Congress’ Tech Policy Knowledge Gap

“Suppose you were an idiot,” Mark Twain once quipped, “and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.” Like Twain, libertarians tend not to think highly of elected officials. We view them as corrupt, in cahoots with interest groups, and obsessed with politicking instead of governing.

And, as Twain quipped, dumb. Oh, so, dumb. Who can forget Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) fretting aloud that an island might tip over if too many soldiers are stationed on one side of it? And how about Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who freaked people out by claiming al Qaeda had camps near the U.S.-Mexico border? Does a week go by without one of the 535 members of our national legislature popping off inanely? Probably not.

Indeed, as Twain’s quote indicated, Congress never has been filled with Solons, to say nothing of Erasmuses. Even our much revered Founders made some seriously wrongheaded decisions. (See the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, to cite only one example among many.)

But stupidity in our national legislature is a feature of representative democracy. Americans want to choose their leaders; they do not wish to have unaccountable mandarins imposing rulership. (Hence our current battle against the administrative state.) Congress lacks wisdom, in short, because Congress is us. After all, we are not a nation comprised wholly or even mostly of expert policymakers. We are store clerks, construction workers, and telemarketers, and the national legislature is simply the place where our partial views and diverse interests get bargained out into policy that hopefully we all can live with. (James Madison’s Federalist 10 is about as clear-eyed and unsentimental an account of this truth as can be found.)

But this “feature” of representative democracy is also a bug because, as it turns out, when non-expert policymakers craft policy, they often do it poorly. For example, no one wants Congress enacting policies that make us worse off, or that delay or stifle technologies that improve our lives. And yet this kind of bad policy happens with lamentable frequency. Pluralistic politics inevitably features some self-serving interests that are more powerful and politically persuasive than others. This is why government often undertakes bailouts and other actions that are odious to the public writ large….(Read more)