Part 4: Policy Development

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Preamble to the US Constitution

Part 3 covered judgment, standards, and cognitive skills. This part applies these concepts to policy development and execution.

Policy is an interesting and sometimes fuzzy topic. The reality is policymakers did not truly write some of the US’s key policies. Some national policy is derived from speeches and other non-policy documents and may never even be codified in a specific policy document. Other policies are explicitly written. But even written policy can have a fuzziness to it with conceptual language and few associated metrics and standards.

This is important because enforced policy governs behavior. It provides incentives for and restrictions on action. A policy is a general approach that may or may not require regulation to enforce. Well-formulated policy lays out goals, objectives, and responsibilities. Policy is to a strategy like regulation and procedure are to tactics. A clear strategy or policy enables effective execution.

So why is there an unwritten or vague policy that is open to interpretation? The answer lies in both accountability and flexibility. Vague policy provides deniability and the ability to flex in desired directions without having to write a new policy or amend an existing policy. This action can divorce the “policy owner” from the “government owner” and provide ways to manipulate actions and situations.

A case in California with hog farming is an example of what happens when a policy does not have well-defined standards. There are often implications for peoples’ lives and livelihoods. Animal rights groups petitioned California that hog farming is cruel. California responded with a policy to force change in the industry. However, there are problems with the policy.

The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to help pay for retrofitting hog facilities around the nation to fill the gap. Hog farmers said they haven’t complied because of the cost and because California hasn’t yet issued formal regulations on how the new standards will be administered and enforced.

This affects not only the hog farms, but the restaurants that sell pork-based products, grocery stores, and consumers. Justice may agree that the hog farming industry is cruel and needs to be reformed. But informed policy needs to exert some judgment as well and set effective standards, possibly a yearly set of changes designed to give the farms time to respond.

In a Republic, all citizens are “Owner-Operators” and need to understand our policies. As a retired Army General, VP with a global consulting company and business owner, I have seen the impact of poorly designed policy. With the growth of government programs and the exploding deficit, we need to manage our policies better. Total government personnel has grown 3.5x (George Will) and federal spending 6x (Trending Economics) over the last five decades. Government policies have a life of their own. Many of them have morphed and remain alive regardless of their original purpose. We need meta-policy that governs the drafting and execution of policies to ensure they are effective, efficient, and resource neutral. It should:

• Ensure clear and quantifiable success and termination criteria. Otherwise, we create agencies such as the Rural Electrification Administration. It achieved its purpose long ago, yet it still exists as the Rural Utilities Service.
• Assess the situation and determine the risk and effects of unintended consequences. Policy goals can create unintended consequences that could be worse than the original problem. An example is Prohibition that led to a rise in organized crime. A current example is the War of Drugs. The risks and mitigation strategies must be specified with measures required to execute them.
• Be resource neutral. If the new policy requires resources, it should have an approved offset from one or more other programs for all labor, contracts, and other spending.

Recall the debt ceiling discussion in Part 3. There is at least an implicit policy involved. If Congress still follows the Constitution, the loadstone for any policy should be the Preamble to the Constitution quoted above. Does the policy “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”? Note the preamble is clear about securing these goals for posterity and today.

Does current policy do that with thousands of small business closed? The American Alliance of Museum’s (2020) latest study shows a third of museums in the US are in financial trouble and may close permanently. Museums are a critical way a society preserves and transmits it culture and values to posterity. What happens when they can no longer perform this task?

Citizens own the Republic. We should hold policy-makers accountable. Now some policies may be classified and not available to the public. These still should meet the meta-policy requirements discussed above, perhaps even more so given the implicit non-transparency.

Even with these classified policies, citizens can certainly see the effects of many of them. For example, we can see the effects of polic(ies) in Afghanistan. Clearly, something went wrong there, and not just from a military perspective. The G8 countries originally had responsibilities and there is a whole of government review needed. This review should not be a Congressional public affairs fest, but rather a considered, deep review that looks at all policies and their execution. I hesitate to use the term “blue ribbon commission” but that may be the only way to do an accurate assessment. We as citizens should demand it and ensure that it is fair and comprehensive.

Part 1: Justice, Judgment, and Diversity

Part 2: Standards

Part 3: Judgment, Standards, and Cognition

Part 3a: Cognitive 101

Part 4: Policy Development and Analysis

Part 5: Critical Race Theory and the Military

Part 6: Cognitive Diversity Experiment

Part 7: Conclusion

Series Flow