Do the Thing That Works

Applying Occam's Razor to well-intentioned policies that aren't succeeding

How do you fix policy problems? What’s the right policy solution? Sowell would tell us that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. He’s right of course.

Instead of starting with the solution, the first step is to re-think what we’re optimizing for, and therefore, what will be prioritized even when benefits exist with other options. (My foreign policy colleagues would call that defining the political end state.)

Once we know what you’re looking to achieve, step two is to pivot and do the thing that works (DTTTW). I know that sounds obvious, but the way we decide how to allocate our resources is often captured by special interests that make us optimize for the wrong thing, especially over time.

The corollary to “Do the thing that works” is “The purpose of a system is what it does” (POSIWID). Stop working from the assumption that the intention of the program is what its stated purpose is. Look at what it does, and tell me if that’s what you want to happen. No? Time to pivot. Take a positive, not normative approach.

Let me give you some examples.

Make Housing More Affordable

There are two approaches to making housing more affordable.

The first is commonplace today and the result of local control over zoning: Require any new housing to conform to affordable housing rules. Use rent control. Allow local vetoes if new construction doesn’t fit neighborhood character. In short, ignore the market and mandate by statute or regulation what you want to see.

The result? Very little affordable housing gets built and prices keep going up.

How do you do the thing that works to making housing more affordable? You do the second approach: You increase the supply of housing. That is the simplest, most tried-and-true way to lower prices. That’s why we call it the law of supply and demand.

The purpose of a system is what it does. If Portland or San Francisco or any number of other cities attempt to make housing more affordable by mandating inclusionary zoning, but then end up with less housing and even higher prices, then the purpose of their system is to make housing less affordable.

Cities and states need to take a hard look at all of the rules that inhibit an increase in supply and get rid of 95% of them.

Or be honest and tell people you’d rather have higher prices for existing homeowners.

Build More Ships

Many people believe for national security purposes that the United States should not have to rely on foreign shipyards—it should have the industrial capability to build rapidly build ships. Our industrial capability helped us win World War II, after all.

Source: Statista

The Jones Act (actually The Merchant Marine Act of 1920) requires goods shipped between U.S. ports be transported on vessels that are built, owned, and operated by U.S. citizens or green card holders. Its purpose is ostensibly to maintain a robust American shipbuilding industry in the event of future foreign conflicts.

How is that working out? Not well!

Over one hundred years later, not only is failing to do what it was meant to do, it leads to enormously higher costs for Americans in places like Hawaii and Puerto Rico who pay significantly higher prices for food, fuel, and other goods due to restricted shipping options. It also slows down disaster relief.

(I believe I am legally mandated to tell you to follow Colin Grabow at Cato to get your daily dose of why the Jones Act should be repealed and get numerous other examples of negative unintended consequences.)

The Jones Act has slowly strangled American shipbuilding. The solution? Do the thing that works! Allow non-US ships and crews to transport goods between ports. Drop the Jones Act (and its cousin the Foreign Dredge Act of 1906) and make progress by letting people do things.

The system is not making ships. The Jones Act stands in the way.

Provide Broadband Access to Rural Americans

A recent video between Jon Stewart and Ezra Klein went viral as Klein walked through the 14 steps required in President Biden’s Build Back Better bill for states to receive any of the $42 billion of broadband spending that was signed into law.

The bill was passed in November 2021. None of the money has been disbursed.

Elon Musk is getting more controversial by the day, but I’m not the only one to look at the dismal record of BBB and think, “What if we just mailed people Starlink kits and paid for monthly subscriptions for people without any other access?”

Same cost, millions of people benefitting, move on to the next problem.

Prevent Homelessness and Open Air Drug Use & Markets

I’ve watched San Francisco get worse and worse for the last fifteen years. There’s always been homelessness, but the amount of open-air drug use and drug dealing reached shocking levels in recent years. You could drive by hundreds of a people congregating a night who were all on heroin, fentanyl, or other hard substances. Expected byproducts like car break-ins went through the roof.

San Francisco even has an “unintentional overdose dashboard” with monthly statistics. 1-2 people die a day from overdoses.

And through it all, the city’s politicians allowed it to happen. They provided clean needles and promoted using with a friend. It was shocking to piece together after a few trips around the city that dealing and consuming heroin or fentanyl was, for all intents and purposes, legal.

The attitude was that to fix the problem, we couldn’t arrest people and put them in jail, we had to provide them with treatment instead. But there weren’t enough resources to provide treatment to everyone and the attitude was that people in need of help shouldn’t be coerced in any way. And so the problem continued to grow.

The purpose of the system was to make drugs legal and overdoses prevalent.

But big problems lead to new leadership. San Francisco’s new mayor Daniel Lurie has decided to do the thing that works. Open air drug markets are not allowed. The city’s cops are bringing busses to busts at night.

It turns out that if you allow the police to enforce the law, then illegal behavior gets curbed.

There are countless other examples, but course correction usually starts with identifying what the system does right now, making sure you’re prioritizing the right outcome, and pushing the system to do the thing that works, even if it doesn’t align with your personal preferences.