Problems: Symptoms Versus Causes
We need to redirect our attention.
Too often in public policy debates and their lesser cousin, social media arguments, we get too wrapped up in arguing about what are essentially symptoms and being oblivious to addressing underlying causes. (Partial lists)
Symptoms:
Homelessness
Healthcare spending
Border chaos
National debt
Housing affordability
Crime
High rates of incarceration
Poor public (government) education
Causes:
Housing policy mistakes (NIMBYism, zoning, supply restrictions, rent control, etc.)
Tax policy (taxing and subsidizing the wrong things in wrong ways with too much complexity)
Immigration policy and procedure (failing to have a coherent policy to begin with and then failing to fund and execute it)
Social Security and Medicare structures (payouts that exceed inputs, reward for the well off and poor alike, and distortion through bad incentives)
Drug prohibition (resulting in increases of both crime as well as incarceration rates with all their knock-on problems)
The government part of public education
These lists are not as pure as I would like them, but the point remains.
So as to make it all the worse, we then tend to address the symptoms by a “kill-the-messenger” approach. These policy choices can be summed up in a simple metaphor: Suppose you found the temperature outside to be undesirably hot. Would breaking the thermometers or fixing them for a maximum reading of 75 degrees solve your problem?
Here is a partial list of those policies:
Minimum wages
Rent control
Zoning
Border walls
Occupational licensure
Added tax schemes, loopholes, complexities
Increased severity of drug laws and new boogiemen added to the list
Anti price “gouging” laws
Campaign finance restrictions (and then the resultant loopholes)
