Image: Matt Collins
When President Barack Obama promised change, he put two kinds on the agenda. The first was substantive change: reforms to key sectors of the economy, such as health care, climate change, financial markets and arms procurement.
The second was process change: improvements to how public policies are shaped and how decisions over public funding are made. Against the odds, the Obama administration is making some progress on the first—but at the sacrifice of the second.
The important health care legislation inching its way through Congress as this column goes to press will help expand the number of Americans covered by health care insurance and will limit some of the abuses by the private insurance industry in denying coverage and reimbursements to the public. Similarly, climate change legislation is also moving forward, with the chance that a permit system will begin to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases and start the lengthy shift of the U.S. economy to lower-emissions technologies.
Yet how this modest progress is being achieved is alarming. The Obama administration has not put forward one coherent plan as a detailed policy proposal. Every major piece of public policy has been turned over to the backrooms of Congress, emerging through the lobby-infested bargaining process among vested and regional interests. There was no overarching plan for the economic stimulus; no clear plan for health care reform; no defined strategy for climate change control; and so forth. If there were plans behind the scenes, they were never presented to the public as such.
This approach, it is often said, reflects the “learning” from the failures of the Clinton administration’s attempt to reform health care and control climate change. This time, the logic goes, the administration will leave no easy targets in the form of detailed policy proposals that can be shot down. It will let the negotiations among interest groups take place first and deftly guide a compromise piece of legislation to adoption. This is the logic of politics as the art of the possible.
By refusing to put forward clear plans, the administration is creating gaping and unnecessary weaknesses in public policy. First, and most important, the bad parts of legislation are not shot down. For example, Congress has never even considered the advantages of a straightforward carbon tax over the messier cap-and-trade system because there has been little occasion for serious policy planning.
Second, backroom negotiations are of course an invitation to vast, shady transfers of wealth. Carbon permits worth hundreds of billions of dollars were allocated to vested interests in private dealings without any public awareness, debate or participation. Similar deals in health care, financial reform and the stimulus bill have left the public struggling to understand the real winners and losers from various legislative actions.
Moreover, the administration has repeatedly lost the opportunity to convey important information to the American people. Only one third of the U.S. public believes that man-made climate change is even real. The public has absolutely no idea about the modest costs and high benefits of bringing emissions under control. It suffers similarly hopeless confusion about health care, the stimulus package, financial reform and other policy initiatives.
The complex, crucial issues we face require both expert inputs and public understanding. On each major issue of public policy, the administration should first put forward a white paper explaining why it is calling for a policy initiative, what it will cost, what benefits it will bring and how it will work. Legislative proposals should be shaped around these strategy documents. Independent expert groups should be invited to draft responses.
Most important, lobbying needs to be scorned rather than promoted. If given a chance, the public would back the Obama administration in facing down these narrow interests, the very interests that have contributed so much to our financial meltdowns, overpriced health care, clunker automobiles and energy insecurity. Scientists, engineers and public policy specialists can help craft real solutions, and an enlightened and trusted public would help put those solutions into place above the opposition of narrow interests.
This article was originally published with the title The Need for Open Process.
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10 Comments
Add CommentCome now, that is clearly un American ! If vested interest could not profit by government action, that would leave only Government for the people, by the people and of the people an we can't have that now, can we ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo under no circumstance should the people have any input into their government the present condition will continue without interruption however do not fear the present administration has more in common with the previous administrations then is obvious. Under no circumstance will the people truthfully be involved in government the present condition will continue there is no anticipated condition that will change the status quo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIncredibly naive and characteristically arrogant twaddle from Mr Sachs...again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI seriously disagree with LoftusRoadLad. While I differ in my political leanings from Mr. Sachs, I do recognize that his writings are well-thought, clear, and display an understanding of the issues. I do not consider him either naive or arrogant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI share Mr. Sachs' concern regarding lobbyists and back-room deals. I think it's deplorable how the Democratic party has unapologetically excluded Republicans and independents from these negotiations (it proves not only that there's no difference between the two parties when it comes to the hand that feeds, but also that political parties are just corrupt, period). I am a conservative who believes strongly in free enterprise and capitalism, but I also recognize that the giant mega-corporations have way too much influence over our lives and our government.
Having said that, I disagree with Mr. Sachs on the need for all-permeating government interference, and I believe it will not improve things, but rather end up make them worse. Seriously, when has bureaucracy ever made things more efficient? Never! Pretty much all of the financial trouble we're in is because of government screwing around with finance in many previous decades, and common sense absolutely cannot substantiate this idea that more debt is the way to get out of debt. (How many of us are in over our heads right now because we fell for the 0% interest, get a discount when you get a card, marketing schemes?) Cap and trade will not only be an economic disaster and business-squasher, but will be totally ineffective at reducing our emissions to the level where they will no longer contribute to climate change. And on the health care issue: where do I start? The insurance business needs to change and change drastically, from the bottom up; the bills and the compromises are designed merely "to make history," not to make either insurance better or health care universally accessible; and your and my tax dollars will, no doubt, end up going both to people who are in the country illegally and people who practice population control by murdering innocent unborn children.
I commend our president for his recent stand on increasing terrorist threat by Islamic extremists, and it gives me some hope for this administration. But the congress, which is supposed to be a body of delegated representatives of the citizens, is hopelessly broken. All we can do is fire them at the next election. Let's blowoutcongress.com!
Unlike the author, I take issue with both the initiatives and the process used to further the initiatives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe current health care bill, if it passes, will cause massive distortions and disruption for decades and will end up being even more unpopular than it is now. Cap and trade is entirely the wrong approach, even if you accept the theory of global warming. A carbon tax, with offsetting reduction of other taxes, I believe could be accepted by both sides of the GW debate.
As to the process, it is ugly and not transparant by necessity. The more light shed on these proposed bills and the more time allowed for debate will only make them more unpopular. Obama's campaign pledges are meaningless.
Obama lambasted McCain for proposing an individual insurance mandate, which is now the centerpiece of the plan.
Obama pledged multiple times to show the healthcare negotiations on CSpan, which he has totally dropped.
Obama pledged no tax increases on anyong making less than $200,000 per year, which is totally trashed in the Senate bill (which is the version Obama supports)
Obama pledged to make science based decisions. However in the first test (requiring billions of gallons more ethanol to be produced) he made the politically motivated decision in favor of ethanol.
Let's face it - they guy was just saying what sounded good to get elected. Now he will do anything it takes to pass his leftist agenda.
Back room dealings by the "Spawn of Chicago Politics" I'm shocked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSoccerdad, while a do agree with much of what you have said, clearly, little of Obama's agenda is actually leftist. Using "leftist" rhetoric does not make one "leftist" in agenda... I believe Obama is far more center-right than many of us were led to believe. Some may argue that he's trying to a bipartisan approach, but I beg to differ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr Sachs stated the problem pretty well, but no useful solution. Both parties have been doing this since the US was founded. Voting out one party to put another one in clearly fixes nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat we need to work on is a science of government: that is how to make a government that does what it is supposed to do. As opposed to the existing political science, which is about how to take advantage of the existing system to get what you want. And I mean true science, with verification, not the philosophies of government that have been around for thousands of years. A philosophy is just a scientific hypothesis that has not undergone scientific verification. Not terribly useful.
Well kiddies, how is that "open government" "new way of doing things" change working out for you? Do any of you really know what is actually being done in Washington?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually this is the worst of the old ways of doing things.
In the near future the golden tongue great deceiver and the philosophy of more will be swepted away and there will be a new way of doing things when the world is covered by a net.
Leftist policies promoted by Obama:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) Wealth transfer from taxpayers and bondholders to union members via the bailout of GM & Chrysler
2) Subjecting 1/6th of the US economy to government command and control via the healthcare bill; a bill which requires the purchase of a government mandated product.
3) EPA endangerment finding which subjects all fossil energy use to government command and control
These actions are decidedly leftist and fundamentally alter the US economy. Additional leftist idealogical actions:
- Try KSM in civilian court with no supporting arguments
- Allow underwear bomber to lawyer up when he likely had timely, actionable information.