Why Balsa Research is Worthwhile

October 10, 2022 | Balsa Research

It is easy to see why improving government policy would be impactful. The part where one has a chance of pulling it off requires explanation. Here are four fair questions.

1. Why believe there is an opening in what would appear to be a well-covered, highly crowded space of trained professionals pushing their preferred policies? 

2. Why is this tractable or neglected? 

3. What is the theory of change? 

4. Balsa

Our answer to all of these, as it is in most other places, has two central explanations.

1. There are no adults. In most places, also no trained professionals. There are only a bunch of adaptation executors, rewarded when they are seen cutting the enemy rather than ensuring the enemy is cut, and for reinforcing the party line. 

2. Where adults do exist, they do not have the right incentives. This causes them to mostly do things that don’t help solve the underlying problems. Existing organizations are instead focused on pleasing their donor bases and otherwise looking good. This makes them bad at generating effective solutions and at getting anything implemented. 

There are several entire ecosystems of think tanks and political activists seeking to make their case, have their voices heard and enact change. There is no shortage of such projects, from all sides: Left wing and right wing, statist, liberal and libertarian. Some generalize while others narrow their focus. 

Almost none of them are taking actions designed to cause change. That is not what gets them or their employees more status or more funding. That is not what their organizational memory or culture says to do.

This is why, from the perspective of someone looking for good policy as a result, such results seem to be few and far between, no matter one’s underlying preferences. When it comes time to choose policies on which to campaign or laws to enact, the choices and details reliably fail to seem to be anything approaching optimal and are often atrociously bad. They are not much informed by what preparatory work has been done.

When the time came to ‘repeal and replace’ the ACA, with years to prepare, the proposal that was voted on was the null proposal. No alternatives seem to have been seriously considered. 

Corporate tax reform was a top Republican priority forever. Its implementation was technically botched. 

How can this be the case? Why is thoughtful policy development the exception rather than the rule, even with all the resources poured into it?

One can blame this on political practicalities: lobbyists, individual lawmakers with leverage, various special interest groups and coalition members, the dynamics of primaries and increasing partisan division, the details of the filibuster rules and CBO scores, and the echo chambers of Twitter and mass media. On overworked and overwhelmed congressional staff and the impossibility of staying on top of all the issues while spending half one’s time fundraising and having to focus primarily on winning elections. Or on much of the work necessary to succeed being the type of long term, permanently private work for which no one can take credit.

These certainly make the problem harder. They also absorb almost all the money, which is spent fighting partisan battles. 

File these problems under Degree of Difficulty, and treat them for now as endogenous.

Instead, focus on playing better.