September 30, 2013

THE MESS IN WASHINGTON

We’re hearing now that the government is on the verge of being shut down because congress cannot agree on a budget.  Opinions vary as to which party is to blame for this and also how much does a temporary shutdown really matter.  My thoughts on this don’t really focus on these questions but rather on the more basic question of why our government is apparently so incapable of dealing with issues of any kind.  It seems all we witness is ranker, finger pointing and total lack of cooperation between the parties to resolve issues.  Many feel that the reason for this is that rather than desiring to solve issues, each politician is primarily concerned with destroying his opposition in order to further his or her own personal interests.  It’s hard to argue against that opinion.

Rather than focusing more today on the negative, I would like to paint a positive  scenario where Washington could be productive and actually accomplish something beneficial for the people they were elected to serve.  Actually, I’ve already suggested a process for rationally dealing with issues in the book “A Path To The Gold”.  The process described, probabilistic rationalism, is simply based on what one would think to be a self-evident idea, i.e., the best way to solve a problem or to reach a desired goal is to follow the route that has the greatest probability of success.  If you wish to drive from New York to Chicago in the shortest possible time, why would take any route other than the one that has the greatest probability of achieving that goal. Most of us would be much more likely to select the route following the turnpikes through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana than to select a circuitous route north up through Canada or one going south through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  Why can’t congress adopt a similar rational approach when dealing with national issues?

I think they fail on several levels.  Aside from the fact that solving national issues is really secondary to enhancing their personal wealth and careers, their initial failure is an inability to clearly define the issue being addressed.  With respect to the current situation, some feel that our national debt and fiscal responsibility are the problem that needs to be addressed while others feel that funding ObamaCare and the rest of the federal budget is the key problem.  In other words, half of the congress views the issue as traveling from New York to Chicago, while the other half views the issue as traveling from New York to Atlanta.  Agreeing on the exact issue to be addressed is step one in being able to accomplish anything.  If they could ever get beyond that, step two is to agree on the goal.  Is the goal in our travel example to get to Chicago in the least amount of time or is to take the most scenic route?  How we arrive at the decision providing the greatest probability of success critically depends on specifying a clear and unambiguous goal.  Finally, if they could ever accomplish the above, arriving at the solution that provides the greatest probability of success simply involves determining the groups collective assessment of which route provides that high level of success probability.  As described in “A Path To The Gold”, that requires cooperation and honesty, traits rarely found in politicians.