Me and Kevin Drum I

 Kevin Drum  on Dec. 1 blogged his positions on an assortment of domestic issues. I commented that I agreed with almost all of them (I plan a separate post discussing them in detail) but he embodied the typical Democrat moderate/progressive in totally ignoring rural issues. 

Here's my thoughts on some issues:

• it's hard for me to see the revival of rural areas--farms keep getting bigger and more consolidated.  Even as some farms hire immigrant labor companies are developing technology to replace labor, especially robots.  So the depopulation of the farm areas will continue.
• I think the first priority is broadband for all.  Al Gore pushed Internet connectivity back in the day, the Obama administration supported it, but didn't complete the job.  (I've no idea of how well or poorly the Trump administration did.) 
• Broadband is the key to several things, changes which the pandemic has pushed along.

Telehealth.  The pandemic has shown the feasibility of this, provided there's broadband.  It needs to be pushed, as does permitting  healthcare providers to work across state lines.

USPS.  I'd change the structure and financing of USPS to raise its rural profile--to say more specifically that X is the money we, the nation, devote to rural areas.

Remote work.  Again the pandemic has shown that working remotely can be manageable.  

Drones.  Permitting and developing drone delivery might help rural areas.

James Fallows has a piece with a different orientation, but a similar goal--reconnecting rural and urban areas.

[Updated.: And here's another discussion.]

The Era of Commissions and Czars

 President-Elect Biden is planning a covid- czar, apparently.  I suspect we'll see more czars, task forces,  and commissions in the Biden administration than in past ones.

Czars can provide the promise of greater coordination among different silos.  There's a widespread perception the government does not act effectively, so the czar is one solution.  Cynically, it also offer another prestigious position for Biden to use in satisfying the demands of various parts of his coalition for influence.  (Think of a robin with one worm in its mouth facing four hungry chicks in the next.)

Task forces do much the same.  Trump's covid0-19 task force doesn't have a good reputation, but the Operation Warp Speed seems to be doing well at combining the efforts of HHS, CDC, FDA, and the military.

And commissions are a way to seem bipartisan and, at the least, give the impression of action while kicking insoluble issues down the road.  

To Start a War

 I like this book by Robert Draper.  A 3-star review on Amazon says there's no new stories in it, which may be true.  We know the outline of the decision to go to war, true enough.

I like these things:

• the book covers a broad area, but it doesn't sprawl.  Draper seems to do it by focusing each chapter on a key play so you get a balance of characters and narrative flow.
• Draper goes deeper into the bureaucracy than just the major players at the Cabinet and subcabinet level.  
• it comes off as a balanced appraisal, sympathetic to the players but appropriately critical.  (That means I don't see any intentional villains, just humans operating with their preconceptions and priorities which often led them astray.

Why Was Trump's Support Up in Rural Areas?

 I can think of two possible explanations I've not seen mentioned in discussions on this issue:

1. The billions of dollars Trump authorized paying farmers as compensation for losses from the trade war with China, along with the billions in food boxes under MFP.
2. More generally, I'm foolish enough to believe Trump got support because he was perceived as fighting for farmers and rural areas generally.  The facts may be that China won't fulfill their commitments under the agreement, at least not fully, but the drama of the tariff battles and the ensuing agreement would have been memorable.

Quibbling with Caste

 Started reading Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents". I want to quibble with some sentences on page 29: 

"[The South] was where the tenets of intercaste relations took hold before spreading to the rest of the country..." (There follows a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville with a similar point.) 

I think this is wrong: slavery was a feature of the world before Europeans reached the Americas.  It was a part of the Old Testament, it was part of medieval times, it was an accepted feature of war. It was arguably part of many Native American societies.  There was slavery in Great Britain until the Somerset decision.

The bottom line is: we can't blame the South for slavery, which is the way I read Wilkerson.  She can argue that slavery on Southern plantations was developed into an American archetype, perhaps with some unique features.  But even there, she would need to recognize the differences between Southern slavery and Caribbean sugar plantations. 

As I said, it's a quibble.  Wilkerson's writing at a level of generality and artistry with which I'm not terribly comfortable.

Fixing the Election Process

One place where Republicans and Democrats should be able to reach bipartisan agreement is on fixing the election process. In the past Democrats have felt they do well with the biggest turnout and Republicans have mostly felt the opposite.  But in 2020 both parties did well with big turnout, although Democrats in the race for president and Republicans for Congress and the legislature.  That perspective on the facts might make it easier to reach a compromise. 

I don't see why technology can't be used to monitor the processing of ballots--put cameras in place and record everything. People should be able to agree on best practices among the states with the best records in handling mail and inperson voting.

 

On Enforcing Payment Limitation

GAO looked at how FSA is enforcing payment limitation rules.  The summary conclusion seems to be "improving, but with a ways to go".  I ran across this paragraph, which reminded me how Mike Campbell in the Sherman county FSA office in 1992/3 wanted us to make the process so simple it would put consultants out of business.  We failed to do it, and so have the people now in FSA (and Congress, especially Congress):

 Several FSA officials said that large farming operations receive assistance from consulting firms to help them comply with active personal management criteria. For example, a state office official said the documentation that consulting firms prepare for farming operations is consistently sufficient to support a determination of active personal management.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/720/710470.pdf

Happy Thanksgiving

My view of Obama's Promised Land, as portrayed back in the Grant administration.

A Good Reform on Shell Corporations?

 I saw a report today, which I've since lost, that House and Senate conferees have agreed on an important reform: requiring what we used to call in ASCS the "live bodies" who own a corporation to be identified.  Under current law if you want to hide the ownership of something, you set up a shell corporation to own it, and then set up more shell entities to own the shell corporation and so on. 

I hope the reform goes through, but there's lots of hurdles between a deal on Capitol Hill and having it in the law signed by the Presideb. We'll see.

[update--the politico article]

FSA Flip-Flops on Actively Engaged?

 Rural Blog has a post linking to a Progressive Farmer article on a change in payment limitation regulations published here. The article interprets it as a flip-flop, easing the requirements for payment limitation determinations.  I'm not sure that's right but  I'm 23+ years out of date on these technicalities, if not more, so I'll just quote the meat of the explanation:

After publication of the rule, stakeholders notified FSA of concerns regarding potential non-intended, adverse effects to farming operations comprised solely of family members. In streamlining the definitions for consistency, these revised definitions were inadvertently made applicable to farming operations solely owned by family members. This was not the intent of this rule change, and as revised, the definitions were more restrictive than they needed to be in order to provide intended consistency in the rule. Those more restrictive definitions were not intended to apply to farm operations comprised or owned solely of family members. Therefore, this document restores § 400.601 and the previous the definitions of “active personal management” and “significant contribution” in § 1400.3 that were applicable prior to publication of the final rule on August 24, 2020. The more restrictive definitions described in § 1400.601 apply only to farming operations comprised of non-family members that are subject to a limit in the number of farm managers seeking to qualify for actively engaged in farming based on a contribution of active personal management alone.

 There's a reference to a GAO study as well, which seems to be this.