The Governance Hypothesis

#enterprisearchitecture #government

The Hypothesis: It’s “We the People”, Stupid!

A Quick Status Check

So, here we are folks – ONE year into the Trump presidency, and on the verge of yet another government shutdown at the time of this writing! The practice of passing month-to-month spending bills (i.e. CRs – Continuing Resolutions) at the last minute to avert the shutdown has now become the norm, and is not the exception anymore. And we haven’t even come to the debt-ceiling debate yet – remember that one? Also, I can’t seem to recall when was the last time we had a budget passed that provided for funding through an entire fiscal year in this country. Fine way to run a $19T economy if you ask me. But this isn’t the only form of chaos savaging the country and its millions of citizens at the moment:

1.????IMMIGRATION: The DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) standoff, and hundreds of thousands of young futures in jeopardy as a direct aftermath. No permanent immigration policy in sight, and doesn’t seem like we will have one anytime soon.

2.????TAX 'REFORM': This wasn’t a tax reform, but the tax cut that was passed in the guise of reform explodes the deficit even further, and was passed on the basis of very questionable math and economic predictions (to state it rather mildly). Moreover, the income gap is expected to only increase more, which would lead to an unstable economy in the long run.

3.????HEALTHCARE: The ACA (Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare), although not perfect, was at least designed to bring more people under the medical insurance cover, reduce the rate of increase in insurance premiums over the long run, and was subsidized for low income Americans. Well, that law has now been chipped away at and weakened with no credible replacement in sight. This would leave several citizens out in the limbo in the months and years to come. Oddly enough, many of these folks belong in districts that voted overwhelmingly for the current President in 2016 – go figure!

4.????GUN CONTROL: Meanwhile, we are witness to daily gun violence, and every now and then spiked by a mass shooting that only seems to get deadlier and deadlier. Again here, no common sense gun control laws being even considered, let alone discussed and passed as legislation.

5.????ENVIRONMENT: In the name of deregulation, the current administration has been drastically pulling back on or simply wiping off several environment protections that were in place even before the previous President took office. Well, I guess the plan is, we will all just sit tight for climate change to do its thing, and basically hope for the best. The recent spate of aggravating extreme cold and hot weather, mammoth fires, floods, and droughts, not to mention mass migrations that are occurring as a result of climate change elsewhere on the planet just continues on. But it appears none of these deadly and economically devastating climatic events matter, or motivate our lawmakers towards recognizing the existential threat that climate change poses to us all, and our children.

Worthwhile to note that all this is happening while we have a single political party controlling all levers of government at the moment!

Anyway, these are just a few of the major issues that swamp us, but on closer inspection, one may be tempted to ask, exactly who might be held responsible and accountable for this utterly dysfunctional state of governance? Our elected representatives and administration officials are supposed to govern, make laws, and generally make the rest of our lives better, at least in theory. Instead, all we keep hearing are phrases such as “partisan politics”, “ideological differences”, and in the case of the failed ACA repeal effort last year, and the successful passage of the tax cut plan, “filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process” (aka avoid regular order while passing important legislations that impact the entire country)!

But for me personally, what is more interesting, as we navigate these turbulent times in our democracy, is to wonder:

·??????Where’re the average citizens on all of this?

·??????Do they even matter anymore in our democracy?

·??????Does the political class even care what the average citizen thinks, unless of course it’s time for the next election cycle?

What do the Polls Say?

A convenient, and fairly reliable way to determine people’s aspirations are through polls. Now, admittedly, like everything else, there are good polls and there are bad polls. As we scan the more credible polls that have appeared rather frequently on a number of issues in 2017, and even in early 2018, what is glaring is that the majority of the nation is unambiguously yelling that we are moving in the wrong direction! And not just that, we are moving in the opposite direction of what the current Congress and the White House are taking us in.

These polls, quite categorically for most part, do not indicate that the Democrats are leaning one way or the Republicans are leaning another or the Independents are not quite sure what’s going on (I’m an Independent, and that was a joke...). The polls, again rather categorically for most part, just seem to be getting more and more conclusive that it’s the entire spectrum of ‘ideologies’ – liberals/progressives, conservatives, libertarians, independents – are all suggesting that we are NOT getting anything worthwhile done at the federal level, and that the government is simply NOT working for them.

Before we examine some of these polls, it would be useful to state that the rest of this discussion will be somewhat anchored to an earlier article of mine from last year, The Empowerment Architecture. Here’s a graphic that I would like us to focus on, and relate to the polls’ findings.

Very quickly, in the above graphic, The Foundation layer represents the very basic needs of the average citizen that need to be addressed as high priority items. Long-term policies need to be established and passed as laws to realize The Foundation. If one were to revisit the small subset of issues listed earlier in this article, many of them relate to this layer.

The Enablers perform the job of enabling the empowerment of the individual, but they necessarily need the Foundation to be in place to do their job effectively. In essence, they really do combine with the Foundation to deliver that sense of empowerment to the individual, which really is the important and critical milestone we should all strive towards as a nation.

The End Goals, as depicted in the same graphic, are what the nation as a whole aspires for the sake of its citizens. These are the goals that our politicians and bureaucrats should be working towards delivering in a cohesive, deliberate manner. But is this happening today? More importantly, do the people believe this is happening today? Let’s pivot to some of the more well-known and credible polls to find some answers.

Immigration Reform: CNN/ORC Poll from March, 2017

This one suggests that, across the board, the current DACA standoff, and the larger immigration mess that we have on our hands is exactly what the people do NOT want or appreciate. There are other polls that indicate similar sentiments, and this is one of the many issues that people across the entire ideological spectrum are on the same page.

Here’s one from Quinnipiac University Poll from January, 2018 that just reinforces the above point.

Environment Protection: Pew Research Poll from April, 2017

This is one of the polls where the Democrats & Democrat-leaning Independents are overwhelmingly for environment protection vs. the Republicans who are against. But, as the polls says, “about three-quarters of U.S. adults (74%) said “the country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment,” compared with 23% who said “the country has gone too far in its efforts to protect the environment.”.

Healthcare Reform: The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll from August, 2017

This is another one of those jarring polls that makes a mockery of the phrase ‘a divided nation’ that is frequently attributed to the USA of late! And for a good reason – that healthcare is a very personal issue for all Americans is not a cliché. It’s actually true. And yet again, this polls suggests that for all the rhetoric around the ACA repeal & replace, the people actually want something to the contrary.

Criminal Justice Reform: ACLU Poll from November, 2017

A partial list of key findings:

·??????91 percent of Americans say that the criminal justice system has problems that need fixing.

·??????71 percent say it is important to reduce the prison population in America, including 87 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents, and 57 percent of Republicans — including 52 percent of Trump voters.

Need one say more?

Gun Control: NPR/Ipsos Poll from October 2017

Not just a vast majority of Americans in general, but even a vast majority of NRA members favor either stricter enforcement of existing laws or introducing new ones. But neither of this is happening in Congress today. Another example of the government not doing what the people elected them to do.

Tax Reform: New York Times/SurveyMonkey Poll from January, 2018

This is an interesting trend being witnessed in the new year where there appears to be a slight uptick in support for the tax reform that was passed late last year. This may be partly due to the recent spate of companies offering bonuses, and in some cases, pay hikes. But it is also true that the economy is generally doing well, and with the current unemployment rate at historic low levels, people are generally feeling good about their economic futures. That said, the same poll also indicates that the average citizen still believes that the tax plan mostly favors the rich, and the corporations, and relatively does much less for them. This view is supported by most economists across the ideology spectrum, a fact that once again suggests that this nation is not as divided as we would like to believe!

If we were to map the poll findings to the Foundation layer in the above graphic, the boxes in that layer are generally what the people aspire for, and want addressed. Obviously, there are several other such polls addressing almost every single issue that concerns us, and they are mostly consistent with the sampling above. But what can we deduce from these polls that can inform a better & smarter governing philosophy and approach?

A High-Level Statistical Deduction

For a given issue or concern such as Healthcare or Immigration or Tax Reform, let’s say we combine all the polls for that issue. We would then obtain some sort of an average or mean of these polls for the given issue. Moreover, we will derive a normal distribution of the mean measurements from each of the samples that contributed to the ensemble of polls for a given issue. This is what the Central Limit Theorem in probability theory basically says: “...in most situations, when?independent random variables?are added, their properly normalized sum tends toward a?normal distribution?(informally a "bell curve") even if the original variables themselves are not normally distributed.”

“For example, suppose that a?sample?is obtained containing a large number of?observations, each observation being randomly generated in a way that does not depend on the values of the other observations, and that the arithmetic average of the observed values is computed. If this procedure is performed many times, the central limit theorem says that the computed values of the average will be?distributed?according to a?normal distribution.”

We could state the above as a function for Immigration as an example,

People_Immigration_Distribution = f (2017-2018_AllPolls_Immigration)

I.e. determining where do the people at large stand on Immigration is a function of all the polls in this space conducted in 2017 and 2018. This result may be plotted as a normal distribution (aka Gaussian Distribution) based on the Central Limit Theorem.

Similarly, we could do the same for other issues. Here’s another example,

People_Healthcare_Distribution = f (2017-2018_AllPolls_Healthcare)

This will produce another normal distribution for Healthcare.

So what’s so cool about these normal distributions? Well, in statistics, the 68-95-99.7 rule "...is a shorthand used to remember the percentage of values that lie within a band around the?mean?in a?normal distribution?with a width of two, four and six?standard deviations, respectively; more accurately, 68.27%, 95.45% and 99.73% of the values lie within one, two and three standard deviations of the mean, respectively" as illustrated in the following graphic (courtesy: Wikimedia Commons).

What this implies is, if we apply the earlier functions for Immigration, Healthcare, etc., and derive the normal distributions for each of them, we could determine that approximately 68% of the populace desire the same thing more or less – the majority opinion, whatever it may be, is essentially concentrated right in the center of the bell curve! This group would span all political ideologies, which implies the people want the same thing more or less independent of their political leanings or ideological affiliation! Furthermore, another 27% (95% minus the 68%) of the populace, although not in the center, may still more or less favor the majority opinion with some variances perhaps.

Lastly, the remaining approximately 5% are probably the outliers who may be considered to be individuals with extreme opinions on either end of the distribution on a given issue.

So, when it comes to governing for the people, wouldn’t it stand to reason that a truly smart politician will simply look at the central 68% to 95%, and basically do what that population demands?! If one musters up the political wisdom and courage to do exactly that, we can expect some interesting consequences:

1.????The statistical insight enables the political class to govern from the center as determined by the citizens, and not by what the media or pundits with certain ideological affiliations/biases or anyone else who determines what the center should be. The terms Left / Right / Center will assume a whole new meaning that is consistent with what defines the Center at a certain moment in our history. That Center will evolve as the people’s needs evolve, and the political leadership will follow & conform to that evolution. This is the norm that we should strive to inculcate in our democracy.

2.????The political leadership will be automatically serving the majority in a democracy, which is basically the premise behind governing a democracy anyway.

3.????More significantly, there is NO more of this manufactured concept of left vs. right or progressive vs conservative! It is just fundamentally, “Of the People, By the People, For the People” in action as immortalized by Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address.

4.????Taken to an extreme, perhaps sometime in future, political parties wouldn’t necessarily matter as much anymore. Any person can stand up and propose ideas that resonate with the wishes of the ~70%, and this would automatically help the person govern for the majority of the country! At this point, the debate is not about whether the proposals are left or right, but instead, how does it benefit the nation overall, and whether the ideas meet the needs of the time going forward.

5.????Finally, an important consequence will be to help us distinguish between “the What vs. the How” in that, the people will mostly care about the What. They will leave it up to the lawmakers to collaborate and compromise on the How, and thereby deliver the What.

If all this is still making sense (and you’re still reading this piece), we can carry this line of thinking a step further where we can define another function that produces the normal distribution taking into account all the other distributions that we defined earlier as follows:

PeopleOpinion_AcrossAllConcerns_Distribution =

f (People_Immigration_Distribution, People_Healthcare_Distribution, …)

This distribution will indicate what direction the people generally would like to take the country in, a key metric that the President of the US, Congress and even the Supreme Court will do well to pay attention to.

And that is, in a nutshell, The Governance Hypothesis – Effective & Smart Governance is about the people and only the people. It is unequivocally about recognizing their dreams, their aspirations, and above all, empowering them to realize their goals in their personal and professional lives. Indeed, nothing else matters!

Cleaning up House – Set of Prerequisites

So, how do we go about proving The Governance Hypothesis to be true? Stated differently, what are the obvious impediments in our current political system that would prevent the hypothesis from being brought to fruition?

Let’s for now focus on a litany of concerns that directly impact the people’s right to choose freely & fairly – the central and most important tenet in any Democracy:

1.????The Electoral College must be replaced with the, “one person, one vote” principle. The Electoral College served its purpose at the time it was needed, but definitely not necessary in 2018+!

2.????Introduce legislation to reform Voting Rights. No more voting on Tuesdays. Voting can happen via a number of ways – online, in-person, via mail – and there should be a common voting standard & best practices applied to all States. Assign an entire weekend for the citizens to make their choice, not just one day and that too a working day! In other words, we need to make a deliberate effort to encourage people to vote. Instead, we very often witness States attempting to curb voting, which is completely antithetical to the very foundations of a Democracy worth its salt.

3.????Mitigate lobbying if not completely eliminate it. Lobbying has for a long time become legalized bribery, pure and simple. Instead, provide the necessary resources, tools, mechanisms, and funding to enable the people to directly influence their representatives.

4.????Gerrymandering has got to go! This practice hasn’t served anyone good, and quite frankly is one of the primary reasons for a broken government and legislative process that we are all grappling with today. Please give the power of redistricting back to the people, so they may take control of determining who can truly represent and serve them.

5.????Reform campaign financing. The current vehicle for campaigning from a financial perspective only benefits the wealthiest of the population (and is overwhelmingly influenced by them), and is therefore a sure recipe for turning a Democracy into an Oligarchy.

6.????Reform our immigration policy and processes. Why? Because immigrants – undocumented or otherwise are also people, a vast majority of them good, honest and hardworking individuals. Hopefully this suffices as a good reason.

7.????Reform our criminal justice system. Why? Because they too are people, and many of the incarcerated can actually be assimilated into the general population, made productive, and can potentially become future leaders in this country. Think Empowerment!

As a final thought, we all know and are aware that the success of a Democracy requires ongoing participation of the people, and constant vigilance. Democracy cannot be taken for granted – just ask many of the failed democracies elsewhere in our world. Every generation has been held accountable by the following one, and ours is no different. We are at a point where the current generation will hold us accountable for the country that we bequeath to them.

Conversely, we need to create an environment for this current generation that gives them a real sense of empowerment, inspires the motivation & a sense of ownership in them to participate in the democratic process, and establishes the necessary tools they can use to shape their respective destinies, and thereby the destiny of this great country after we are long gone.