Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (71 page)

47
. Ron Nixon, “Income Guarantee Swells Crop Insurance,”
New York Times
, May 2, 2013.

48
. Henry Olsen, “Food (Stamps) for Thought,”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358914/food-stamps-thought-henry-olsen
.

49
. Another example is the Supplemental Agricultural Disaster Assistance program enacted in 2008.

50
. See Peter H. Schuck & Richard J. Zeckhauser,
Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples
(2006), especially chap. 4.

51
. John D. Donahue,
The Warping of Government Work
(2008), 138.

52
. Lawrence H. Summers, “Unemployment,”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Unemployment.html
; Kory Kroft, Fabian Lange, & Matthew J. Notowidigdo,
Duration Dependence and Labor Market Conditions: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment
, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18387 (2013); Henry Farber & Robert Valletta, “Do Extended Unemployment Benefits Lengthen Unemployment Spells? Evidence from Recent Cycles in the U.S. Labor Market,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 19048, 2013.

53
. R. Kent Weaver,
Ending Welfare as We Know It
(1998); Michael J. Graetz & Jerry L. Mashaw,
True Security: Rethinking American Social Insurance
(1999), 296–99.

54
. George P. Shultz, Gary S. Becker, Michael J. Boskin, John Cogan, Allan Meltzer, & John Taylor, “A Better Strategy for Faster Growth,”
Wall Street Journal
, March 25, 2013.

55
. Moss,
When All Else Fails
, 124.

56
. Daniel Gade, “Why the VA Is Buried in Disability Claims,”
Wall Street Journal
, June 23, 2013.

57
.
Schuck & Zeckhauser,
Targeting in Social Programs
, 1–2.

58
. Charles Murray, “The 3 Laws of Social Programs,”
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/the-3-laws-of-social-programs/
.

59
. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Profiting from a Child’s Illiteracy,”
New York Times
, December 9, 2012.

60
. Alicia H. Munnell, “Lessons from the Income Maintenance Experiments,”
http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/conf/conf30/conf30a.pdf
; Binyamin Appelbaum, “Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents,”
New York Times
, March 20, 2013.

60
. Felicity Barringer, “Homes Keep Rising in West Despite Growing Wildfire Threat,”
New York Times
, July 6, 2013, A10.

62
. Tyler Cowen, “The New Tug of War over Medicaid,”
New York Times
, July 15, 2012.

63
. Leslie Scism & Jon Hilsenrath, “Workers Stuck in Disability Stunt Economic Recovery,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 6–7, 2012.

64
. David Autor, Mark Duggan, & Jonathan Gruber,
Moral Hazard and Claims Deterrence in Private Disability Insurance
, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18172 (2012).

65
. Joyce Manchester, Congressional Budget Office,
Testimony: The Social Security Disability Insurance Program
, March 14, 2013,
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43995_DI-Testimony.pdf
.

66
. See, e.g., Timothy Williams, “70 Indicted in Puerto Rico in Social Security Fraud Linked to an Agency Employee,”
New York Times
, August 22, 2013.

67
. Nicholas Eberstadt,
A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic
(2012), 52–58. On the alarming drop in the employment ratio, particularly for males, see Nicholas Eberstadt, “The Astonishing Collapse of Work in America,” July 10, 2013,
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/07/10/the_astonishing_collapse_of_work_in_america_100465.html
.

68
. Autor et al.,
Moral Hazard and Claims Deterrence
, quoted in Scism & Hilsenrath, “Workers Stuck in Disability.”

69
. See, e.g., David H. Autor & Mark Duggan,
Supporting Work: A Proposal for Modernizing the U.S. Disability Insurance System
,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2010/12/disability%20insurance%20autor/12_disability_insurance_autor.pdf
.

70
. William K. Rashbaum, “600 Long Island Rail Road Retirees to Lose Disability Pay in U.S. Inquiry,”
New York Times
, July 2, 2013.

71
. Richard Vedder, “The Wages of Unemployment,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 16, 2013.

72
. According to the
DSM-IV
, 46.4 percent of Americans will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetimes, and “the new manual will likely make it even easier to get a diagnosis.” Robin S. Rosenberg, “Abnormal Is the New Normal,”
Slate
, April 12, 2013,
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/04/diagnostic_and_statistical_manual_fifth_edition_why_will_half_the_u_s_population.html
.

73
. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Affordable Care Act Expands Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Benefits and Federal Parity Protections for 62 Million Americans,” February 20, 2013,
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2013/mental/rb_mental.cfm
.

74
. The discussion that follows is taken from Charles Wolf, Jr., “A Theory of ‘Non-Market’ Failures,”
The Public Interest
, Spring 1979, 114–33.

75
. Alan S. Gerber & Eric M. Patashnik, “Government Performance: Missing Opportunities to Solve Problems,” in Gerber & Patashnik, eds.,
Promoting the General Welfare: New Perspectives on Government Performance
(2006), 11–13.

76
. Michael Grunwald,
The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era
(2012).

77
. Philip Selznick,
TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization
(1949).

78
.
Ted Gayer & W. Kip Viscusi, “Are Pollution Controls Worth Their Costs?” July 19, 2012,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/07/19-energy-regulations-gayer
.

79
. See, e.g., Rachel E. Barkow, “Prosecutorial Administration: Prosecutor Bias and the Department of Justice,”
University of Virginia Law Review
99 (2013): part II.A.

80
. Carl Bialik, “Americans Stumble on Math in Big Issues,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 7, 2012.

81
. “Although 93% of their homes contain at least one Bible and a third claim to read it at least once a week, 54% cannot name the authors of the Gospels, 63% do not know what a Gospel is, 58% cannot name five of the Ten Commandments, and 10% think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife! Indeed, a recent survey found an astonishing number of born-again Christians whose views seem to flatly contradict the Bible.” Peter H. Schuck,
Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance
(2003), 269–70, source cited in note 273.

82
. Larry M. Bartels, “The Irrational Electorate,”
Wilson Quarterly
, Autumn 2008,
http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/how_stupid.pdf
. See also Christopher S. Elmendorf & David Schleicher, “Districting for a Low-Information Electorate,”
Yale Law Journal
121 (2012): 1846–86.

83
. Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, & Amos Tversky,
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
(1982).

84
. Meghan Busse et al, “Projection Bias in the Car and Housing Markets,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 18212.

85
. Thomas Gilovich,
How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life
(1991).

86
. See Alan Schwartz, “Consumer Regulation and the Irrationality Assumption” (unpublished manuscript, 2012).

87
. Cass R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade, & Ilana Ritov, “Predictably Incoherent Judgments,”
Stanford Law Review
54 (2002): 1153–1216.

88
. Cass R. Sunstein, “The Law of Group Polarization,”
Journal of Political Economy
10 (2002): 175–95.

89
. Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein,
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Welfare, and Happiness
(2008). See also Cass R. Sunstein, “Human Error and Paternalism,” Storrs Lecture presented at Yale Law School, November 2012.

90
. See Ryan Bubb & Richard H. Pildes, “How Behavioral Economics Trims Its Sails and Why” (unpublished manuscript, 2013).

91
. Dan Kahan, “Fixing the Communications Failure,”
Nature
463 (2010): 296–297 (an overview of research findings).

92
. Chris Mooney,
The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality
(2012). Economist-editorialist Paul Krugman endorses Mooney’s position; see Krugman, “Grand Old Planet,”
New York Times
, November 23, 2012.

93
. Dan M. Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith, & Donald Braman, “Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus,”
Journal of Risk Research
14 (2011): 147–74; Dan M. Kahan,
Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection: An Experimental Study
, Cultural Cognition Lab Working Paper 107 (2012).

94
. See, e.g., Louise Kuo Habacus, Mary Holland, & Kim Mack Rosenberg, eds.,
Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children
, 2nd ed., 2012.

95
. See, e.g., Jon Entine, “Anti-GM Corn Study Reconsidered: Seralini Finally Responds to Torrent of Criticism,”
http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/anti-gm-corn-study-reconsidered-seralini-finally-responds-to-torrent-of-criticism
(on the genetically modified corn debate).

96
. See
chapter 10
.

97
. Jonathan Haidt,
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
(2012).

98
.
Bryan Caplan,
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
(2007).

99
. Ibid., 156–60.

CHAPTER 6: INFORMATION, INFLEXIBILITY, INCREDIBILITY, AND MISMANAGEMENT

1
. Damien Cave, “Long Border, Endless Struggle,”
New York Times
, March 3, 2013.

2
. U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Goals and Measures Not in Place to Inform Border Security Status and Resource Needs,” GAO 13–330T, February 26, 2013,
http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/652331.pdf
.

3
. Compare, e.g., Sheila Bair,
Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself
(2012); Peter Wallison,
Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act
(2013); Neil Barofsky,
Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
(2012); and Richard A. Posner,
A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into Depression
(2008).

4
. Steven Kelman,
Procurement and Public Management: The Fear of Discretion and the Quality of Government Performance
(1990). The review is Jerry L. Mashaw, “The Fear of Discretion in Government Procurement,”
Yale Journal on Regulation
8 (1991): 512–13.

5
. See James Q. Wilson,
Thinking about Crime
(1975); and Peter H. Schuck, “Thinking about Crime,”
New Republic
, December 20, 1975, 26–27 (review of Wilson book).

6
. Peter H. Schuck, “Refugee Burden-Sharing: A Modest Proposal,”
Yale Journal of International Law
22 (1997): 243–97.

7
. 78 Federal Register 42251–52, July 15, 2013.

8
. Floyd Norris, “Clouds Seen in Regulators’ Crystal Ball for Banks,”
New York Times
, January 11, 2013 (on Office of Financial Research).

9
. Gretchen Morgenson, “In an F.H.A. Checkup, a Startling Number,”
New York Times
, December 2, 2012; Gretchen Morgenson, “Study Shows a Pattern of Risky Loans by F.H.A.,”
New York Times
, December 13, 2012.

10
. Michael S. Schmidt & Charlie Savage, “Gaps in F.B.I. Data Undercut Background Checks for Guns,”
New York Times
, December 21, 2012.

11
. Erica Goode & Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Legal Curbs Said to Hamper A.T.F. in Gun Inquiries,”
New York Times
, December 26, 2012.