Like kweinber, I've also advocated this for years. I'll accept that it's hard, but I won't accept that it's impossible. Think of it as "scientific government.

Like kweinber, I've also advocated this for years. I'll accept that it's hard, but I won't accept that it's impossible. Think of it as "scientific government." We institute falsifiable hypotheses and test them. This can only be done by folks who want the right answer however, and not too many people in government are like that. They may want their answer to be right, but of course that is not the same thing. At the very least, set up a criterion (or criteria) at which we will agree that a policy has failed. Betsy DeVos is being disruptive in U.S. education. Will it work? Take the US rankings now. If in four years our ranking has fallen, we try something else. Try a tax cut. If the economy is x% worse 18 months after it going into effect, it failed. I'm sure when we first start this we will struggle to get the metrics right and to ask the right questions. But we should aim in that direction. I suspect that the reason we don't has to do with money, and in a bad way.