Follow the Leader?

One of the things that has occurred to me over the past several weeks as the morning papers have become filled with grotesque examples of political dysfunction in America is that many state and federal policymakers simply aren't very knowledgable about contemporary policy issues. This is an issue that Ezra Klein touched upon in a post last week, but I feel like he stopped short of giving it a full analysis. Toward the end of his post, though, he seems to get at the root of the problem:

When I've asked Hill staff and elected officials about this, I've gotten an interesting answer: Think about what you need to do to become a politician, they say. Rise up in your local party leadership. Raise a lot of money. Get yourself quoted in the media. Campaign effectively. You don't really need to know that much about policy. And so a lot of elected officials simply don't know much about policy. Even if they wanted to become known as problem solvers and thinkers, they don't have the chops for it, and the pace of modern campaigning means they never have time to develop those chops, either. It's a depressing thought.

Depressing, indeed. I see this phenomenon all of the time at college where the upper echelon of students can be broken into two camps: those who pursue leadership positions that garner them visibility and decision-making power, and those who devote themselves to in-depth research and a heavy course-load in order to gain a complete understanding of a specific subject. Rarely does one find an individual who falls into both of these camps. Although it is likely that innate personality differences have something to do with this (extroverts are more drawn to positions that allow them to become public figures, whereas introverts prefer to quietly go about their own work), I think that Klein is correct to point out that part of the problem is structural. Those seeking positions of leadership and authority spend a disproportionate amount of their time building personal connections and navigating social networks, and therefore have much less time for studying and research in a particular field. Those who do spend their time immersed in academic work often lose out on valuable social capital that their leadership-oriented counterparts obtain by attending parties, joining elite social organizations and asserting themselves in the collegiate community. This leads to an unfortunate dynamic where the students who graduate with the much sought-after "leadership credentials" aren't actually the ones who are best qualified to be making decisions about public policy.

Thus, America winds up with folks like John Boehner as the minority leader in the House of Representatives and Mitch McConnell as the minority leader in the Senate. Boehner may have a nice tan and the ability to charm his acquaintances on the golf course, but he has also demonstrated a total ignorance of climate science by comparing industrial carbon emissions to cow farts. McConnell, for his part, may have been a fine student body president at the University of Lousiville and was obviously likeable enough to become a member of Phi Kappa Tau, but he has proven his economic illiteracy by asserting that the Bush tax cuts actually increased government revenue rather than decreased it despite statements and data from Bush's own economic team suggesting otherwise. This problem isn't merely confined to Republicans, either. Democrat Gerry Connolly of Northern Virginia has also staked out several outlandish positions on economic policy in recent months, raising questions about his own competence in that field.

As with many problems, though, this dichotomy of leadership vs. expertise could be largely solved through structural reform. I'm a fan of this idealized political system put forth by Matt Yglesias in which technocratic bodies in the executive branch draw up policies themselves and then send them to elected legislatures to be voted upon (note: I do not support the final step that Yglesias proposes, that of national referendums). There have been a few encouraging steps taken in this direction by the Obama administration, notably the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board to handle Medicare cost control, but we obviously have a long way to go. I know, however, that I would much prefer having actual experts like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke drafting a comprehensive package of financial reform that could sent for an up-or-down vote in the Senate rather than having twerps like Scott Brown messing with it at the 11th hour in order to extract a few final goodies for their special constituencies.