Washington Gridlock: A Fact Fix
My first blog
was established for the sole purpose of describing Retirement Planning with Annual
Available Spend. That article was also
published here: http://www.advisorperspectives.com/newsletters14/Retirement_Planning_with_Annual_Available_Spend.php
The following
is totally unrelated to retirement planning.
The only similarity is that both AAS and this post focus on fact. This post suggests that the absurd gridlock
in Washington is in desperate need of a fix.
Philip K. Howard in his excellent book, The Rule of Nobody, describes
how five Constitutional amendments are needed to do the job. My suggestion is simpler and more practical.
Perhaps the
biggest contributor to the gridlock is the commingling of ideology with
fact. What can be more absurd than the
issue of the existence of climate change, a total fact issue, splitting on
ideological lines. Fact has objective
truth, even though the truth often may be difficult to determine. Ideology may elicit passion and belief of
certainty, but does not involve objective truth.
The following
is in two parts. The first part
distinguishes fact from ideology. The
second part suggests a method for splitting fact from ideology relative to the
legislative process.
Ideology
vs Fact
To paraphrase
Daniel Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to his own ideologies but not his own
facts. It seems that today there is often little attempt to distinguish
between ideology and fact.
Ideology is “the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides
an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group”. Ideologies
may be based on religious, social, political, or economic grounds.
They include such things as religion, atheism, pro-life/pro-choice, pro/anti
gay rights, racism, conservatives (social, fiscal and Neo), liberals,
Republicans, Democrats, libertarians, altruists, capitalists, free traders,
socialists, communists, etc. etc
Ideology is
not a pejorative term. Each of us has our own set of ideologies.
Everyone is entitled to his belief system and everyone should be fully entitled
to express his ideologies.
Facts are
facts, totally different from ideology. Some facts are extremely
difficult to determine and agree. The important point is that ideology
should have no role whatsoever in determining facts, but facts and ideology are
often confused and combined. Let’s examine this proposition considering
three examples: abortion, global warming, and taxation.
Abortion is a
good example of an issue that is almost entirely ideological. The
ideological issue involved is the sanctity of life, or in a non religious
context, the inviolable nature of life. There are few facts in dispute
regarding the issue of abortion. For example, the physical development of
the fetus post conception is generally known and agreed. Everyone is entitled
to apply their own ideological opinion, but facts pay little or no role in this
ideological debate.
As contrasted
with abortion, global warming is an issue that is almost entirely fact.
1) Does it exist? 2) What caused it? 3) What is its scope now and in the
future? 4) What remedies are available? We agree that the answers
to these factual questions are extremely important to us today and for future
generations. The scientific community that studies these matters has
reached near unanimous agreement on the first two questions. There is
much uncertainty but relatively minor disagreement on the last two.
What seems to
have happened is that ideology has, to a large extent, supplanted the
facts. Today there is a major divide between Democrats and Republicans on
the factual issues. Instead of evaluating facts on their own merits,
ideologies are being applied to the facts. Today there is a“schism”
of ideologies affecting climate change. In a 2010 poll only
29% of Republican voters saw man-made warming as real, compared to 70% of
Democratic voters. What seems to have happened here is that facts were
supplanted by ideology.
Whereas
abortion is an ideological issue and global warming is a fact issue, taxation
is clearly a combination of the two. The issue of taxation involves
social, political and economic ideologies. Facts are also an integral and
important part of taxation. The harm taxation does to the economy (or
lack thereof) is a fact issue that people of different ideologies should be
able to agree; yet the actual factual analysis is being ignored and all these
issues are instead bandied about as part of the ideological discussions.
Politicians
and pundits continue to explain these often complex factual issues in simple
ideological terms. These explanations are usually willingly accepted by
the public -- a win-win situation for the politicians and pundits, and an easy
solution for the general public. We can only blame ourselves if we
continue to accept biased ideologically infused explanations of the facts, and
fail to independently evaluate the facts.
Citizens
Fact Council
Ideology,
bias and self interest has overtaken politics (I'll refer to these three as
IBSI). Facts seem to have become secondary, at best, to the political
discourse. There is seemingly a total lack of trust between conservatives
and liberals, and this is fostered by politicians and some media.
Facts have
objective truth, ideology does not. My suggestion is to establish a
Council whose sole purpose is to set up and administer committees that will
evaluate the relevant and material facts pertinent to the
various legislative issues under consideration. One of the past problems
with such independent commissions has been that both sides have claimed them to
be influenced by IBSI. So if such Council is to work, the first goal must
be to demonstrate that only facts are considered and that IBSI is banned.
Here is an
example of how a tax reform committee might be set up and administered by
the Council. The Council first identifies 50 of the most intelligent and
knowledgeable people who are experts in various fields relevant to
taxation. Each of the 50 must state whether they are, or are leaning
toward, conservative or liberal. (See Jonathan Haidt's The
Righteous Mind for his helpful categorization). The council then
selects 10 conservatives and 10 liberals from the 50 (or whatever total
committee number makes sense). The committee will be provided an adequate
budget and access to appropriate research sources. From this point forward
the committee of 20 is self-regulating.
The 20 set an
absolute rule that only facts will be considered -- each member pledges to
leave IBSI at the door. The committee and each committee member will be
responsible for monitoring their own and others' behavior to make certain there
is no IBSI influence. The committee will decide and prioritize the list
of relevant and material facts to consider. The committee will use best
efforts to agree all factual issues considered. Disagreement on the facts
will be scrutinized to make sure it is not the result of IBSI. The
committee will not draft specific proposed legislation, but their factual
determinations will serve to demonstrate the legislation needed. The
committee will continue to review relevant and material facts throughout the
legislative process, and convey their findings to Congress and the public.
Once the
factual findings are made public, the politicians will likely do their best to
obfuscate the findings and claim IBSI influence. Perhaps the most
important task of the committee will be to sell and explain its findings to the
American people. They must convince the public that the bipartisan
committee has made certain that only facts were considered and that IBSI was
eliminated from the determinations. Perhaps more important, the committee
must make certain that its factual determinations are clear and unambiguous to
the American people, so that they can't be misconstrued by the
politicians. Explaining, for example, tax related facts in layman's terms
to the general public is not easy, but it can be done.
In this
little utopia I have suggested, IBSI is now relegated to its proper
place. Politicians can debate ideologies and the public can enter the
fray, but there should be no dispute regarding the relevant and material facts
of any proposed legislation. These fact committees will have resolved
these facts for all the various areas of proposed legislation. Ideology
is now where it belongs, in the political debates separated from the facts.
There will still be ideological disputes on proposed legislation, but
resolution is many times easier once factual issues are agreed. This
process should provide the information and transparency that is needed by
Congress and the public.
