French Aren't Human--Withholding Taxes

Someone, I think Milton Friedman, wrote that his worst mistake was helping the IRS to switch to income tax withholding during WWII. The theory was that humans mind big bites--pay your taxes yearly and you'll resist the growth of government. Take it out of each pay check and the left can cheerily persuade humans to agree to higher and higher taxes.

However, according to this post, apparently the theory doesn't work with the French, who are notoriously highly-taxed (as well as highly-sexed), so either they aren't human or the economics has a flaw.

Security Clearance Process

If I remember correctly, Al Gore was proud of his efforts on security clearances. Of course, the Bushies are even more proud. This Government Executive article describes the results of 14 years of reengineering and improvement.

Though I often have some sympathy for failures in government, I don't have much for this. The point is that, once the process was consolidated (which I think Gore's effort did--in DOD), whoever manages it should have the users by the short hairs. All you need is agreement from the President--by date X only security clearances processed the way I want are effective. So you ought to be able to force all the agencies to use your process. That's a big big hurdle jumped. The other problem is getting a process that works, but if you do something incremental, that can be done.

Payments to Dukes and Princes? Not Us

This story hasn't appeared on the EU farm program blog, but apparently the EU has its own entrenched recipients of farm subsidy payments, including the odd duke and prince (read Mark Twain for a take on dukes and princes--he thought they were odd). They've dropped the plan to cap payments.

Ginseng Marketing Order

Under a marketing order, growers of a crop get together to establish standards and do other good things that ordinarily the laws ensuring competition would prohibit. But who knew that ginseng had a marketing order? See here.

FSA's GIS Replacement

Not sure how I feel about this announcement in FCW (Federal computer week):

"The Agriculture Department is seeking information about methods for delivering, disseminating and integrating large geospatial datasets for its Farm Service Agency and other users. USDA is interested in commercial software and/or online mapping interface services that could replace FSA's current systems."

On the one hand, I hope they do better and faster than the System/36 replacement project(s). It's also interesting it's described as strictly FSA--NRCS is not mentioned.

On the other hand, they're pushing centralization. That's an idea which I approve of as a bureaucrat, but resist as a retiree thinking of the small towns of rural America.

As usual, I'm ambivalent.

If Foodies and USDA Are Right

Then Mexicans are due to get fatter and Americans are due to get slimmer over the next 10 years. From an Agweb summary of the USDA's baseline projections over the next 10 years:

"Duties and quantitative restraints on sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) trade between the United States and Mexico ended on January 1, 2008. This results in increased use of HFCS by Mexico’s beverage industry and, consequently, larger sugar exports from Mexico to the United States. • The production value of U.S. horticultural crops is projected to grow by more than 3 percent annually over the next decade, with consumption of horticultural products continuing to rise. Imports play an important role in domestic supply during the winter and, increasingly, during other times of the year, providing U.S. consumers with a larger variety of horticultural products."

For Rep. Lucas, Relax

From the Enid, OK paper, Representative Lucas worries about the sleep of FSA employees:

"The change would be a nightmare for Farm Service Agency employees, Lucas said, who would have to dig up the old records and figure out what things were like back in 1949, then try to explain it to farmers and ranchers.

“The world has changed dramatically in the past 60 years,” Lucas said. “It’s like the Middle Ages compared to now.”"

He can relax. We tried in the 1990's to update and data load the old wheat allotments into the system. The data was so bad that management then said, forget it. That was 15 years ago or so. The data hasn't improved since. If anyone in the South building thinks there's any possibility of doing wheat allotments, they're smoking something.

Games Congress Plays

I'm feeling cynical today. A link to a discussion of the House Ag proposal for a farm bill. Two sources of savings:

–requiring growers to sell their crops when they claim loan deficiency payments. Some farmers have collected windfalls by claiming an LDP when market prices are low and selling the crop when prices are higher.

–ending windfalls to growers who manipulate the rules for loan deficiency payments.”

I wonder how this provision of law was described when it was put into the last farm bill (I'm too lazy to check). Now it's described as a "windfall", but someone wrote the language that made it possible. Maybe Congressional staffers and Congress people don't know what they write?

They also are playing their usual game with accounting rules and provisions. How do you cut the cost--drop payment in the last year. (Same way Bush cut the cost of his tax cuts--which is now coming due.)

FBI Fails Again

Some time I ago I blogged about the FBI's IT system. (See here for one.) Their problem is that each field office was its own empire, with its own files and, until the rise of terrorism, they never really had to transfer data across field office lines. This article seems to say it's still a problem. The Immigration Service is going ahead with issuing green cards to applicants whose FBI background checks aren't complete.

There's not enough background in the piece to know whether it's really fair to blame the FBI for not making progress. It's possible that some of these applicants date back to the dark ages before the FBI got even half-modernized.

I do like the philosophy though. I believe in 80/20 rules and getting the most bang for the buck. As long as there's a tracking system to ensure that USCIS knows which green cards were issued on the basis of incomplete data and to follow up with the FBI to work them through.

Easier Tax Returns

Freakonomics highlights a proposal by Prof Goolsbee--have the IRS prepare the return (for the majority of cases that are simple. It's the sort of thing I really like (my comment is about no. 44). A commenter refers to a British site, seems several countries already do this sort of thing.