Political Reform 1: Assessable Policy
An idea for turning our government back toward solving problems and away from posturing
We have an accountability problem in our country. We give power to politicians with the express purpose of governing in our interest. This is what a vote is. The United States is not a direct democracy at the highest levels, but at some levels it is, and at the levels where it is not it is still supposed to uphold democratic ideals. But how many politicians are actually held accountable? How many of us actually know how all our representatives at every level between us and the Senate are performing? How often do we know the proposals, how our representatives vote, and why?
There are many problems with our processes, but I only want to discuss one here: policy proposals. These can be proposed laws that are submitted, debated, amended, and passed (or not) by Congress. This will apply at every legislative level. It also applies to any policy that is enacted by the authority granted by The People, us, at every level. This means your mayor, city council, state legislature, governor, Congress, all the way up to the President and all the way down to your county superintendent or school board.
It sounds like I’m setting up something complicated. I’m not. It’s simple. You (the policymaker) have to propose policy with actual goals and mechanisms for measuring its effectiveness toward those goals. This is called assessing the outcome. If it’s not having the effect it’s supposed to, stop. Simple, right? I’m tired of hearing about bills being proposed which are clearly just pipe dreams like the Green New Deal. I’m tired of policymakers enacting something (very expensive) just to pander or signal something that they know isn’t going to actually accomplish what it’s supposed to. The halls of power are not for playing games. They’re for executing (not dictating) the will of The People.
Here are a few simple rules:
- Your policy must state its intended effects objectively, quantifiably, and explicitly. No “make the world a better place.” No more “provide unprecedented levels of prosperity.” Show me the numbers.
- It must include ways in which its effects will be assessed. This can be as simple or complex as required to adequately assess whether the policy will have the stated desired effects. If you want to reduce greenhouse emissions by 1% in the US per year for ten years and you require auto manufacturers to make cleaner cars, it’s up to you to figure out what part of the global greenhouse emissions are from the US, how much of that is from cars, whether the new cars purchased in the first year can possibly even have that large an effect, and whether your proposed policy had any impact. If that’s too difficult to measure, then it’s a good indicator that your policy proposal was too ambitious. Try again with something you can measure.
- It must provide for (in the policy and budget) such assessment at the end, or if it is a policy without end, regularly, to assess progress toward the goals. Obviously, assessing something requires funds, so fund it with the same bill.
- It must include intermediate objectives and failure points, that must be reached or cannot be reached respectively, or the policy provisions will trigger discontinuation of the policy (and therefore funding). Simple, right? If your proposal provides $100 million per year to build 8,000 affordable housing units per year, you have to stop if we’re only getting 5,000 of those units per year. Go back, try again, and make your budget more realistic.
Here’s a very simple example: I have a policy proposal to reduce homelessness. It includes an ultimate objective of reducing homelessness by 20% in 5 years. It has intermediate goals of reducing homelessness by 4% per year. It has discontinuation provisions that if homelessness is not reduced by at least 2% per year, the policy will be abandoned. It has a provision and budget to pay for a third-party assessment of progress toward these goals every year by an organization (preferably non-profit, but it has to have existed well before this policy proposal) using metrics consistent with their (not my) past methods of assessment.
Some will argue that this won’t stop much or won’t work at all. It might even slow everything down. Maybe. But it will increase policymakers’ accountability to us. Hopefully, policymakers whose policies repeatedly fail will have that held against them not just at the polls, but with other policymakers. If you work in a place where you want to get something done, you probably don’t want to work with people who have a very poor record of getting things done.
