I’m not saying it’s “just that simple”. It isn’t. But the lack of political will to just do this obvious thing, is emblematic of the more general fact that if we can’t solve this, there’s little else we can solve that isn’t executive-order “tinkering around the edges” or industry insider-fueled skullduggery.
And this is basically a generalized summary statement of the problem with technocratic politics: Despite their professed love of “nuance” and insistence on “appreciating complexity”, technocrats spend most of their time trying to identify the One Wierd Trick - the angle on a problem whose conventional partisan solution has been stalled in Normal Congress, which they hope gives them a backdoor to implementing the conventional solution they secretly want but which makes them look like partisan extremists. Think “the public option”, but back in 2008: although mainstream now, it was thought of at the time as a backdoor to sneaking in universal healthcare.
And in that example lies the problem with One Wierd Tricks: They don’t work! (just like the public option didn’t) Using the Normal/Secret Congress frame of analysis, it’s pretty clear that OWTs do the exact opposite of what you would want to do if you’re trying to sneak a technocratic solution through the back door (IE Secret Congress), because they make the public aware of the OWT and tie it back to an already-polarized issue in Normal Congress. Instead of polarizing an unpolarized issue, you should want to just kind of quietly push it through Secret Congress; but technocrats view themselves as Sorkinic Heroes appealing to a mythical Median American Voter who always agrees with them, so they see zero downside to announcing that they’ve Solved The Problem. The fact that this play has literally never worked for them tends to get obscured by (1) the tendency of the body politic to, at its own inexorably slow pace, eventually adopt policies proposed by previous generations of technocrats, which today’s technocrats happily take credit for, and (2) the occasional accidental successes like late 2020’s green energy bill, when technocrats fail to sufficiently publicize their OWTs, thus allowing technocratic policies to win the day in Secret Congress and actually get passed1.
The best analogy I can think of is if the Philadelphia Eagles’ entire line kept getting their assignments wrong on the Philly Special play, but because the other team wasn’t paying attention, they kept managing to score on a play that they’d technically botched.
Pay The (Friggin') UI Remainder Benefits As A Re-Employment Bonus
Pay The (Friggin') UI Remainder Benefits As A Re-Employment Bonus
Pay The (Friggin') UI Remainder Benefits As A Re-Employment Bonus
Duh.
I’m not saying it’s “just that simple”. It isn’t. But the lack of political will to just do this obvious thing, is emblematic of the more general fact that if we can’t solve this, there’s little else we can solve that isn’t executive-order “tinkering around the edges” or industry insider-fueled skullduggery.
And this is basically a generalized summary statement of the problem with technocratic politics: Despite their professed love of “nuance” and insistence on “appreciating complexity”, technocrats spend most of their time trying to identify the One Wierd Trick - the angle on a problem whose conventional partisan solution has been stalled in Normal Congress, which they hope gives them a backdoor to implementing the conventional solution they secretly want but which makes them look like partisan extremists. Think “the public option”, but back in 2008: although mainstream now, it was thought of at the time as a backdoor to sneaking in universal healthcare.
And in that example lies the problem with One Wierd Tricks: They don’t work! (just like the public option didn’t) Using the Normal/Secret Congress frame of analysis, it’s pretty clear that OWTs do the exact opposite of what you would want to do if you’re trying to sneak a technocratic solution through the back door (IE Secret Congress), because they make the public aware of the OWT and tie it back to an already-polarized issue in Normal Congress. Instead of polarizing an unpolarized issue, you should want to just kind of quietly push it through Secret Congress; but technocrats view themselves as Sorkinic Heroes appealing to a mythical Median American Voter who always agrees with them, so they see zero downside to announcing that they’ve Solved The Problem. The fact that this play has literally never worked for them tends to get obscured by (1) the tendency of the body politic to, at its own inexorably slow pace, eventually adopt policies proposed by previous generations of technocrats, which today’s technocrats happily take credit for, and (2) the occasional accidental successes like late 2020’s green energy bill, when technocrats fail to sufficiently publicize their OWTs, thus allowing technocratic policies to win the day in Secret Congress and actually get passed1.
The best analogy I can think of is if the Philadelphia Eagles’ entire line kept getting their assignments wrong on the Philly Special play, but because the other team wasn’t paying attention, they kept managing to score on a play that they’d technically botched.