I'm not sure the problem is that most politicians don't have a decent grasp of the power of incentives or lack a basic understanding in economics. Unfortunatel

I'm not sure the problem is that most politicians don't have a decent grasp of the power of incentives or lack a basic understanding in economics. Unfortunately I think they are in fact extremely adept at understanding incentive. Is it possible that you haven't carefully considered which incentives are driving their behaviour :).