The Sad State of Public Policy

Over the last couple of weeks, I have thought a lot about what is wrong with the legislative process. Perhaps more than at any time in my career, I think the way we make policy is broken. There are three examples that I think would illustrate the problem.

#1 - The federal process for the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act has gone on longer than any one in the history of that law. In the early part of the process both houses went through a series of hearings which were at least partially expository about the problems and benefits of the current act. But that was a long time ago. In the intervening time, they passed a reconciliation bill which reduced margins in the FELP loan programs , and thus changed the dynamics of the program. The current bill is large and complex. Many of the parts do not fit together. One example, a main focus is on college costs (actually a crude set of attempts to regulate prices) but both bills impose a ton of new reporting requirements which are undoubtedly likely to raise costs (and also ultimately prices). For the last several weeks both sets of staffs have been working in secret to craft a bill which will undoubtedly not solve the basic issues of what is the appropriate role for the federal government in higher education.

#2 - The Speaker's role in delaying the discussion of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement (discussed in more detail in a previous post.

#3 - The California budget process is in shambles. The state faces a coming deficit in the range of $10 billion. Yet, each of the subcommittees considering parts of the budget are working through it like a normal year. In the end the legislature has chosen to disregard the voter passed mandate that the budget be the only item on the agenda in times like this. In the end some collection of leaders from the Administration and both houses will jerry-rig a budget that will carry us through another year but with little hope that any of the fundamental issues that need to be examined will be looked at with care. How much revenue is enough? If we do not want to raise revenues, what do we want to cut? This is not confined to California - 34 of the 50 states have varying states of budget disrepair.

If the examples are representative, then how did this come about? The easiest response, is reapportionment. In most cases as we have gotten more sophisticated in our process to determine how districts are drawn the people responsible have reduced the number of competitive districts. I think there might be another possible explanation. In his last book (before he died) Mancur Olson, the University of Maryland economist argued that as democratic systems elaborate, they begin to encounter increasing transaction costs. More "cooks" want to "spoil the stew." What would happen to the process if the number of legislative staff (in legislative offices) were reduced by 50%? Like many other idealized potential solutions, this one would be circumvented in some way (that indeed was one of the ideas in California's proposition 140 and it did not seem to have the desired effect).

But without some significant changes, two things are likely to happen. First, trust in the political system will continue to erode. Second, we will have an increasing number of complex and ultimately non-useful laws passed. Neither is a good result.