harvest of fall vegetables, installed some hoop houses, and now are facing ice and snow as the storm moves through.  Don't remember whether they did hoop houses last year.  A few of our fellow gardeners in the community garden are using hoop houses; my wife and I aren't.

The swiss chard won't last through a hard freeze being outside a hoop house; the kale will be fine for spring.  Not sure what she means by the rosemary being gone--that should survive the winter.  Cilantro will be okay in the spring before it bolts.

An Amazing Sentence

From an Ann Althouse post on Andrew Sullivan's defense of Obama:

"Sullivan's analogies and metaphors are a crazy quilt of a mixed bag of bouillabaise."

Base Versus Planted, Continued

From David Rogers at Politico on farm bill negotiations:

In aggregate numbers, the estimated 260 million base acres counted today in farm programs are not so different from the average of real “planted” acres. But within that universe, huge shifts have taken place as corn and soybeans have grown more dominant while rice, cotton and wheat plantings have declined
For example in the South, about 12 percent of the base acres went unplanted in a recent year compared with just 3 percent in the Midwest. Oklahoma and Texas alone accounted for more than 4 million unplanted base acres or 26 percent of the total for the nation that same year.
At the same time in Midwest states, plantings over base totaled almost 9.5 million acres in 2010 — more than double that of the South. And in Kansas and North Dakota, corn plantings have soared as land has been pulled out of the conservation reserve program.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/farm-bill-crop-subsidies-agriculture-congress-corn-soybean-interests-100758.html#ixzz2mioXC5Mu

 

The reallocation/adjustment process he's predicting will keep FSA offices busy for a while.

Yale Foodie Meets "Real Farmers"

The Yale Sustainable Food Project has an organic operation at Yale.  It's been going for several years (I keep following it thinking the student enthusiasm will wane, but it hasn't).

In this post, a Yale foodie meets up with a Farm Bureau summer legislative picnic.  Sounds as if both sides learned a bit.

Cotton Farming Today

NPR has a five chapter feature tracing the history of a cotton t-shirt.  The first chapter is focused on a Mississippi cotton farm.  Surprisingly, though he bought 5 $600,000 cotton pickers last year, his total USDA subsidy on the EWG database is $467,000 for 2000-2012.

The Accuracy of Cost Estimates on Regulation

Cass Sunstein at Bloomberg writes on the estimates which are required for new regulations.  A study shows there's no systemic error (bureaucrats underestimating costs or overestimating benefits), although the estimates probably aren't very accurate. 

What would be more interesting to know is how often the analysis results in changes to the regulations or dropping the effort altogether.  I'm still waiting for a thorough redo of the regs on paperwork and regulations to make them fit the 21st century.  Not holding my breath though.

On the Importance of Sex

For science.

Josh Marshall's TPM Blog has a message from a reader asserting the importance of "sexy science" to raise the interest level and the dollars for all science.