Outsourced Judgment
What if the experts don't know that much?
Interesting comment on Hartford CT elsewhere in the article labeling it “an island of concentrated poverty in one of America’s wealthiest regions.” Unbelievably, this was once thought of as one of the most beautiful cities in America.
Why do we believe that urban planners have perfect foresight?
‘It’s a common refrain among urbanists that the most desirable neighborhoods are often those it would be illegal to build today. “The paradox of zoning—the tragedy of zoning—is that it often starts out in a hopeful attempt to improve our cities and the lives we live in them. Then, all too often, it fails; it even does the opposite.”
‘The existence of zoning and restrictions also creates a culture of rent-seeking at best (and kickbacks at worst). There’s a fee to apply for a construction permit, fees for variances, fees to surveyors, fees to resubmit plans to the town council when they were rejected the first time…and an army of bureaucrats to manage the process.’
Why DOGE Was Able to Torpedo Rushed Spending Bill
Here’s some optimism around DOGE in a public choice context. DOGE demonstrated its ability to lower the cost of being informed massively, penetrating the veil of rational ignorance in the electorate. Previously, it made sense to be ignorant of policy because the cost of being informed is so high.
In a DOGE world, the cost of being politically informed drops to zero, particularly as the mainstream, corporate media loses its ability to perform its role as analgesic for the establishment imperative.
Should we be more optimistic about DOGE and their ability to steer legislation through Congress?
‘What does this have to do with DOGE? It’s true that we should expect voters to be rationally ignorant. But even rationally ignorant voters will learn more about the political system when it becomes extremely cheap for them to do so.
‘That’s what DOGE did with this bill on X. As voters were scrolling through their social media feeds, they were presented with a simple explanation of the waste being crammed into the shutdown bill.
‘When voters saw what was actually proposed, they picked up their phones and called their representatives.’
Interesting comments on state de-regulatory policies that DOGE can borrow.
‘Finally, Idaho created a review process whereby all regulations sunset after five years and must be re-promulgated to be kept. Agencies must use a standardized impact analysis that forces them to consider Idaho statutes, clearly state the problem the regulation is trying to solve, compare the rule with similar ones in other states, and quantify the costs.
‘It’s hard to argue with the results. Idaho’s Administrative Code went from over 8,500 pages before the reforms to about 5,800 by 2023. According to the Mercatus Center, it is now the least-regulated state in the country. Governor Little says the state has cut or simplified 95 percent of its regulations since 2019.’
Much of the success or failure of bureaucratic reform will ride on cultural issues. Here’s Ruxandra Teslo and Willy Chertman on the challenges in drug testing.
‘The issue was one of culture. Any policy proposal arrives on a diffuse, decentralized, but ultimately powerful cultural prior and its effectiveness will be bounded by the limits of that prior. And the culture around clinical trials and biotech more broadly tends to be be safetyist and paternalistic. In general, there is much more concern about downsides of actions as opposed to possible upsides. Not to speak of downsides of inaction, which seem to rarely even be considered. If the tech ethos of “move fast and break things” stands at one end of the spectrum, the biotech ethos would be at the other, with very little concern for the downside of slowness. Of course, some of this is justified: when dealing with human life, we should be slower and more cautious. But we think we are well past the point where this mentality has become counterproductive.’
Anyone who doesn’t think waste, fraud, and abuse is something that requires diligent, continuous monitoring in government is high on their own supply.
‘If DOGE succeeds, it will be because it tackles things like the Universal Service Fund. The USF is a masterpiece of broken government. An unaccountable agency gets to spend as much of your money as it wants, and it's gone exactly as you'd expect.’
How Trump Can Ease the Housing Crisis
One way to ease the housing crisis? Enable supply. Crazy, right?
‘First, he should direct his interior secretary to have the Bureau of Land Management auction off land suitable for residential development. Land sales totaling 828 square miles would be enough to build about 4.2 million new homes over 10 years. This constitutes 0.3% of the BLM’s 269,000 square miles in 10 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.’
Why are Top Scientists Leaving Harvard?
Principal investigator biologists now spend up to 40% of their time writing grants. Things are out of control.
‘Why did they leave? Mina tells an incredible story of what happened during the pandemic. At the time Mina was a faculty member at the Chan School of Public Health, he is extremely active in advising governments on the pandemic, and he brings Harvard millions of dollars a year in funding. But when he tries to hire someone at his lab, the university refuses because there is hiring freeze! Sorry, no hiring for pandemic research during a pandemic. In my talk on US Pandemic Policy I discuss the similar failure of the Yale School of Public Health and how miraculously and absurdly Tyler stepped in to save the day. The rot is deep.’
Elon Musk’s ‘Save The Bureaucracy’ Joke Sparks Debate On Government Inefficiency
It’s funny because it’s true.
‘Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk is known for his provocative commentary on the internet, which this time sparked debate on X, formerly Twitter. In his satirical take at the inefficiency of government, Musk joked about Congress passing a “Save the Bureaucracy” bill, adding that most legislation achieves results contrary to its stated aim.’
Improving How We Measure Cumulative Regulatory Impact
We don’t even know how big the problem is. We don’t know how to think about getting our arms around the problem.
‘One fundamental problem with most attempts to measure cumulative impact is that the researchers who undertake them are either explicit about their own views that regulations are too burdensome or work for institutions with that point of view. Regardless of the merits of regulatory impact analyses, concern about anti-regulation bias can automatically subject these efforts to criticisms from those who support regulation. And some of those criticisms are merited. Often, however, criticisms quickly morph into a hostility toward the entire enterprise of measuring the total impact of regulations.’