And brain surgeons are trained and organized to operate on brains. So what? These loans have nothing to do with agriculture and should not be part of the USDA. It’s nonsense like this and the associated rationalizations that lead the trillions in debt.
“And USDA is trained and organized to work with local officials in communities that don’t have battalions of professional planners and grantwriters on staff.”
Just 'splainin' where it came from historically. If you want to get the feds entirely out of these lines of business, fine -- but start with HUD, SBA, many other Commerce agencies, HHS, etc. USDA has been involved historically because Farmers Home stepped up to fill gaps in rural America that weren't being adequately addressed by other agencies.
Just for the record, it has been a LONG time since USDA was mostly about agriculture. The name should probably be changed. Over 80% of its budget is nutrition (SNAP is the biggie), which you probably knew. It also does food inspections, ag export inspections, animal plant and health, a lot of applied research, rural development, conservation, etc. And the biggest chunk of employment in USDA is the Forest Service.
When I say that USDA is trained and organized to work with rural communities, I mean simply that USDA has a highly decentralized field staff that works in closer partnership and provides more TLC than most federal agencies. Farmers Home and the Extension Service used to have offices in each county across farm country. Those have been heavily consolidated, but RD, FSA, and NRCS still maintain substantial field networks; the offices now number in the hundreds rather than the 2-3,000 county offices of a couple of generations ago. That translates into ease of access, a high degree of personal contact, and high levels of service. At least, that's the theory. I think that if you compare the customer interface of the rural housing service with HUD, you will find the difference is night and day.
I'm not averse to getting the feds out of the housing business entirely, but as long as the feds are running programs in this area, I'd rather have USDA running the rural portfolio. Rural is different. USDA knows that. For other agencies, rural is usually an afterthought.