Peak Government: Team Biden Told to Write Regulations for the Sake of Regulating
I agree with Scott’s thoughts at the 6:00 mark. Should be a law that holds the administration/legislature/agencies accountable for results. I would add that laws/regulations should automatically be repealed if the expected goals aren’t achieved or benchmarks aren’t met. Those benchmarks and ultimate goals should be written right into the law or regulation.
Should also force them to revisit existing laws and regulations.
The government already does this to citizens. When the RDA here sells a property to a resident, they attach the plan for renovation/redevelopment to the deed along with a restriction called a “reversion right.” It allows them to take back the property no questions asked with proper notice if the buyer hasn’t lived up to expectations by performing the renovations or redevelopment outlined in the plan submitted to the city when the property was purchased.
There’s no reason we shouldn’t do the same in reverse and force a law to sunset and take back our freedom from the regulation if the intended goals aren’t being met. Profitable businesses don’t pursue avenues that aren’t producing results. Neither should we.
9 replies on “MB2A Party Platform Idea…Law To Hold Government Accountable for Results”
Agree in principle, but there are a few practical difficulties, not the least of which is defining whether intended goals are not being met. Would it be easier to simply sunset all laws absent proof of success? Shift the burden of proof to the side arguing the law was successful rather than the side arguing it was not?
Or, in the immortal words of Andrew Lloyd Weber, prove to me that you’re no fool, walk across my swimming pool.
Well that’s an interesting twist. Force the makers of the law to prove that it’s still working otherwise Goodnight Irene. I kinda like that.
As far as defining the benchmarks, there would need to be a back and forth. Can’t have proponents saying they’ll sell one unit in a year when the least accomplished salesman could sell 1,000. That’s what makes the Paris Climate Accords such a joke. Each nation determined their own definition of compliance, and China actually submitted benchmarks that were below their previous publicly stated goals.
Proposals that project minuscule results should be laughed out of the chamber as a waste of time and resources.
So then the problem is kicked back to us. If we’re defining miniscule, then they’ll say we can define a standard of success. Ultimately, we have the final say and therefore set the standard based on our undoubted infinite wisdom and knowledge as we make dissidents “understand.”
My best idea is they present their side along with the reasons why and we do the same. If there’s a discrepancy, it has to be resolved by either accepting the other side is acting in good faith or knowing that they’re not and the lesser of all evils.
+1! I’ve been mulling much the same thought for a while now. I’m admittedly cynical about such a thing ever getting passed into law, but it seems to me the feedback mechanisms built into such a thing could work. Anyone proposing a bill or some new spending always has an incentive to trumpet and even overstate the imagined benefits and economy of the spending (to get the needed votes), but this would create an incentive operating in the other direction, where one knew that overstating claims and projections could lead to the demise of the program. It might be a pipe dream, but I’d love to see something like this put into practice. If we ever find ourselves writing a new Constitution someday, I’d propose baking this in.
I think people are ready for a change. If we are able to elect enough people to office with extremely common sense ideas such as this in our platform, we can change things.
Of course, we’ll need to fight the people who fearmonger and scare, for example, welfare recipients by claiming that our accountability measures will result in reduced benefits for them. One way to do that is to say that no one currently participating in a program will have their benefits cut. Hell, we might even incentivize voters by giving them part of the savings. Something like 90% of every welfare dollar is wasted on administration.
Thanks for your $0.02!
Common sense is an uncommon commodity
Unfortunately, that’s more true with every passing day. i think we all have it for the most part, but we’re not forced to use it.
I just posted a reply above in the same vein. How do you know for certain the other guy’s not actively looking to torpedo the system by reproducing failure? You really don’t. I hate trust as a solution, but I’m afraid it’s all we’ve got.