Institute to present a book that i fear may seem from its title like im bringing coals to new castle, why government fails so often. This is, after all, the Cato Institute. And so this message will be, i think, affirming to you, but what i hope to suggest is you may not fully appreciate the reasons why government fails or the magnitude of the failure and how it might be, those failures might be remedied. That is to say most of the discussion about government failures are highly theoretical, rhetorical, deeply politically, philosophical level rather than at an analytical level based on empirical evidence. Is and so thats, if i have a contribution to make to the people at cato, that may be to enrich that particular kind of evidence for conclusions that you probably have no need for [inaudible] about. Im also delighted to be on a panel with wally olson with whom ive worked for, my god, its almost 30 years. He edited a book to which i contributed way back in the 1980s. And also to be on a panel with arnold cling whose work ive respected for so long. So i begin with the notion of crisis and, of course, every book is trying to sell the idea that theres a crisis. And this is particularly a crisis that, again, cato followers are aware of and, indeed, have emphasized in your own, in your own lives. I have a lott of data, i a lot of data, i will only mention a few points of special interest. Even among democrats there has been a rapid and precipitous decline in confidence. 41 had favorable views of federal government in 2013. Thats 41 of democrats. Thats down 10 in one year. And this was before obamacare was launched. According to the brookings institution, 56 of democrats believe that the federal government is mostly or completely broken. Democrats. And i mentioned that these statistics were gathered before the obamacare fiasco and its rollout. Tom edsel in an oped in the times yesterday suggests that the consequences of that rollout are far greater than is anticipated by most political observers. He thinks its going to ramify throughout the next several elections. What is the biggest threat to americas future according to the public . 64 say its Big Government while only 26 said big business. And this, this polling was conducted only a few years after the recession. So thats, it seems to me, a very telling point of departure. In 2011 79 of those polled were frustrated or angry with the federal government request, 74 said the same thing in 2007 before the recession. Now, what are the reasons for this decline in Public Confidence in the government . I propose several explanations, but the one that im going to concentrate on and the one that constitutes the bulk of my analysis is sort of a straightforward one. The government performs very, very poorly. When i say the government, by the way, im referring to the federal government, not other governments, and im referring to domestic policy, not national security, military or Foreign Affairs policy. My book is limited in those respects. So thats my subject, why government fails. And the, there are a variety of theories as to why the government performs so poorly, an emphasis that will not surprise those of you who live in washington as the explanation of partisan bickering and congressional paralysis, the democrats blame the republicans, the republicans blame the democrats for any failures that theyre prepared to concede. I emphatically disagree with this. If you examine our history of political discourse, it has been contentious, uncivil, angry and furiously partisan from the very, very beginning. Some of the greatest achievements of the past, the Intercontinental Railroad and hoover dam and the interstate highway system were accomplished only fitfully and after protracted disagreement by policymakers. Polarization, i argue, is not the cause of our problems, its the consequence of our problems. Theres a remarkable correlation that i think confirms this point of view. First is that the growth in Government Spending and policy ambitions has parallelled almost perfectly if you parallelled almost perfectly if you chart them the growth in public disaffection and contempt for government. Per capita spending by the federal government today is greater than in france, germany and the u. K. This growth occurs in good times and bad. Its unlinked and set adrift from the keynesian cyclical uses of government. And it doesnt depend on whether republicans or democrats control what goes on in washington. The debt to gdp ratio of the federal government exceeds that in most e. U. Countries, and it also exceeds the latin american average just to provide some context. This growth of the federal government is obscured by a number of factors except to those who study those matters very carefully, one is the immense growth in private contracting by the government, the immense participation in the implementation of Government Programs by nonprofits and state and local governments. And the myth that the United States has a small Public Sector and as is a welfare state laggard, although perhaps true in some comparative terms, is as a myth utterly false. And one way of understanding whats happened is summarized by, and i summarize in the book by james q. Wilson, the late james q. Wilson and john [inaudible] who distinguished between the old system and the new system. The old system, they write, had a small agenda. When someone proposed adding a new issue to the public agenda, major debate often arose over whether it was legitimate for the federal government to take action at all in the matter. For the government to take bold action under the system, the nation usually had to be facing a crisis. Each succeeding crisis left the government bureaucracy somewhat larger than it had been before, but when the crisis ended, the exercise of extraordinary powers ended. The new system is characterized by a large policy agenda, the end of the debate over the legitimacy of Government Action except in the area of First Amendment freedoms. The diffusion and decentralization of power in congress and the multiplication of Interest Groups. The checks and balances made it difficult for the government to start the new program, and so the government remained relatively small. Under the new system these checks and balances make it hard to change what the government is already doing, and so the government remains large. So my central theme, the core of my, the core idea of my book is federal and domestic policy failures are caused by deep, recurrent structural, systemic, endemic conditions. It doesnt matter which partys in power, it doesnt matter what the state of the economy is. I think that as a result of this and as a result of my analysis of the reasons for this, liberals, conservatives and, i dare say, libertarians have an enormous stake in understanding these reasons. Well, how do i analyze the reasons . First, let me say just a bit about my methodology. I rely on social science assessments by economists, political scientists, think tanks, gao, cbo, inspector generals of federal departments. My criterion for success or failure is cost effectiveness. And i devote an entire chapter to explaining what i mean by cost effectiveness, what methodologies exist, particularly cost benefit analysis to measure effectiveness. I believe it is a very balanced and subtle assessment of cost benefit analysis which is itself an assessment methodology and the principles for its use in light of its shortcomings. But thats what im talking about when i discuss success. We could measure success in other ways, i dont think any of them would be very satisfactory, certainly political successes is hardly a justified use of that term. Nor does the continuation of programs over long periods of time, multiple administrations a valid measure of success or failure. So what are these structural reasons for failure that i have been presaging in these introductory remarks . Well, the first is political culture. The political culture in the United States imposes enormous constraints on the effectiveness of government policy, whatever that government policy will be. Although certain Government Policies are hobbled more by these political constraints than others. And let me emphasize at the outset that many aspects of the political culture are highly desirable and ought not to be changed. But even if they should be changed, they cant be changed very easily. Indeed, i think its virtually impossible to change these features of our political culture precisely because they are cultural. Theyre deeply embedded in our, in the way in which we view the world around us. So what are these, what are these elements that i emphasize . The first is constitutionalism. Thats the most familiar to you and the one that the Cato Institute emphasizes in its own work. I need to rehearse that. A second is decentralization which makes it very difficult for federal policy to be implemented or, indeed, for the federal government to know how its policies will impact those who are its intended beneficiaries. Third is the protection of individual rights, a Sacred Mission in our culture and one that makes it very difficult for government to do whatever it wants to do effectively. Because of the strong protections given to individual freedoms. A fourth constraint is Interest Group pluralism which is, perhaps, more robust in the United States than anywhere else. Its one of the glories of our system, but its also a feature of our system that renders government either impotent or feckless and blundering. Another is the acceptance of social and economic inequality by the vast majority of the population. Now, this may strike you as somewhat odd, but when one compares the United States with all other liberal democracies, we tend to care less about equality than we do except for quality of opportunity, important, important qualification. We care less about equality of results than any other societies. We worry less about it. For deeply, i think, deeply embedded reasons. So that policies that are designed to promote equality of outcomes meet a kind of resistance that they would not meet in other countries particularly where those efforts by government create enormous inefficiencies along the way as they almost invariably do. Another feature of political environment is our moralism. Moralism derived from both our religious convictions and the strongly religious basis of our social values and the nature of our politics which lends itself to political moralizing partly because its mimicking the religious convictions of the American People and partly for other reasons. Another important political constraint is social diversity, and what that implies is that a uniform federal law cannot be nimble enough and flexible enough and variegated enough to reflect the underlying needs and desires of the population. Again, we are unique in our social diversity in any modern liberal democracy for a variety of reasons. Not simply for reasons of immigration, but also because of our religious diversity and our economic system. Another important constraint on the effectiveness of policy making is populace suspicion of Technical Expertise and official discretion. Public opinion, very powerful in the United States, more powerful, i dare say, than in other liberal democracies which is one of the reasons, i think, why, for example, one of many examples Capital Punishment is sustained in most american states each today whereas the elites tend to disfavor Capital Punishment. In europe the elites get their way, in United States the people, broadly speaking, get their way on issues of that kind. And then finally Civil Society with its, part of the diversity of which i spoke earlier but our Civil Society so robust and so varied and so energetic that a government that seeks to domesticate it or to regulate it or even in some cases to work with it is going to run into problems of ineffectiveness. So thats the first important feature thats structural, thats endemic and that hobbles federal policy making. A second one has to do with incentives, and in this chapter i discuss public Choice Theory and its shortcomings as a way of introducing the problem of incentives, and i develop a number of different propositions based on my reading of this literature. So ill just read them, the headlines in this distillation of principles. Ordinary citizens have little or no rational incentive to participate actively in political activity. Political actors design policy making institutions and processes to advance their selfinterest. The political effectiveness of a group depends, among other things, on its ability to manage incentives so as to overcome structural obstacles to action. Providing shortterm benefits and hiding the longterm costs that must pay for those benefits. The political die page ins of Public Policy dynamics depend how it it distributes its benefits and costs among voters and groups. Much political activity consists of narrow interest log rolling at the expense of taxpayers, something that arnold cling has written a great deal about. Moral hazard is a major user of incentivebased programmatic failure and propositions of that kind. And the examples that i provide and extricate include many, many different kinds z of programs; the Social Security disability insurance, the pension benefit guarantee corporation, fannie and freddie and a host of others. The next systemic defect, if you will although these are not all defects, i should, as i said before. Our system, our society is rich and successful as a society as distinguished from polity by reason of many of these factors. But the next one is what i call collective irrationality. And here i emphasize the voters ignorance about public issues, a literature that many of you have encountered in one way or another perhaps through daniel conamans recent book. The basic research has now become very, very much discussed not only in the academy, but even in the halls of congress. Cass sunstein, whose work many of you know, also relies heavily on this literature. A third literature is one thats been developed by my colleague at yale, dan kahan, which he calls cultural cognition. What he means by that is, you know, on a large number of public issues when he tests for peoples views on these issues, he finds that those views are almost entirely insensitive to new information. That people come to these issues with preconceived cultural stereotypes and ideologies, and theyre very, very difficult to move. And you could pretty much predict by knowing what those ideologies are what their position is on Climate Change or abortion or any number of other issues where evidence might author the opinion of a rational individual. Another and extremely important systemic problem is poor information. This is, this is, i hope, no surprise to you. I hope you are all marinated in the work of Friedrich Hayek who emphasized the nature of the information problem better than anybody else before or since. Some of the policy manifestations of that are the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms and explosives information about gun use and their information is very outmoded, its very limited limd so forth. Not because these officials are stupid or ill inform, but because congress has made it extremely difficult for them to collect and maintain this data much less analyze and employ it. The volcker rule, which i discuss at some length not that ive read it and neither has anybody else is another example of how poorly of informed those who write our laws and regulations are about the inti ca says about the way in which markets and other aspects, other areas of our society operate. So two weeks after the volcker rule was issued, you may not have read this, its not widely covered by the press except for the wall street journal, i think, is that the Banking Authority regulatory authorities were obliged or felt obliged to cut back on the volcker rule insofar as it applied to local banks. Why . Because it affected local banks in a way that the rule makers had not anticipated. These effects were dire, dire, indeed. Just one example. Another feature of our policy making system its rigidity where adaptability and flexibility are needed. Here i provide a number of examples again. The Postal Service has not adapted well to the new technological and market facts. Not, again, not because theyre stupid or indifferent to these changes. They actually have tried hard to convince congress to allow them to compete with fedex and other services, but congress has made it almost impossible for them to do that, in some cases prohibiting what would clearly be the rational response to that. Another example, the Voting Rights act of 1965. The Supreme Court was wrong, i believe, in its decision last year to strike down the section four formula of defining the jurisdictions that were covered, but it was absolutely right in its enunciation of the anachronistic nature of that formula in 2013 which is when the decision was rendered as distinguished from 1965 when it was enacted. A sixth element is the lack of credibility needed to secure the cooperation of other actors. This is extremely important and quite interesting. In part because and also dismaying because theres no good solution to this problem. The problem is this, that if youre going to induce other actors be they state and local governments or private actors to act in the way you want them to act in order for a policy to succeed. You have to assure them that the rules of the game arent going to change, that they can invest safely in the nature and the details of the program. But government cant do. That why cant it do that . Well, for perfectly good reason; government is supposed to be accountable to voters and their changing preferences, and so it cant keep its promises, if you will. And there are very few, if any, techniques that will enable the government to bond itself and lash itself to the mast with policies in ways that would secure the confident participation of those whose resources it needs to succeed. Perfect example of this, obamacare vastly expanded medicaid, but it and in order to induce states to expand their Medicaid Programs in the desired fashion, it offered to pay 100 of 100 of the costs after three years and after that it would pay, i think, its 90 . Many states didnt believe it. They thought this was like being given the gift o after baby elephant. Thats fine when you see the elephant, but then the el grant grows and grows and grows, and you have to feed him and house hip. So lots of states are not adopting these otherwise quite plausible and perhaps even desirable changes. Then theres the problem of mismanagement which is endemic, which is structural. And i have a large, lengthy discussion of fraud, waste and abuse in the government. I dont need to rehearse that there except to say that much of the fraud, waste and abuse are the result of structural factors embedded in the way in which government makes its decisions, including the complexity of programs and including includiny poor design of reimbursement techniques. But a major theme of my book is that markets are a full impediment to effective Public Policy. And many of you will say and i will agree in most cases that thats a good thing. But consider the features of markets that dog government efforts to tame them or to, or to live with them. The speed of markets kimed with the inedible slowness in of government. The diversity of markets. Again, the government regulates in a rather uniform, binary fashion. Youre either in or out, guilty or innocent, youre in this category or youre not in that category whereas the markets cater to it where they can find a fitch that is profitable. The information demands that markets place on regulators are very, very high. Demands that cannot be met by regulators. The price and substitution of markets means that when governor adopts a policy, it will usually raise the price. Sometimes it will attempt to lower the price, but it often raises the price of a sick service or Similar Service or activity. And, of course, the market spontsdz by trying to figure out ways to move as at a lower cost. And that may, citizen in many examples i discuss in the chapter undermine if not ultimate hi defeat the governors policy. Markets do not respect jurisdictional lines. And so not only is this a problem in terms of International Competition as with the basel rules with banking and international finance, but the creation of informal or black markets as a result of the ability of markets to evade the kinds of appliance that government draws. Political influence, of course, is exercised by Market Participants with, through campaign contributions, blue the influence wielded by a Large Company and other mechanisms. Of government policy on parts of its employees and investors. Those are real factors that ought to be represented robustly. Then enforcement obstacles that markets close to government there is a lot of reasons for that which i discussed and some of them are deeply rooted and unlikely to be changeable. The concept the economists have developed to explain why it will lead dissipate and incorporate those policies before they take effect to neutralize the intended effect of those policies in many cases. To other effects of markets that the two major portions of our law, government policy and social norms on the other. They have roles to play but they are no match for markets in most areas. The final effective markets is moral hazard which is yvettes. We have seen the consequences in recent years in connection with the Great Recession but countless programs with the moral hazard with the tendency of people to act in ways that will levants their interest with the policy makes that activity less costly. Lots of examples of moral hazard. Figure may and freddie mac with sobering examples of that. With the another structural problem of chapter two is the obstacles to implementation they are important. They are not circumvented and government attempts to overcome these in a variety of ways i defied the chapter in to the following categories. Attempting to perfect one dash perfect markets i have the discussion of their contract amtrak and the Economic Disaster is has been. Answer press aide markets, simplifying markets to have no longer discussion of a disaster about to happen the Ethanol Program and many other examples. We direct markets of the Community Reinvestment act to invest in areas they would not rather invest. Reintroducing markets markets, modify markets and recruiting markets i mean largely in the environmental area to use Market Mechanisms to be rendered more effective. To have some success and efforts to expand are largely of a successful but that is it area that Public Policy might be more compatible. That is to say those that assert themselves if they use an instrument of Public Policy which is all the time that is a form policy takes the tradeoff between the simplicity and complexity and ambiguity, and discretion with of features of regulation. And what goes along with it and the crowding out of spontaneous cooperation by the markets. And the bureaucracy which i emphasize the problems created by congressional influence extraordinary penetration or often for good reasons with the effects of policy coherence. However doing on time. So if i make i bet he did not know there were many federal officials that were nominated Deputy Assistant secretary, deputy administrator, a chief of staff to the Deputy Assistant, the layer has occurred in almost every department. And with the problems of the bureaucracy they are not contingent. The difficulties imposing discipline and the Senior Executive service and the difficulty to secure local compliance contracting out with up for management and the isolation from the reality that surrounded it and on the policy success i have a chapter by would not reverse i had written the oped that i hope the New York Times will publish to identify what i view as policy success and the chest of drawers lessons from those examples where as the vast majority of policies do not to. And we can discuss that with q a. That i have a chapter of remedies. They are incremental because i in of the incremental list. And that the world is too complex for our political world to predict with any confidence at all, the effects of a particular change will be. I decided not to propose fixs for particular programs but identify remedies that might cut across all Government Programs. And according to each of the Structural Conditions i have just laid out for you. I am out to a time. I appreciate your forbearance and i look forward to comments and your questions. [applause] before i let him take the chair i should have mentioned he is the author of six books one of which is health care before the obamacare crisis and most recently ive could recommend three languages of politics. With these obstacles of Government Action and hope you will hear from that. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this new book. The author refers to himself as a militant moderate that is alliteration and oxymoron. And also thinking of alliteration and we might not always describe ourselves the way we describe ourselves today. What struck me was very transitional. It could be profitably read or written by someone who was in the process to reevaluate and change them. To take 40 random College Students to put them into groups give 20 a copy that a placebo then come back five years to see if there is not more of libertarians that could be a gateway drug. [laughter] another play is to think of this book is placed somewhere on a journey thinking as climbing the mountain of the enlightenment along a path that eventually these to the fate of Higher Consciousness is not at the summit but some steps up the mountain. In my remarks i will talk about those steps and the remaining steps it could take. The first up is that it confronts the phenomenon of government failure. He does not mince words or sugarcoat that the exception rather than the rule you heard words like endemic and systematic that its the flavor of it very well. That is the first step up the mountain the next is he moves away and quite clearly rejects what is called the intention to say if the intention is good then the program is good and instead he was very forceful program see to be evaluated of effectiveness. Now for further steps that might be taken up the mountain the one step is concerns the chapter that he glossed over that i thought the criteria for government success ought to be tightened up of it. Because the old people are getting checks at least they are now. Not on a financially sound basis but i thank you have to be careful to call it a success from something based on financially unsound basis just like bernie made off. And it looked to be like government backing away from policy that was so conceived to begin with. With Immigration Reform the success of the right way to describe that and next the 1978 Airline Deregulation government was engaged to restrict entry and fixing prices for airlines and the regulation and backed away from that policy. I think calling those successes is misleading to suggest Government Intervention was successful but it was from backing away from intervention. The next up has to do with economics. I think the author has of a good grasp of neoclassical economics which is good bet you dont want to take it too serious. Neoclassical economics is focused very strongly and obsessed with the concept of equilibrium and pays relatively little attention to innovation and what id like to do is innovation not believing that markets are an equilibrium. We dont know if they get too good or bad or at all. The process of innovation you have to introduce experiments and learn from experiments than evolution as a result. Government has inferior markets of the senate that they cannot try as many experience experiments. No one organization has the ability or the will to engage of lots of experiments but it a market when one organization will not try something another will. The third step of the revolution that means throwing out the things that dont work and keeping those that do comments of market has the discipline of profit and loss were the government only has self evaluation. No organization will self evaluate with vigor of the profit and loss system. Said economic report came out with the chapter of evaluation as a tool to improve Government Programs. It reads as if they have taken some of the principles of this book apart. Or have taken them to heart to evaluate Government Programs for the effectiveness not just the intention but moreover gives us since they took the principles to hart five years before the book was published because the Obama Administration initiated a governmentwide effort to focus on valuations as soon as obama took office. Whether independently or from reading the book without methodology should produce violent results with cutbacks and terminations a real horror show but dont worry take your children safely to read about what happens as a result of this initiative on policy fact. The worst thing that happens is a couple small programs are told they will not get funding increased until they make improvements. As a taxpayer i just pitcher at the expense of rolling out the government Wide Initiative to develop a Program Since get all the agencies to comply them but that those benefits as a result and we lost. The initiative to see evaluation methodology while intended was ineffective. It is ironic but predictable but i dont think organizations selfie value rates effectively. If you need the discipline of profit and loss to get evolution that is the second step up the mountain and in the third step has to do with what i call the key to. Sometimes you go to a house and they cannot agree where to set the thermostat one wants to turn up the other wants to turn down. The heat then i think of it stands for highly educated technocratic elite. My idea they would like to turn up that hete more autonomy and authority more running room to pursue policies i want to turn down the hete. Do the opposite you heard the discussion of the impediments to Good Government and they included things like decentralization , checks and balances, a cultural distrust of Technical Expertise in getting to your point i want to see those things increase rather than did decrease them the final disagreement concerns if we want to turn up the heat or turn down the heat. And the audience having great educational credentials may be with teenage drivers with drivers license i think it is better they have licenses than they do not. But i still do not want to see a teenager get by friends in the car to go bar hopping put the policy approval takes on policy initiatives that are beyond anyones level of understanding and beyond anyones capability to execute effectively. With the teenagers the vast majority help there have the self restraint and knowledge to not go downtown bar hopping. But because a small minority dont have that self restraint i think we need social norms and legal restraints and to prevent them from doing that. I feel the same way about the highly educated technocratic elite. People in business and all assets assets of society have the self restraint and knowledge not to it imposes vast policy schemes that go beyond what anybody can understand about the complex system beyond the capability to a producer. Unfortunately there is a minority that does not have self restraint and knowledge and a lot of them end up in the media and academia some of the key is to have even more cultural norms and legal restraint to curb behavior. This book has taken a step up the mountain by delving into and focusing on failure and by rejecting the favor of cost effectiveness of further step to be more rigorous another step is to look at innovation economics or the impedimenta Government Faces with the experimental phase of the process and the evolution phase. Finally the next up would be to reconsider assumptions about the highly educated technocratic elite, a hete, that if i had the authors convert level and confidence of the technocratic elites and would be a moderate. On the other hand, if you have my sober assessment of the deficiencies deficiencies, overconfidence deficiencies, overconfidence , lack of self knowledge yourself restraint and he too would be a lowkey libertarian. [applause] would you like to Say Something in response . I will try to be brief because i agree with a great deal so i will just identify the points that i will entertain your questions and comments. With the criteria for success, i am much more careful than the doctor suggests with my discussion of these programs Social Security for example, first of all, i say that riding on a clean slate we would designed these differently so to have a mandatory retirement scheme where in 1935 where we initiate Retirement Savings accounts through i r as and more voluntary Market Driven schemes, that might be true and might not. I am a caustic agnostic even though i think any sensible person should be agnostic about that question even though we want to redesign these programs on the basis the existing programs have some defects with those they have not yet designed or implemented would not. So with Social Security i talk about precisely the challenges that lay ahead the solvency but in the case of Social Security and taking the basic design of the program as of a given rather than proposing a new way of financing retirements come other repairs of that system are fairly straightforward for politicians to come to terms but i have no doubt Immigration Reform that the abandonment would is extraordinarily important with the creation of a of much more diverse immigration flow is one of the greatest achievements of american and society. There are Serious Problems as we knows why would not reverse that debate i have written a lot about what ought to be done to fix that system. He is quite right a return to the market and i say as the policy not to a program to say that i think we should count as a success the governments repeal of that programs under a theory that they dont work and their absence will improve social welfare generally as an example of that. So that sets of criteria for success but i also emphasized reasonable people can disagree about a particular program and did you have my view but others might disagree. As far as neoclassical economics i could not agree more. I dont think anything suggests that i. M. In different or i am satisfied reached in a static world. The world is not static and i endorse the steps for emphasizing innovation with my brevity section the ways that might be done which is the standard for Biomedical Research and assessment with policy areas. A new small but burgeoning literature on how that might be done. With the heat categorial think it is true i want to turn up the heat at all but i have of less categorical approach to the questions then the doctor doesnt want to look each of these programs on its own merits at least any program that is plausible bought a copy may be ideal with Political Support i want to look on its merits and often the beets are instrumental to assess those programs. One example of a success that i cite that is controversial but i am confident i am right is the 1996 welfare reform which was the result of a variety of experimentation that we both endorse at the state level but those experiments were designed by hete there is a new book out called fighting for a good evidence. We will recount the story how difficult it was to design them to use their findings with policy terms. I am all for favoring hete or use the hete where they do the right thing with my conception i dont think anything is disqualifying about a highly educated technological he beats and they certainly exhibit at times with the bias that the doctor recounts but also open to new evidence more than non hete are and they have the technique mastered for designing to revaluate evidence to make better decisions. We have times for a few questions talking about logistics after questions we will take a break for lunch that is up one flight going up of a spiral staircase to purchase the book and possibly sign it then of light lunch for all of us and there is an elevator. When i call on you please wait until a person can bring the microphone so the audience can hear what you ask. When you begin we appreciate if you can identify yourself so we know more about the audience. In fact, two is asking the first question . I am with the public at risk for rum and i found this discussion a complex rendering of a complex problem. And it begs of a complex solution or implies one. I am a country pick so it is like up to your elbows that you try to find a program to ila teeeight long dash two deviate the consequences. Would it mower watching dash be more concise to have problematic proxys but nor does it bear the consequences of its risks. I would say yes. By and large that is an accurate description of one of the major problem san sources of failure of Government Policies from the Baltimore School of law. The last thing we think about is what i suggest is a sequel. The book is a terrific addressing failure by failure of endemic problems but the remedy is only a single chapter avoid like to see a whole book. [laughter] i will publish in a series but you are particularly wellsuited to do this all the abuse to the possibility in your introduction. Besides being the president or the founder or director of the comparative law bureau i can assure you there are lots of comparisons that will tell us that it can work and it does and walter will testify. I would encourage you to put together a group of people your behalf yale already go for it and show us how is done better or differently to get good ideas. I appreciate the offer. I will take it into consideration by eight but i explicitly did not do the research because other countries systems are so very different in ways that i discussed that it is very hard it is wisely spent and less than a thousand dollars doesnt vibrate the other 999 actually works. The book assessed and analyzed every scholarly study he could design long dash with those aimed at a large variety of programs. There is very little of this. Peter ross has set forth the laws of assessment the iron stainless steel that reminds me of Obamacare Insurance Exchange choices by discuss them here and it is very illuminating. Scientists were told published four times as many articles on distribution as they do on government effectiveness. Another famous political scientist says it is given no serious attention. There is less is in europe and here. So i am a little dubious but second, back to my original point, our system is so exceptional with american exceptional is some but to others it is not the difference between a system like ours of separated powers or the westminster system in the u. K. Is fast and permeates everything. They have better programs than we do and we should move to a parliamentary system i could not disagree more. We dont have a clue if that makes matters better or worse with the conditions here. I just have a question and a comment. Can you define the successes i would like to invite Canada Institute with its research to introduce because it may help of what i call high politics we dont see the day the offers that we cannot understand until we investigate i am open to talk about it. I thank you have to read the book ive flooded out there as best i can. I cannot respond more than that. One more question. Cato institute. I want to follow up with both speakers in what was suggested that to raise the question of the independent. We did not expect government evaluators would give us the independent evaluation of their programs but with the real expansion of the social side of domestic spending fe also sets up the think tank which was the urban institute and subsequently subsequently, i guess my question would be to what extent do you see those outside contactors capable to provide programs in terms of evaluation . And other ways to go about that with those that might overcome the problem that arnold points to. I dont have a clearcut answer. Defense is not the answer you were looking for. When i was in the department of Health Education and welfare i was responsible for a disbursing large funds for policy research on a large scale for typically the inconvenience experiments from five or six different cities the National Health insurance experiments and others. I think those contractors did a very good job. We supervised them pretty closely and it was excellent social science. With the antipoverty policies and National Health insurance proposals opposed to that research. With a good policy research or lots of other outside organizations. Looking at the individual products there is a bias it could be professional i dont see any way abound that except to have competitive assessments going on at the same time to bring these biases to the surface. In my view there is no point for policy evaluation that does not require things to make judgments to be affected by the usual. It does not address the problem. We had three components components, experimentation components, experimentation, learning and evolution. The evaluations by external contractors is part of the learning process. I did not say that the governments problem is it could not learn if they were working but the action that takes place as a result, the evolution. Where any organization it will do anything to avoid that. I am not saying government is different from the private sector. I know if you are confronted with profit or loss in a big way you are not inclined to take evolutionary change yourself. Yes you can get useful evaluations but in the end you will not get the evolution. I agree with that as of very good example is head start or outside evaluators and hhs has done very costly and extensive assessments over decades there is some dissent but uniform ratio of the positive effects of headstart erode by the third grade and sometimes over the summer. There is some contrasting claims. It is hard to say but anyone receiving that report from 2011 said maybe we should cut back to try Something Else or to begin with alternatives and that isnt what is done. It has made some minor changes that would have competitive applications from the list ranking programs that is good i suppose but it is a very good example. It is often to misrepresent. Todays represent this will be shown on cspan also within of the days on the Cato Institute web site with other videos. We will head of stairs also there are Restroom Facilities please join me to thank our guests. [applause] [inaudible conversations] to save your and the sixth extension is serious the reason we are and some say were only on the verge bbb can still prevent it and others say we are deep into its olivetti is were gi