RALEIGH – There is nothing simple about making good public policy. Be it at the federal, state, or local level, issues are usually more complicated than they first appear, resist easy resolution (or else resolution would have already been achieved), and attract the interest of a variety of interest groups with a strong incentive to manipulate the power of government to their advantage.
To say that public policy is complex, however, is not to say that we can’t apply some relatively simple rules to improve policy outcomes.
For example, policymakers should subject every proposed government action to three tests: significance, legality, and efficiency.
The first question, and often the most overlooked, is whether the problem merits consideration at all. Because there are costs associated with any legislative deliberation – in dollars, time, and attention – some matters just aren’t worth it.
One way to apply the significance test is to require clear statistical evidence of impending threats to public safety, health, or well-being. Another valid way to set governmental priorities, however, is to cap the number of bills or ordinances that lawmakers may propose and let them decide which ones are most important at any given point in time.
You can think of such a system as a “cap and trade” approach for combating political pollution.
The second test is legality. Even if a problem meets the test of significance, is the proposed solution within the legal or constitutional power of the government in question? I worry about a number of what I consider to be deleterious social and cultural trends, including the coarsening of popular music and personal irresponsibility in the consumption of foods, beverages, and inebriants. But I see no appropriate role for government action to “fix” these problems, unless they result from the use of force or fraud.
We have a system of limited, constitutional government for a reason. Government action is, necessarily, coercive. It relies on violence or the threat of violence to accomplish some end. The acceptable ends for which that power can be exercised ought to be limited – by constitutions, higher levels of government, supermajority or referendum requirements, or other protections.
Whatever their claimed political philosophy, just about everyone agrees with the proposition that some private matters are outside of the proper scope of government coercion. The disagreement is about which ones.
Finally, a proposed government program may meet the significance and legality tests and still fail the third test, the efficiency criterion. Simply put, will the program achieve benefits greater than its costs?
Good intentions aren’t enough. If a policymaker devises a legal program to address a significant problem, but it turns out that the program will impose $1 million in direct or indirect costs while achieving $750,000 worth of benefit, the policymaker’s peers should reject it.
Let me illustrate with the example of a proposal now before the General Assembly: to ban the use of handheld cell phones while driving on North Carolina roads. The significance test is easily met. Just about everyone would agree that while highway accident and fatality rates have been declining, they remain high and costly.
On legality, state government clearly has the authority to impose regulations on the users of government highways, even if the regulations target the users’ private cars, property, or behavior. Reckless or irresponsible behavior by drivers can threaten the lives or property of others using the same public property.
On efficiency, however, I don’t think the proposed cell-phone ban passes the test. It would impose a significant cost on drivers – some of whom rely on mobile phones to conduct business and coordinate household schedules – while there appears to be little evidence of a significant gain in safety. Such bans are difficult to enforce, for one thing, and it’s far from clear that cell phones represent a greater distraction than other activities going on in a vehicle, such as talking with passengers, eating and drinking, or fumbling with car stereos.
In the complex reality of daily life, simple-sounding ideas aren’t always good ones. By applying these three tests, policymakers can keep themselves out of trouble – and out of our business as much as possible.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.