As we finish up the semester, I wanted to do a quick summary of what I hope you will take away from this course. It has been a pleasure reading your reflection papers and reading your comments about public policy issues. This is the first time I have taught this course online, and I certainly learned a lot; I hope you did, too.
Many people come into this class hoping to find out the "right" answer for how government can solve a problem, be it undocumented or illegal immigration, inequality in the education system, or housing the homeless. I hope that this course has taught you that the world of public policy is never so simple that a single "right" answer is easy to find. The United States, in particular, has a very complex system of government with three branches at the national level, states with at least two branches, and local governments all working alone and in concert to solve problems. Not to mention that nonprofit and for-profit organizations also play an important role in creating, advocating for, and implementing public policies. While the dream of "three-page" bills would certainly increase transparency, it seems as though our system of government is too complex to make such a goal a reality. Next time a politician suggests a simple answer to a complex problem, I hope that you will view such a suggestion skeptically.
I hope that our discussions of substantive policy issues peaked your interest, as well. Although our department does not currently have the capacity to offer classes in each of these substantive areas, there are classes in departments like sustainability, criminology, sociology, social work, and economics where you can explore these substantive areas in more depth. Further, for those of you who are planning to pursue the public service and public policy major, I hope that this gave you some ideas in terms of where you might want to do your internship and possible topics for your capstone. The CQ researcher briefs are all accessible online through the library and they provide a good starting point for understanding the "players" and major debates in each policy area. Peters' book provides a more straightforward look at the background of each of these larger policy areas. I hope you will refer back to these resources as you continue your studies of public policy.
In comparison to some of the other courses you may take in this department, this course attempts to instill more of a critical perspective in each of you. While some may see this perspective as oppositional to the more "scientific" and "objective" courses in cost-benefit, statistical, and economic analysis; I believe that both perspectives are essential to the evaluation of public policy proposals. Without this perspective, you may miss some of the underlying assumptions or as Stone would say "counting as" used in these analyses that can fundamentally alter the results of an analysis. You may also miss assumptions that can alienate or confuse policy targets. Ultimately, I hope that those of you who pursue a career in policy, administration, or politics will take your skills in economics, statistics, and critical thinking and combine them to approach each policy skeptically and then choose the policy alternative that fares the best on all three criteria.
Most of all, I hope that you take away the idea that although we may disagree with each other on these issues we can still have a civil discussion about each of them, and generally find at least some point of common ground. It seems as though our policy discourse will only become more fractured and hostile as the 2012 election approaches, and it's important to keep in mind that those who support a different candidate or take a different perspective on an issue are not our enemy. We can learn a lot more about ourselves and our opinions when we take the time to listen to and understand the other side of arguments, and why others may disagree with our own perspectives.
Thank you all for a great class and I hope you enjoy your winter break!
P.S. Don't forget to turn in your policy memos on the 11th. Make sure you refer back to the rubric from policy memo 1, as we will be using that same rubric to grade your second memos.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The National Debt
I scheduled our discussion of the national debt for this week in the hopes that we would have a deal from the "supercommittee" (officially known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction) to discuss. Unfortunately, they were unable to come to any agreement. Instead, I'll talk a little about the readings and then discuss the implications of the lack of a deal.
This week's reading on the national debt is one of the most up to date that we've read so far. Although the chapter was written before the "debt ceiling crisis" of the summer, it asks many of the same questions that the supercommittee has tried to reconcile over the past few months. Most notably, how can we work to reduce our large deficit without stalling or preventing an economic recovery. Of course, the supercommittee is also concerned with the political ramifications of their actions. We have had two bipartisan committees tasked with reducing the national debt, the Bowles-Simpson National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and the Rivlin-Domenici Debt Reduction Task Force. Both of these committees were bipartisan and offered recommendations for reducing the debt as models from which the supercommittee could work (even though the Bowles-Simpson commission failed to reach the supermajority among commission members necessary to fully endorse their plan). Even with these blueprints, the committee was unable to make a recommendation for action. As the chapter points out, Americans want to balance the budget while cutting taxes and increasing spending, an impossible task. Any cuts or tax-increases would run the risk of being politically unpopular less than a year before a major national election.
When the Supercommittee was formed as part of the debt ceiling deal this summer, a system of sequestration or automatic cuts to defense, Medicare (providers only), and Social Security was created as a consequence of the supercommittee failing to pass an additional $1.5 trillion in cuts. The good news is that these cuts will not occur until FY2013, so there is still time for Congress to reach an agreement. Policymakers on both sides are already attempting to over-ride sequestration for their preferred programs, but the Obama administration has vowed to veto any such attempts. It seems as though we have reached an impasse.
So, now that the supercommittee has failed, what can we expect? The Obama administration is hoping that the full Congress can pass extensions on the payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits before recessing in December. The Republicans are hoping to avoid raising taxes and to make the Bush tax cuts permanent while further cutting domestic spending and fundamentally altering entitlement programs (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security). Democratic members of the legislature are hoping to preserve Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest members of society expire. Regardless of what happens, as we saw with the debt-ceiling debate, the appearance of a "do-nothing Congress" may be the most damaging aspect of these negotiations to the economy, our democracy, and the faith-and-credit of the US government.
This week's reading on the national debt is one of the most up to date that we've read so far. Although the chapter was written before the "debt ceiling crisis" of the summer, it asks many of the same questions that the supercommittee has tried to reconcile over the past few months. Most notably, how can we work to reduce our large deficit without stalling or preventing an economic recovery. Of course, the supercommittee is also concerned with the political ramifications of their actions. We have had two bipartisan committees tasked with reducing the national debt, the Bowles-Simpson National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and the Rivlin-Domenici Debt Reduction Task Force. Both of these committees were bipartisan and offered recommendations for reducing the debt as models from which the supercommittee could work (even though the Bowles-Simpson commission failed to reach the supermajority among commission members necessary to fully endorse their plan). Even with these blueprints, the committee was unable to make a recommendation for action. As the chapter points out, Americans want to balance the budget while cutting taxes and increasing spending, an impossible task. Any cuts or tax-increases would run the risk of being politically unpopular less than a year before a major national election.
When the Supercommittee was formed as part of the debt ceiling deal this summer, a system of sequestration or automatic cuts to defense, Medicare (providers only), and Social Security was created as a consequence of the supercommittee failing to pass an additional $1.5 trillion in cuts. The good news is that these cuts will not occur until FY2013, so there is still time for Congress to reach an agreement. Policymakers on both sides are already attempting to over-ride sequestration for their preferred programs, but the Obama administration has vowed to veto any such attempts. It seems as though we have reached an impasse.
So, now that the supercommittee has failed, what can we expect? The Obama administration is hoping that the full Congress can pass extensions on the payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits before recessing in December. The Republicans are hoping to avoid raising taxes and to make the Bush tax cuts permanent while further cutting domestic spending and fundamentally altering entitlement programs (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security). Democratic members of the legislature are hoping to preserve Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest members of society expire. Regardless of what happens, as we saw with the debt-ceiling debate, the appearance of a "do-nothing Congress" may be the most damaging aspect of these negotiations to the economy, our democracy, and the faith-and-credit of the US government.
My Thoughts on Peters Ch. 17 - Cost-Benefit and Ethical Analysis
So here we are in the final week and back to Peters for his final chapter. In this edition, Peters combines cost-benefit and ethical analysis into a single chapter. While I generally prefer to discuss these two issues separately, I think the combined chapter works for the purposes of this class. This chapter helps serve as a teaser for two 400-level courses we offer (or will be offering) as part of the Public Service and Public Policy major. PAF 471: Public Policy Analysis will be a required course for the public policy concentration and will likely focus on economic models of policy analysis, specifically cost-benefit analysis and quantitative analysis. PAF 460: Public Service Ethics is our required ethics course and will help you navigate current ethical issues in public policy, public administration, and the non-profit sectors. I hope that this chapter sparked your excitement for these courses.
There are other reasons why it may make sense to combine these two chapters. In some ways, cost-benefit analysis can be thought of as a specific type of consequentialist ethics. Consequentialism is just a fancy way of saying "the ends justify the means". Of course, this form of ethics can lead to many actions that we would consider unethical, but it is often used in public policy creation. Basically, cost-benefit analysis is attempting to reach a Pareto Optimal outcome, where no one is made worse off but at least one person is made better off, or a Kaldor-Hicks outcome where society experiences a net-gain. In this case, the ends and the means are quantified so that the ends justify the means if the outcome is a net monetary benefit. Of course, opportunity costs, consumer surpluses, unintended consequences, and net values need to be considered in the calculation you use to determine the costs and benefits. I think Peters does a good job of walking you through these concepts using a basic example of cost-benefit analysis. It is important to note that although we rarely use Pareto Optimality as a goal in policy analysis (because it is usually an impossible standard to meet) it likely works much better as a criterion for ethical analysis. Certainly, ensuring that no one is made worse off by government action is a stronger ethical stance than assuming that the individuals who benefit from government action will somehow compensate those who are burdened by government action.
As Peters points out there are many problems associated with the use of cost-benefit analysis. It requires a lot of assumptions about risk and future circumstances. Small changes in those assumptions can drastically change the predicted net benefit of a program. In a policy world where solutions are often looking for problems, interest groups have substantial power, policymakers are politically motivated, and competition for funds is the primary rule of the game the temptation to make favorable assumptions about the future of one's preferred project is overwhelming. I believe the perception that cost-benefit analysis is preferable to other forms of analysis because it is straightforward is really an incorrect perception. Cost-benefit analysis can be just as subjective as ethical analysis.
Further, while cost-benefit analysis can help us choose projects out of a list, it offers very little normative advice. It cannot answer the question "what should government do?" We have to draw on our cultural and social values for that. Peters' discussion of "ethical analysis" is really about these value questions. After Stone, his recommendations likely seem a little quaint but they are as follows: the preservation of life, the preservation of individual autonomy, truthfulness, fairness, and deservedness. In many ways these parallel with Stone's values of security, liberty, and equity with truthfulness added for good measure. Of course as we saw with Stone, actually defining what these values mean and whose definition we should use is the difficult part.
I agree with Peters assessment that we as policy analysts are over-reliant on cost-benefit analysis because of its apparent objectivity in comparison to ethical analysis. Policymakers are a different story. Some policymakers have become little more than rubber stamps for programs with positive cost-benefit analysis, but currently values seem to be the prominent metric determining whether or not policies proceed through the policy process we discussed during the first few weeks of class. Many of the policies Congress is considering are policies that invoke those tough ethical questions such as Don't Ask, Don't Tell; defunding Planned Parenthood, immigration policies, and even the debate over the deficit. Cost-benefit analyses have played very little role in these debates. This leads me to two questions: Would we be better off if policymakers used the cost-benefit analyses provided by policy analysts rather than relying on their own definitions of values, and what is the state of the policy analyst profession if their primary means of analysis is often ignored by policymakers?
There are other reasons why it may make sense to combine these two chapters. In some ways, cost-benefit analysis can be thought of as a specific type of consequentialist ethics. Consequentialism is just a fancy way of saying "the ends justify the means". Of course, this form of ethics can lead to many actions that we would consider unethical, but it is often used in public policy creation. Basically, cost-benefit analysis is attempting to reach a Pareto Optimal outcome, where no one is made worse off but at least one person is made better off, or a Kaldor-Hicks outcome where society experiences a net-gain. In this case, the ends and the means are quantified so that the ends justify the means if the outcome is a net monetary benefit. Of course, opportunity costs, consumer surpluses, unintended consequences, and net values need to be considered in the calculation you use to determine the costs and benefits. I think Peters does a good job of walking you through these concepts using a basic example of cost-benefit analysis. It is important to note that although we rarely use Pareto Optimality as a goal in policy analysis (because it is usually an impossible standard to meet) it likely works much better as a criterion for ethical analysis. Certainly, ensuring that no one is made worse off by government action is a stronger ethical stance than assuming that the individuals who benefit from government action will somehow compensate those who are burdened by government action.
As Peters points out there are many problems associated with the use of cost-benefit analysis. It requires a lot of assumptions about risk and future circumstances. Small changes in those assumptions can drastically change the predicted net benefit of a program. In a policy world where solutions are often looking for problems, interest groups have substantial power, policymakers are politically motivated, and competition for funds is the primary rule of the game the temptation to make favorable assumptions about the future of one's preferred project is overwhelming. I believe the perception that cost-benefit analysis is preferable to other forms of analysis because it is straightforward is really an incorrect perception. Cost-benefit analysis can be just as subjective as ethical analysis.
Further, while cost-benefit analysis can help us choose projects out of a list, it offers very little normative advice. It cannot answer the question "what should government do?" We have to draw on our cultural and social values for that. Peters' discussion of "ethical analysis" is really about these value questions. After Stone, his recommendations likely seem a little quaint but they are as follows: the preservation of life, the preservation of individual autonomy, truthfulness, fairness, and deservedness. In many ways these parallel with Stone's values of security, liberty, and equity with truthfulness added for good measure. Of course as we saw with Stone, actually defining what these values mean and whose definition we should use is the difficult part.
I agree with Peters assessment that we as policy analysts are over-reliant on cost-benefit analysis because of its apparent objectivity in comparison to ethical analysis. Policymakers are a different story. Some policymakers have become little more than rubber stamps for programs with positive cost-benefit analysis, but currently values seem to be the prominent metric determining whether or not policies proceed through the policy process we discussed during the first few weeks of class. Many of the policies Congress is considering are policies that invoke those tough ethical questions such as Don't Ask, Don't Tell; defunding Planned Parenthood, immigration policies, and even the debate over the deficit. Cost-benefit analyses have played very little role in these debates. This leads me to two questions: Would we be better off if policymakers used the cost-benefit analyses provided by policy analysts rather than relying on their own definitions of values, and what is the state of the policy analyst profession if their primary means of analysis is often ignored by policymakers?
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