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Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

This is classic red state governance.

Strip the organization of resources over time, put politically appointed people in charge of work that should be performed by civil servants, and create a situation where the inmates run the asylum.

Even if nobody applies pressure, there's an implied threat of reprisal when the an appointed former garden blogger turned director of whatever gives an undesired answer. That job should be a civil service gig protected from direct reprisal.

Compare this ridiculous methodology compared to something more robust like the CPI calculations performed by the US DOL.

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From 1872 to 2002 Georgia elected 37 Democrat Governors in a row. The Georgia dock chicken pricing goes back at least 56 years. So you might as well call it classic blue state governance.

Good info, but the article isn't referring to events that took place between 1872-2002. If you look at the details of the article these anomalies in pricing began in the 2007 timeframe, and the attached chart starts in 2005.

That timeframe coincides with a wave of privatization within the state, including the divestment of IT from state governance to an outsourcing deal and broad tax cuts that devastated local government and education.

I'm not engaging in knee-jerk partisanship. The playbook for modern republican governance calls for contracting services out, diminishing the role of civil servants, and making tax reduction a cornerstone policy position. When you replace civil servants with political appointees of any party, this sort of thing happens. It just so happens that republicans are the offenders in this story.

You are blaming red state governance for a program that dates back to at least 1966, 36 years before Georgia broke a 130 years streak of consecutive Democrat governors. The article doesn't say that the program has changed, but that poultry companies started supplying bad data. You are jumping to the conclusion that this was affected by outsourcing, tax cuts, or replacing civil servants with political appointees, none of which is stated in the article.

The article doesn't claim the problem went back to '66, but rather says it's a more recent problem in a previously successful program. Are you saying the problem goes back further than the article claims, or was this just a misunderstanding on your part?

That ignores the fact that until 2010 the Ga Ag Commissioner (An elected position that is the head of the Department of AG) was a democrat.

Interesting theory. Besides the correlation, do you have any additional data to support it?

I think his point was that the previous poster should not have been so quick to call it out as a partisan issue, not placing blame on Democratic governance.

Point taken. I appreciate you being civil about it.

Yeah, Georgia, what a shit hole. With its triple-AAA bond rating, below-average debt per capita, and solvent pension system!

And apparently, inflated chicken prices.

You forgot the inadequate transportation system and underfunded schools.

I'm sure those chicken companies appreciate the tax break though.

Georgia's school performance is about median, in line with blue states like Connecticut, Washington, New York, and way ahead of California or Michigan: http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-do-states-really-stack-2....

> transportation system

I assume that you're talking about Atlanta.

The Marta? Nope. Not even close. It's great if you want to go downtown, but not much else. Also it closes before the bars do.

Don't even get me started about the highways there.

This is classic governance in general, not just red state governance.

As I read the article, the influence the industry has over prices is definitely a big problem, as are some of the statements of those in government defending the accuracy of the prices and basically covering themselves. The government officials sound like sadly typical "everything's fine, we're looking into it" language.

Not knowing the broader GA situation, can you shed light on "strip the organization of resources over time"? I don't see that in the article. It does sound like he could have used more support, but that can be the case in many jobs, in industry or government.

From what I see, Schronce has been a civil servant since October 1996.

PDF: http://atlantacityga.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=4&...

Oct 1996 - August 2014 Director of Public Affairs, GA Dept of Agriculture

August 2014 - Marketing Representative for Municipal Market Board for City of Atlanta

I wasn't able to fill in the gap between working for the Municipal Market Board and returning to the Dept of Agriculture.

His blog was part of the Dept of Agriculture website. Describing the situation as "former garden blogger turned director of whatever" is an unfair characterization of the situation. I don't see in the article whether the Director of Public Affairs is an appointed position or not, nor could I find information about that online. He has a background in agriculture, a horticulture graduate of North Carolina State University. If it was an appointment, it doesn't appear to be purely political.

http://agr.georgia.gov/artys-garden.aspx

I also don't see an indication from the article that he was worried about reprisal. I agree it's important to shield regulators to let them do their jobs as free of influence as possible.

He did write a memo, raising the issue. With the light that's now been cast on the situation, hopefully it'll get fixed. No system is perfect. What makes a difference is whether it gets fixed now that the issue is known.

The particulars of the Georgia Dock aside, how does this compare with other states, red, blue, or purple?

"This is classic red state governance."

Not everything in this world requires knee-jerk political name calling.

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