Whose face is on the dime? It's Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That's no arbitrary choice. FDR had polio as an adult. He fought back and became governor of New York and then the only four-term president of the U.S.

For two decades, from 1938 forward, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis campaigned to fight polio epidemics. Each January children and adults contributed to the national "March of Dimes" to raise funds for research and treatment.

FDR was the symbol of the campaign. After his death in 1945, the dime was redesigned to honor FDR. Within the next decade, effective vaccines were found for polio. Then, the National Foundation changed its mission to fighting birth defects and, under the name March of Dimes, has been successful for 50 years.

This transition is a classic case of an effective agency remaining in existence beyond its initial success. Why not go out of business after the job is done? Because there is no reason to dismantle an organization that is well-known and proven competent.

Now we understand why the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an agency known for implementing misdirected policies, is changing into a "Department of Rural Affairs." American farm policy has been a disgrace for more than a generation. Congress has the Department of Agriculture subsidize organizations and institutions that neither need nor deserve government support.

Try as they may, the Department of Agriculture cannot keep the farm economy from shrinking in its relative importance. That does not mean that farming is unimportant, only that it does not keep pace with the American economy. Nor are we willing still to accept the idea that domestic farming is the essential backbone of our economy.

So, where does that leave the Department of Agriculture? If its historic mission is done, then it has to have a new mission. It does not have a record of success, but it does have a congressional constituency which wants it to continue pumping money into "rural" districts.

There is the rub. What is rural? According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, rural is that which is not urban. Unfortunately, the bureau does not do a good job of telling us what is urban.

The Census of 2000 identified 24 percent of Indiana's population as rural. However, 36 percent of us lived outside any city or town.

Another 5.6 percent of us lived in 400 cities and towns with fewer than 2,500 persons. Are such places rural or urban? What the funding agencies choose to find of consequence is what counts.

States and the federal government have instituted practices that destroy urban areas. In Indiana, larger cities and towns persistently are denied the powers they need to serve their citizens. The property tax mess is laid at their door by the mismanagement and malignancy of the state Legislature. If the Department of Agriculture and other agencies want to finance projects in our cities and towns because it helps the donors stay in existence, bring it on.

Opinions expressed solely are those of the writer. Morton Marcus is an economist, author and speaker formerly at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. He can be reached at mortonjmarcus@yahoo.com.