An Idea About Ideas

“It is money, money, money! Not ideas, not principles, but money that reigns supreme in American politics,” quoth Robert Byrd. A cynical observation from one of America’s longest serving Senators. But perhaps true.

Our Constitutional Republic is not aging well. Our naïve notions of what money can do are screwing it up.

In a recent coffee-shop visit with a colleague, we agreed that the stature of families and communities is crucial for a healthy society, and these bonds have deteriorated in recent generations. My colleague asserted that federal money should be directed to this issue, as opposed to defense where we spend more than the rest of the world. My reaction was spending to redirect social outcomes rarely worked, and usually ended up with adverse consequences. We didn’t resolve our point of disagreement. As usual with this colleague, we parted respectfully, reflective of the other’s points. Civil. It’s one reason I love my colleague. And coffee shops.

Except for sharing mutual respect, this dispute is emblematic of society right now. How to use money for constructive social purpose? The knee-jerk conservative response is “you can’t” and the knee-jerk progressive response is “you’re only as serious as the money you commit.”

The answer lies somewhere in between.

As obscure as it may seem, my context is manufacturing. My experiences therein are innumerable. I have made enough mistakes to write a book. I have also succeeded enough to characterize what works. In short, it’s “know-how.”

Imagine you oversee a manufacturing process that is uncompetitive, and your Board of Directors asks, “How much will it cost to improve results?” To answer, you need an intimate understanding of the process. Are the inputs well controlled? Does a machine need attention? Is the layout proper? Are workers skilled, trained, and informed? Answering these questions directs you to solutions, many of which may not even require money, except for what you’ve spent to know. My experience has been that the best results come from simplifying, eliminating steps, and alleviating non-value-added constraints. Investments thereafter can be made with pinpoint accuracy, providing the best possible financial leverage. This often becomes invisible to budgets as improvements pay for themselves in real time. On occasion, expensive overhauls are required, when significant money must be allocated and weighed against its other uses. However, especially in that case, the “know-how” is even more important.

Invariably, the metrics include time, space, quality, etc.. These measurements qualify the work and direct the effort. Results are quantified and reported back to the Board in terms of the cost and the financial impact. Money is a fabulous measurement tool. It shows whether the effort is beneficial and to what degree.

As an instrument of correction, though, I assert money is of dubious value. Let’s assume the Board had said, “Here is a million dollars to improve that process. Go do it.” Certainly, the money can be spent. But measuring progress by the money spent defies common sense.

If our federal government serves as our national Board of Directors, their most immediate tool to affect change is funding levels for headline initiatives. Read any newsletter from your Congressperson and that’s what they will highlight. The ineffectiveness is obvious. Economic results of prior spending are rarely reported. Perhaps they are never even measured. Once a spending Rubicon is crossed, we simply absorb it. We continue funding ineffective ideas, apparently forever. As our federal debt balloons, we invent notions of how it doesn’t matter. Even if we believe that, which I don’t, there should still be some metric to demonstrate the spending is worth it. Federal debt has increased relative to GDP from 64% in 2008 to 120% in 2023. Doesn’t this demonstrate that the federal government increasingly creates less real value?

My bias is fiscal conservatism, but I’m not a balanced budget hawk. In my professional life, I often assert that good ideas shouldn’t be ignored for lack of funding. In fact, if ideas are truly good, they will attract funding. My coffee-shop dispute emanates from the impulse to spend in the absence of a good idea.

Right now, policy ideas are the exclusive purview of our party elites and bought-and-paid-for associations. Frankly, they suck. Irrespective of party. Just look at the big stuff done this century. Spending on public education results in a less educated public. Spending on public health results in a less healthy public. Spending on military defense results in an increasingly ill-prepared military. Spending to support families with children results in less family formation and fewer children.

OK. Maybe I’m making gratuitous use of the word “results.” Maybe these things would be even worse if not for the spending. But the public seeks a benefit, not a budget line. We need to quit pretending that allocating money automatically does anything constructive.

In a paragraph above, I highlighted “…except for what you’ve spent to know.” Big benefits derive from figuring out how things really work. Creating know-how. In my opinion, this is where we are deficient. Ideation. We need to get our smart people to work on our hard problems. Figure them out. Improving our Constitutional Republic is certainly worth some attention.

We have smart people. We just need organization. My mental model is Obama’s Simpson-Bowles Commission on fiscal responsibility of 2010. Suppose we established a federally funded “Constitutional Governance Policy Institute.” The initial executive council could consist of Bill Clinton, George Bush, Mitt Romney, and Kyrsten Sinema. (Or someone else. My idea… They represent the equivalent of “emeritus” positions on Boards of Directors. I like the fact that the two ex-presidents have enough distance from their regimes to be circumspect. I like the fact that the two ex-senators are exiles from their parties.) This council will establish commissions and recruit participants to develop policy proposals on specific issues of public significance. Pay inventors, historians, philosophers, sociologists, and thinkers to focus on big problems and investigate ideas to counter party narratives. Talk to people! Read some Substacks!

They would not be empowered to enact anything. The Institute would provide the platform to develop and socialize new and thoughtful ideas to strengthen our Republic, as opposed to pitching partisan taglines. Arm our legislators with some know-how and give us coffee-shop people something to sink our teeth into!

Simpson-Bowles was good work, and it made a lot of news. Obama’s instincts were good, but formal legislation was never offered to Congress. In my opinion, we are worse off for that. We should try again. And again. If I were advising a President, I would push this idea hard until I got fired!