Why Accidental Policies Define Modern America

Many of the core systems that define modern American life emerged not through careful design, but by accident.

Social Security numbers, originally created just for retirement tracking, have become America's default national ID, required for various purposes beyond their original intent. This over-reliance increases the risk of identity theft, as these numbers are key to accessing financial information. Similarly, 401(k) plans came about from a law intended just make a technical clarification about deferred compensation for a few executives. These now shape how tens of millions of Americans save for retirement (After seeing their widespread use, Reagan even wanted to ban them initially).

This sort of unintended policy evolution is common. Ongoing examples include the fact that NASA’s yearly budget is smaller than what the U.S. military spent on air conditioners in the Middle East, despite NASA’s historical high rate of return on investment and popularity. Also, the continuing lack of a system where Americans can easily own and transfer their medical data between their providers is a key reason why clinical trials on COVID medicines and early cancer detection screenings were done in the UK, not the US.

We end up with a status quo that no one wanted.

Voter empowerment and deliberative civic engagement tend to produce policies better aligned with people’s preferences. Australia has compulsory voting to represent the full populace. Switzerland governs via frequent referendums letting citizens weigh in directly. Their politics may not be perfect, but at least there's a mechanism for channeling popular intent into policy.

If the U.S. Congress were more intentional, it might adopt life-saving policies like making organ donation opt-out instead of opt-in—a change Swiss citizens overwhelmingly approved in 2021, saving thousands of lives.

The core challenge is that American political gridlock and polarization make it extremely difficult to be craft comprehensive bipartisan plans about big policy questions and institutional design. It's not that either party actively wants millions of elderly Americans to keep working until they die. But the lack of intentionality and planning on issues like retirement policy has produced an unintentionally harsh status quo that serves neither side's interests.

As Ezra Klein explains in his book Why We're Polarized, shifts in Congressional power were rarer events before 1982. This stability incentivized cooperation across the aisle – parties had to work together to get things done. Nowadays, with more frequent power shifts, the calculus has changed. Each party focuses more on defeating the opposition than on bipartisan collaboration. After all, why help your rivals if you believe it will undermine your own side's interests down the line?

In Tyranny of the Minority, Harvard professors also highlight how the modern filibuster in the Senate compounds these issues. While initially, a filibuster took a lot of effort (speaking for hours nonstop), senators only have to signal their intent to filibuster — and they use this often. As a result, most bills now de facto require a 60-vote supermajority to pass the Senate. In today's divided Congress, such consensus is extremely difficult.

Thus, we find ourselves unable to tackle major challenges like crafting a retirement system or even seemingly smaller yet critical issues like wait lists for organ donations.

The path forward involves improving our democracy and, in the short term, incentivizing bipartisanship so that we can begin even having those discussions.

(The two book links are affiliate links.)