Amidst the bombast and rapid-fire punditry that accompanies the President’s annual State of the Union address, it is worth remembering that much of the platform he lays out each year is the result of meticulous policy research conducted by civil servants, think tankers, and academics. In some cases, the President’s call to action is the product of a handful of researchers analyzing relatively new data, as is the case of expanding pre-K. Policy proposals on other issues such as wages and inequality are, on the other hand, derived from years of work that have influenced major debates in economics and policy analysis.
The State of the Union address is about both politics and policy. While the horse race of politics rests on the subjective whims of the media, the electorate, and the parties, many of the policies President Obama proposed or noted in his address this week have been empirically tested and researched by practitioners and academics. I decided to ask professors at the McCourt School of Public Policy to grade the President’s address based on specific policy areas. Overall, the President does not quite make the honor roll. It is clear that for the Obama’s ideas to take hold, the politics and policy will have to overlap beyond grand pronouncements and academic scrutiny.
The SOTU from a Public Management Perspective
President Obama does not have a great reputation for effectively managing the US executive branch. Some have argued that he is too much of a policy wonk and can’t be bothered with the messiness of implementation (witness the launch of the Affordable Care Act). Others have pointed to the trend in the last several presidencies of substituting campaigning for governing and managing with an inner circle of political advisers (shutting out policy experts in the civil service). So it was somewhat surprising that the State of the Union address last night included several proposals that focused on issues that matter to good public managers. In particular, the president as Manager-in-Chief proposed a raise for American women—finally affording them equal pay for equal work. Good managers care about equity, and equity in compensation is a threshold question (A+). (Of course defining “equity” and working out the details of how to make apples-to-apples comparisons between jobs is a little trickier, but still A+ for the principle.)
But as chief executive of the government, Obama could have used some better theoretical grounding. He said, “Profitable corporations like Costco see higher wages as the smart way to boost productivity and reduce turnover. We should too.” This was the lead-in to the mandated pay increase for federal-contract workers. What we know is that it’s the intrinsic motivators (higher-order needs) that boost satisfaction and productivity generally. Extrinsic factors like pay, when inadequate, cause people to be dissatisfied, and potentially leave, but they don’t help much with satisfaction and productivity. So he got the “reduce turnover” part right, but on productivity, not so much. It should be noted that these workers are on the lower end of the wage scale and might not be making enough to satisfy basic (Maslovian) needs, in which case a raise would be in order. My sense, though, is that this proposal is wrapped up more in the political jostling over the minimum wage than in good management practices (C+).
Overall grade: B+
Obama’s Education Policy
A big message from this year’s SOTU is that the President plans to fill the vacuum left by a dysfunctional Congress with executive action. In K-12 education policy, that’s old news. No Child Left Behind—the single largest federal program for elementary and secondary education—has been overdue for reauthorization since 2007. The law became untenable as schools came up against legislated deadlines for unattainable goals, so the Department of Education has been exercising considerable power for years via its waiver process. This is a major executive power, backing important things like the Common Core State Standards (that the President alluded to but didn’t dare mention by name) and meaningful teacher evaluations, but it certainly isn’t a sexy new initiative that packs a punch in a speech like this. I’d view this as the biggest executive branch education story, and it went unmentioned. Instead, the President talked about the success of Race to the Top (big plus for supporting the evidence-based policies RTTT pushes at considerable political cost; small minus for claiming it as a success when it’s too soon to tell) and work to clean up college loans. He used the bully pulpit to push states on pre-K, but didn’t touch Head Start.
Grade: A- for the policies, even though the speech wisely didn’t get into them.
Wages and Inequality
President Obama floated a range of proposals to reduce poverty and inequality in his address. Some focused on improving educational attainment, covering everything from pre-kindergarten programs to college access; he also covered minimum wages, gender equity, enhanced tax credits for the working poor, a new type of IRA for low-income savers, and unemployment insurance extensions. Much of this is not new, and very little of it will get through Congress. The President has clearly decided to act unilaterally whenever he can through executive orders, though the impacts of these orders will be narrow and fairly modest. He thus presented a reasonable policy agenda with eloquence and force, but understands that little of it will be implemented in reality.
Grade: B+
Putting it all together
President Obama had a difficult task in this year’s State of the Union. As his second term edges closer to the halfway mark, he has a limited time to shore up his legacy and get things done before he hits lame duck status. He can’t give up yet, though, as he doesn’t want to lose Democratic seats in Congress (or majority status in the Senate) in the upcoming midterm elections. As President in our system of checks and balances, Obama needs to work within the system (read: work with Congress) to create effective policies. Working with Congress has become increasingly difficult throughout Obama’s presidency. Thus there is a tension between maintaining the proper distribution of powers within our governmental system and the feasibility of getting anything done. The President chose the latter over the former.
Knowing his own difficulties in working with Congress (or getting Congress to work with him), President Obama decided, in part, to go it alone. From raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to creating starter retirement accounts to proposing new environmental regulatory policies, the President announced that he would bypass Congress and govern by executive order. His policies are certainly feasible in the sense that they don’t require congressional action to get done. His policies also shift power to the executive branch. The President did call on Congress to work with him on passing legislation to raise the minimum wage, reform immigration policy and make the workplace more equitable. And he asked Congress to stop its politically motivated votes to repeal health care, his signature policy. Bowing to reality, I give the President an A for feasibility: by asserting executive authority, he will get things done. On the other hand, I give him a D for distribution of power. While Obama exhorted an intransigent Congress to pass his legislative proposals, and while Congress might have forced his hand, the thrust of the President’s speech was that he was willing to go it alone. That’s not what the framer’s intended.
Grade: C
Jacob Patterson-Stein is a second year Master of International Development Policy student. Prior to attending McCourt, Jacob worked for Thomson Reuters in Washington D.C., the More than Me Foundation in Liberia, and in a rural public school in South Korea. He spent summer 2013 working for the Support for Economic Analysis Development in Indonesia (SEADI) project in Jakarta.
Hello, I’m Jesse, and I create amazing sites for my clients while staying within their budgets. I focus on helping small to medium-sized companies get the look and feel they want from their site.
If you are thinking about changing or updating your website or including some add-ons that will allow you to automate your business, I would love to analyze what you’re currently doing and provide you with some suggestions that have helped our other clients increase their sales and save time and money where they could.
Let me know if you’re interested in having a call and we can set something up.
Thanks,
Jesse Clanen
If you no longer wish to receive my emails just let me know by replying with remove in the subject line