Summary
1. One of the drawbacks of federal subsidies is that bloated agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture, will have infighting over the desire to get credit for funding. 2. It will be just another factor in these types of funds being held up. 3. The USDA managed to come up with 17 sub-agencies, including rural development, which are all vying for dominance.
Analysis
Why there is a need for such a federal department and why is it involved in telecom? Of course, this agency that is supposed to be devoted to farming gets into all sorts of rural issues including tourism, public safety, health care as well as home financing and renovation. Like with all government departments, the RUS has certainly been subject to waste and abuse. There is nothing really shocking in the inspector general’s report.
The report was issued about a week after (according to the cover letter) a FCC commissioner was nominated to be administrator of the RUS. Certain individuals further up the food chain (no pun intended) probably did not like all of the attention given to what amounts to an position below an under secretary. The higher-ups want to get their share of the credit for anything positive done with these stimulus funds.
A good deal of time and money was wasted in putting together the IG report as well as the RUS response.
