More Bad Publicity on Payment Limitation

John Phipps at Agweb refers to two articles, here and here in the Springfield Journal-Register on cases where big payments were made to people who seem not to be actively engaged in farming. I was tickled by this quote:

"The book, the Bible that has all the rules, is 3 1/2 inches thick," Wold [an attorney] said. "We had a team of lawyers who couldn't understand it and had to hire an expert. There are very few people who understand it. The farmers are supposed to implicitly know all these details."

The truth, or rather the fantasy, is that the farmer isn't supposed to need to know any of the details. The theory is that the farmer does his or her thing, making the business decisions that make sense, and then accurately reports how he or she is operating for the year. The bureaucrat then decides what that translates to under the rules. It's like the tax code--you're not supposed to set up a home office so you can deduct part of your housing costs as building expenses.

Of course this theory is a fantasy--once you attach monetary rewards and penalties to action, people change the way they act. And now those poor souls in the USDA South Building may have to write a new bible, and a few may retire to become consultants on understanding the rules in the bible.