The worst consequence of laws made by legislatures, after those that are deliberately disruptive, are those with unintended consequences. They usually result from excessively short term views and too little thought, something that afflicts our Congress overly much in its members’ quest to be elected.
Perhaps the most egregious current example lies with the housing bubble, where a quest, allegedly based on “fairness” but more likely for the purpose of buying votes, caused many too many to buy more house than they could afford. Driving down interest rates through government coercion was only part of the problem; perhaps the greater part was encouraging (through low down payments) investment in second and third houses for speculation. But I would contend that spending funds allocated to Social Security and leaving IOUs also qualifies, as it is a seriously contributor to our unsustainable debt. Promising anything to anyone at low contributions to Medicare is of course another, as with wildly excessive promises to Medicaid recipients. In fact one could argue that open Medicaid embodies an even more obvious unintended consequence, where people have found that a way to save on insurance is to go to a Medicaid accepting hospital where no one can be turned away.
Another example that has not yet been totally accepted into law is term limits. This is one I had not thought of until I read an article arguing against it. The argument was that already too much responsibility is left to (often young and inexperienced) staffers who are not elected, causing Congress people, who are elected, to trust their judgement. But then I would contend that we, the voters, are hugely guilty of unintended consequences by electing officials that are neither experienced or qualified – because we LIKE them. Con men take advantage of the same weakness.
I once received a letter in response to an article I wrote on the subject of planning, from General Bruce C. Clarke (Vietnam era). General Clarke contended that he had been credited with foresight when in fact his secret was intensive planning. In the interest of preparing for unintended consequences he tasked his staff to consider and make at least rudimentary plans for any consequence they could think of, no matter how unlikely. With those plans in hand he was confident to have a starting point to meet any unintended consequence, which of course war is rampant. I was mightily impressed by that argument, despite realizing what intensive effort it required. But then I would suggest that any decision which depends on the logical reaction of people has similar threats, particularly where financing and investment is concerned.
We are all susceptible to unintended consequences; they almost always result from not doing enough thinking about what could go wrong with a decision beyond what was intended. I say almost because there are always “black swans” that can occur which no one could have anticipated. Some argue that the housing bubble and crash was a “black swan;” I do not agree. The timing perhaps, but it was patently obvious that housing was overpriced at levels that could not be sustained.
Nonetheless, we go to great lengths (supposedly) to vet our national representatives, and have the right to expect attention to consequences of legislation they address, and deserve better, especially when their motivation is to “buy” votes through bribing voters, which is how I see unsustainable promises beyond the term of the office they are seeking.
