In class yesterday, we discussed President Bush’s performance measurement tools, which are used to offer some sort of quantitative way of assessing how government programs are doing, and which ones should be kept and which ones cut. The tool itself is pretty blunt, and it isn’t hard to see why many D’s are accusing the Bushies of a) manipulating the results to bash programs they already knew they were going to cut, b) manipulating the results to exalt programs they already knew they were going to keep, and c) ignoring the results when it doesn’t suit them.
But the exciting thing isn’t how great the performance measurement tool is, but that it’s been put out there at all. Pessimistically, I wonder aloud when governments go through the motions of an evidence-based analysis, only to make decisions based solely on political considerations: we have to fund this program because it’s backed by someone who we owe a favor to, we should cut this program because it’ll make our core constituencies happy, etc. I’ve seen this happen at the federal, state, and city level.
And so it is nice to counterbalance that pessimism with an optimism that when evidence-based decision-making is introduced, no matter how blunt the tool, it can only sharpen and improve the policy-making process. Producers of data and analysis on both sides of the aisle will pile on with their findings, and over time the conversation will yield a better result than one that is more subjective in nature. As my professor would point out, this process will be no less political, but at least it is evidence-based.
The recognition of stat geeks like Billy Beane in baseball and the popularity of science-based shows like CSI are indication that there is a growing societal acceptance of evidence as a way of determining what is the right course of action. This is in direct contrast to previous generations in which scouts promoted athletes who simply looked the part even if the stats didn’t show that they were good players, or cops arrested bad guys by using their gut and their fists. Politicians may continue to employ political devices to make decisions, but once you let the evidence-based approach out of the bag, it’s hard to put it back in; future policymakers will have no choice but to at least consider the evidence, if not be healthily and fairly constrained by it.
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