Occam's Razor Applied

Sent to Congresswoman Melissa Bean, Senator Dick Durbin and President-Elect Obama, November 29, 2008

In my continued dedication to become more involved in and knowledgeable of the decisions, policies and directions of our government, it has occurred to me that the American people would be well served by an application of Occam’s Razor to the business of governing our country.

“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.” –William of Occam

Although Occam’s Razor is traditionally applied to mathematical and/or scientific models, I believe the principal has decided merit for government policy creation.

The American people have become disengaged from the political process. One of the heartening things about this most recent election cycle was that, regardless of party affiliation or individual views, millions of American’s were engaged. The election cycle is obviously over, the drama of modern-day campaigns has faded into the background and our elected leaders are settling in for the less glamorous task of actually running the country.

I fear that the American people will, once again, become frustrated, disengaged and cynical. The challenges that lie ahead will require that the entire country pulls together and acts in a spirit of fairness, unity and betterment of The United States of America. This, granted, is a tall order given our extraordinarily diverse country.

I believe that one of the reasons that the American people are, more often than not, disengaged from the political process is that we have created systems that are extraordinarily complex and foster entire industries dedicated, in large part, to finding ways around the rules (tax codes, regulations, etc.)

The cynical side of me believes that our codes, regulations and laws are intentionally complex, vague and porous. It does not take much of a cynic to believe that our laws and regulations are intentionally complex, but how porous, how vague are they designed to be? On some days I believe that we have imperfect laws designed by imperfect people within a system of checks and balances that requires compromise—our leaders are doing their best but some things work out better than others.

On other days, I believe that legislation and regulations are intentionally both vague and porous. “This will sound good to the American people, but actually has anything but their best interests at heart once applied.”

Out of frustration, the American people often resign themselves to letting the inmates run the asylum (no offense to you as, I suppose, one of the inmates).

I realize that our country and our world is a complex place. But, much more complexity is created than is needed in reality. I also realize that extensive complexity is a jobs creation plan given the thousands upon thousands of Americans who work for firms dedicated in one way or the other to interpreting, manipulating or beating the system (accounting firms, legal firms, etc).

However, I believe that if our codes, regulations and legislation were simplified the many highly intelligent people working in these sectors could repurpose themselves to contribute more productively to the betterment of our country.

If Occam’s Razor were applied to governing the U.S., we would not necessarily need new regulation after new regulation….new code, after new code. Instead, we would apply simplified and common sense thinking to those regulations and codes already on the books.

If common sense/simplified thinking would have been applied to AIG’s credit default swap activity, this activity would have been regulated as insurance in line with the rest of AIG’s insurance activities. We would not have allowed AIG and others involved in credit default swap activity to play word games that has cost the American people dearly.

If common sense/simplified thinking is applied to our corporate tax codes we would not have effective corporate tax rates all over the board (from my research the effective tax rates of the Fortune 500 are all over the board from negative tax rates for numerous years in a row, to 5%, to 10%, to 21% to 50%).

If the Democratic Party wants, as stated, for the American people to be actively involved in the “Change We Need,” we must execute based on clear, straight-forward thinking that stands up to the glaring light of common sense.

“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.” –William of Occam