Ex-Politician Speaks Truth? Mulvaney on Moves

Mulvaney is Trump's acting everything, currently chief of staff.  This Govexec article reports on his recent speech in his native South Carolina, discussing USDA's move of ERS and NIFA offices from DC to Kansas City.

“Now, it’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker,” he said. “I know that because a lot of them work for me. And I’ve tried. And you can’t do it. But simply saying to the people, you know what, we’re going to take you outside the bubble, outside the Beltway, outside this liberal haven and move you out into the real part of the country, and they quit. What a wonderful way to streamline government and do what we haven’t been able to do for a long time.” 

Meanwhile OIG says provisions in the appropriations law prevents USDA from spending money on the move.  USDA says the provisions are unconstitutional:

In an OGC opinion prepared to respond to the IG’s draft conclusions, USDA says the “committee approval” provisions in the omnibus act are unconstitutional.
“The department states that Supreme Court, Office of Legal Counsel, and Government Accountability Office (GAO) precedents support their position,” the IG said. “The department provided advance notification to the committees before obligating funds for office reorganizations and relocations to the extent they involve a reprogramming or the use of the identified interagency agreement or transfer authorities. The department states that it is not required to obtain committee approval of such actions.”


But the inspector general said that position conflicts with previous positions taken in litigation by USDA. “The department needs to communicate, in writing, this change of interpretation to USDA leaders at the sub-cabinet and agency levels.”

Post on Dairy Farm

The WaPost has an article on the death of a dairy farm. It's more than an article:

One more year on the farm

A visual narrative of one family’s fight to save their land

Photos and video by Ricky Carioti | Text by Annie Gowen Aug. 3, 2019

After seeing a number of stories on the plight of dairy farms I'm frankly becoming numb to the plight of the families.   So my reaction to this is: flat flat land.

Are Farm Programs Insurance or Welfare?

Seeing several articles, some based on EWG's research, hitting Trump's MFPI and MFPII for helping big farmers and not small ones.

Seems to me there's a basic conceptual issue here; how are farm programs to be "framed"?

One way to look at them is as "welfare", similar to food stamps, welfare (TANF), Pell grants and student loans, etc.  For welfare programs, our expectation is that our tax dollars are given on the basis of "need", with the most needy getting the most money.  If farm programs are indeed "welfare", as they've often been labeled, then giving the most money to the largest farmers in bass-ackwards.

Another way to look at them is as "insurance", whether it's federal flood insurance or unemployment insurance or the insurance policies on cars, homes, and life provided by private companies.  In all such cases (that I can think of), insurance coverage is tied to the "value" of the property.  The more expensive the car or house, the more coverage you can get on them.  The better your salary, the higher your unemployment insurance benefit.

Cleaning Files and Voter Suppression

Jennifer Rubin in the Post cites a Brennan Center report on voter list purges. The report emphasizes that counties which are no longer required to pre-clear changes in their electoral operations under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act have increased their purge rates (roughly from 8 percent to 10 percent a year).

Rubin is concerned. 

I'm not, likely because I had some experience with the problems of maintaining lists in the past.  The bottom line: it's difficult to keep a list of name and addresses up to date because there's really no cost, no push to identify errors.  An example: one of my past employees resigned from ASCS relatively quickly--IIRC her husband in another agency decided to take an early out and they decided to move to Florida.  So her exit process was rather hurried and incomplete.  After I retired I would occasionally search the online USDA employee directory, just to see who still worked there.  For about 10 years, I'd still find Jane's name in the phone directory.

The way FSA counties were supposed to update their name and address list was to do an address check (not the right terminology) requested with USPS once a year..  I'm sure some didn't do it, and it wouldn't have been fool proof.  I gather that some purging of voter lists done differently, bouncing a voter file against another  database.  The problem there is using names to match. One of my employees noted her home county had a lot of people named "Johnson".

Although the color coding of the report is poor, some of the higher ranking states in purge rates are Maine, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin.  In some states (Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma, Wisconsin) the rates among counties are very similar; in other states (Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi) the rates vary widely among counties.

Without knowing the process being used to purge the files and the history of past purges at the county level, I think it's dangerous to draw general conclusions.  As a good liberal I am, of course, a bit suspicious of the actions of those counties which used to be covered by Section 5.  But I don't think the Brennan Center proved any wrongdoing. 

A final consideration: purging voter rolls isn't very important IMHO--having a dead or moved voter on list offends my bureaucratic sensibility and it wastes computer storage, but is very unlikely to open the door for any voting fraud

The End of City Newspapers?

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution has a post showing the decline in circulation of big city newspapers over the last 17 years.  Some papers have fallen from 500,000+ to 50,000- !!

I knew the newspaper industry had been hit by craigslist and online news, but hadn't realized how deeply newspaper staffs had been cut.  It's bad because papers had been a countervailing force against local problems.  Some innovations may be replacing that function in part, but not totally.

My Political Preferences for President

I've written on this blog that I support Amy Klobuchar for 2020. [Note: I started writing this before the Tuesday debate.]

I remember 1972, when George McGovern was the Democratic candidate.  He had good positions, with which I agreed. But he was tagged as supporting "amnesty, abortion, and acid", in other words supporting the far left. His "demogrant" of $1,000 per citizen was also far out, though I think Sen Booker has a similar proposal.  Though I voted for him, I would have preferred a more moderate candidate, like Muskie or Humphrey, as more likely to give Nixon a fight.

In general I don't have principled objections to many of the proposals on the left.  Put them into legislative form, design good bureaucratic structures to implement them, and see if you can get enough support from the center and right to pass the legislation.  Implicit in that sentence is the idea that the plans of Warren and other candidates can't be enacted or implemented.

I'm pleased that Buttigieg last night pointed out the problems of getting proposals through the Senate.  Even if we get the four seats we need for majority control, our margin will depend on Sens. Manchin, Sinema, Jones, King, Warner, et. al., none of whom are very liberal.  So here's my preferences:

1. someone reasonably sure of beating Trump
2. someone who will have positive coattails in AZ, CO, AL, KY, KS, NC, etc.
3. someone who won't hurt Senate candidates.

It's way too early to know who will meet my preferences.

How Food Waste Happens

Watching DC's channel Four News.  (4 pm, 7/12/2020)Just had a consumer segment reporting on a test of having a supermarket deliver produce.  Bottom line, not good.  Berries mush, apples bruised, avocado not organic.

Agreement by the anchors that picking produce was personal, so such problems were big issues.

The program had no discussion of food waste, but it revealed why food waste happens--we pick the best out of the bin, and leave the worst, meaning the worst get tossed.

Fraud in the Farm

Farmers are no better or worse than other humans--that's my position and I'm sticking to it.

What's important, I believe, is structuring institutions so there's "countervailing power"--give anyone some power, you need to find another person whose interest is countering that power.

In the case of agencies, that's typically the inspector general, including the auditors, the fraud hot lines, and the whistleblowers.  I'm not sure those checks and balances are sufficient, but they can work, as in this instance of a tobacco farmer in Kentucky defrauding crop insurance.

MFP II

Farm Policy blog has a post on the announcement of signup for MFP II

If I'm correct, CCC may be getting close to exhausting its borrowing authority by the end of MFP II, requiring Congress to replenish it.

The Down and Dirty Dairy People

My mother always celebrated the goodness of farmers, particularly dairy and poultry farmers. Se would be disappointed at the shenanigans described in this thread.

Alright, today’s the open show and all these cows are ready to compete. Figured now’s as good a time as any to do the sequel to my last thread. This time: A Study in Dairy Infighting. pic.twitter.com/DIzwtNm42o

— 😇💖😈 (@songlin221) July 27, 2019