True Transparency in Gov’t: A “Common Sense” Approach

“I know it when I see it…”

-- Potter Stewart, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964) (concurring)

Last year, in a dispute surrounding emails allegedly sent by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer concerning an investigation of officials at AIG, New York Supreme Court Justice Christopher Cahill ruled that that the use of personal email accounts by government officials for agency-related business cannot be used as a shield against disclosure under the State’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

“Pursuant to judicial precedent and the underpinnings of FOIL, the [Office of the Attorney General] has both the responsibility and the obligation to gain access to the private email account of former Attorney General Spitzer to determine whether the documents contained therein should be disclosed to petitioner in accordance with its FOIL request.” Smith v. N.Y. State Office of the AG, 2012 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4166 (Sup. Ct. Albany Cty. 2012).

The case continues to wind its way through New York’s courts. Just last week, the New York Law Journal reported that the State continues to argue that “FOIL does not compel disclosure of records that are not in the possession or control of the state at the time the request is made.”

Spitzer isn’t the only elected official in New York who has sought an end-around FOIL. Governor Andrew Cuomo (in)famously uses BlackBerry PIN messages that are not retained by provider Research in Motion and do not leave a paper trail.

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg used “Bloomberg.net” email addresses with his top officials, siphoning public business off of “official” email and on to private servers that are either beyond the reach of FOIL or, at the very least, extremely difficult for public agencies to track down.

In 2002, Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani sent his official papers to a nonprofit he controlled instead of transferring custody directly to the city’s Municipal Archives.

All of this has taken place despite the fact that New York’s Committee on Open Government (COOG) has issued advisory opinions declaring that private communications, when used to contract public business, are subject to FOIL. “[E]mail kept, transmitted or received by a town official in relation to the performance of his or her duties is subject to the Freedom of Information Law, even if the official ‘uses his private email address’ and his own computer.”

Furthermore, it is curious the lengths elected officials go to avoid FOIL given that FOIL specifically provides an exception for “inter-agency and intra-agency” deliberative materials (see N.Y. Pub. Off. Law Sec. 87(2)(g)) and courts routinely uphold the withholding of material about press strategy and other potentially sensitive political decision-making.

So what’s a good government advocate for transparency to do? How do we determine what is a problematic end around FOIL vs. what is a routine practice essential to the open and frank deliberation that any political office must necessarily engage in?

The Embodiment of Government Secrecy.
CC License: Flickr user "Raoul Pop"

First, we can acknowledge how technology has far outstripped FOIL (which was initially passed in the wake of Watergate, in 1976) and that new regulations and penalties may need to be devised to increase the potential cost of moving governmental communications “off book.” For instance, there may well be no reason why official communications should occur outside of official channels that are ultimately within the possession of a given government entity. If that is indeed the case, perhaps penalties should attach to the use of private communications for government work, regardless of whether the private email was used in an effort to evade FOIL.

More importantly, I think we need to apply a little dose of common sense—the type that Justice Stewart was referencing what he penned his famous line about knowing pornography when he sees it, or that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals discussed in South Carolina State Ports Auth. v. FMC, 243 F.3d 165, 174 (4th Cir. 2001) (determining that an adjudication “walks, talks, and squawks very much like a lawsuit”).

That common sense approach would look at the subjective motivation of the communication in question. For instance, was the use of private email deliberately employed in an effort to avoid FOIL? After all, if it looks like an end around FOIL, it’s probably an end around FOIL.

The New York Post editorial board recently stated, “If politicians can escape scrutiny simply by doing their work via private e-mails, we lose all hope for government accountability and transparency.” I agree and I hope that New York’s courts rule in favor of complete disclosure of public work, whether on government servers or private email.

However, regardless of how the issue plays out in the courts, citizens should demand that elected officials clearly and transparently share their disclosure policy—both what they will affirmatively share (and in what format/timeframe) and what they will withhold so that voters can hold their leaders accountable for valuing true transparency.

Transportation Tech: From the Mass Pike to the Friendly Skies

“Last night on the Mass Pike, thought I was losing you. Last night on the Mass Pike, I fell in love with you.”

--“Mass Pike,” The Get Up Kids, 1999

Few things are more frustrating than sitting in traffic at a tollbooth, taxiing for takeoff for hours, or standing on crowded trains directed by century-old switches. But what if I told you that we had technologies at the ready to address each of these problems, only to have failed to adequately seize on their potential?

Last week, the Globe profiled forthcoming changes to the Mass Turnpike in Allston, noting that straightening the turnpike will improve safety, smooth traffic, and free up 60 acres of land, some of which is prime territory a stone’s throw from the shores of the Charles River.

Today, I want to focus on one particular aspect of the plan—the introduction of 100 percent cashless (electronic) tolling on the Pike—as well as several other transportation technologies that will pay long-term dividends if we commit to investing in them today.

As the map below from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission shows, cashless tolling is being embraced by states across the country as a way to reduce congestion (and the pollution/productivity effects associated with it) and save money on toll collection that can make a small, but meaningful contribution to rebuilding our nation’s roads and bridges. For instance, the Golden Gate Bridge’s new cashless tolling system is expected to save $16 million over eight years (the bridge faces a $66 million budget deficit over the next five years).

This is particularly important in light of the troubles with the national Highway Trust Fund, which is fast approaching insolvency thanks to a gas tax that hasn’t budged in 20 years and the proliferation of more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Cashless tolling should be a requirement for any new federally funded transportation project that includes tolls and the Highway Trust Fund should incentivize states to adopt cashless tolling by providing capital grants for implementation of new systems and cost-sharing arrangements with states.

Another critical transportation technology that has encountered a litany of challenges in recent years is the Federal Aviation Administration’s rollout of Next Generation air traffic control (“NextGen”).

The FAA’s largest-ever procurement, NextGen would replace radar-based ground control with GPS navigation and require airlines to adopt technology that allows pilots and air traffic controllers to have improved access to real time data, allowing planes to fly more direct routes closer together, improving efficiency and productivity in our nation’s skies. When completed, the project is expected to yield a system that can handle three times more air traffic while reducing FAA’s operating costs.

In addition, NextGen is expected to yield the following benefits by 2030:

·       More than $100 billion in net economic benefits

·       27 million hours in flight delays saved

·       Reduce carbon emissions by cutting 4.6 billion gallons of fuel

However, as the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation recently found, the FAA has failed to embrace NextGen’s potential. This includes a failure to rapidly introduce GPS capabilities at many of the nation’s busiest airports, including those in the NYC-metro region that account for nearly half of all flight delays nationwide.

The list of transportation technologies that are underused goes on and on. In New York, Albany continues to stonewall the City’s efforts to expand the speed camera program—a critical part of Mayor de Blasio’s “Vision Zero” initiative (though Governor Cuomo insists that the issue will be taken up after the holiday recess).

Few cities—including New York—have committed to transforming antiquated street parking with technology (like that in use in San Francisco) that promises to reduce congestion, improve safety (with fewer cars circling for spaces/double parking), and more appropriately value public space.

And we continue to rely on mechanical, switch-based subway systems constructed in the early 20^th century instead of using Communication Based Train Controls (CBTC), which offer improved reliability, lower costs, and greater efficiency. Despite the fact that systems around the world have implemented CBTC, only a single NYC subway line (the L) currently has CBTC, with the 7 slated to have it installed by 2017. Worse, under the current MTA capital needs assessment (2015-2034)—a plan funded almost entirely with debt—it will take until the 2030s (or beyond!) for the entire NYC system to have CBTC installed.

Leveraging technology in transportation will pay for itself. But that will only happen if we generate strong, grassroots support by making these esoteric projects “real” to the public. Indeed, Americans have shown time and again that they are willing to fund infrastructure improvements when they understand precisely how they stand to benefit.

Global Gateway Alliance is trying to generate public awareness of airport improvements in NYC, just as the Straphangers Campaign has long advocated for the interests of bus and subway riders. What’s needed next is recognition by elected officials that the benefits of these technologies will flow to constituents in every corner of the city/state/nation.

Walking the Walk: The Courage to Believe in Politics

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” 

-- President Abraham Lincoln

Yesterday, the New York Times showcased the campaign of Eric Lesser, a college classmate of mine who is running for the Massachusetts State Senate in the First Hampden and Hampshire District. However, instead of viewing Eric’s efforts as emblematic of a Millennial generation inspired to serve, the Times characterized Eric as an outlier amidst a generation that has in many ways opted out of the rough and tumble life of American elective politics.

This withdrawal should concern all of us who continue to see public service (which includes politics!) as an endeavor worthy of our commitment and sacrifice, particularly because the very factors that have turned so many young people away from running for office may also turn them away from being the type of “active” citizens our nation needs to thrive.

The cynicism that now pervades American politics is all the more concerning because, for generations, belief in the American “experiment” has been something of a civic religion in a nation lacking a collective spiritualism. As historian Gordon Wood wrote,

We have even built a temple to preserve and display the great documents consecrating the founding of the American creed—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. At the National Archives in Washington, D.C., these holy texts are enshrined in massive, bronze-framed, bulletproof, moisture-controlled glass containers that have been drained of all harmful oxygen.

And yet, despite the fact that we live in a cynical age, there can be no mistaking the fact that the American People want to believe in our experiment; want to believe that our whole is much greater than the sum of our parts; want to believe that public service is an honorable path taken by honorable women and men. As the fictionalized FDR (played by Bill Murray) tells King George VI (played by Samuel West) in Hyde Park on Hudson, “We think they see all our flaws. But, that’s not what they are looking to find when they look to us. “

Rather, as Michael Jonas points out in the current issue of Commonwealth Magazine, voters are looking for “charismatic, visionary leader[s]” to challenge our assumptions and inspire belief in the possible.

We Will Finish The Race and the
Experiment Will Live On.

Those leaders don’t emerge out of the ether. They are individuals who put actions being their words and jump in the ring, all with the courage to lose. As Eric said, “If you want to be involved in politics, at a certain point you’ve got to walk the walk.”

For those of us intent on running for office, “walking the walk” includes taking it to the campaign trial—petitioning, fundraising, door-knocking, and persuading our fellow citizens not merely that we deserve their vote, but that the vote is a power worth exercising.

But even more, it means asserting the all-too-radical belief in what David Brooks calls “the nobility of politics”—that politics is a profession worthy of our energies and that making personal sacrifices for the common good is an inherent quality of good citizenship.

149 years to the day after the death of our greatest President, and a year after bombs tore through the heart of New England’s most sacred secular holiday, let’s remember how even in America’s darkest moments, We The People have rallied around our great experiment.

As Professor Allen Guelzo wrote about the Gettysburg Address:

The genius…lay not in its language or in its brevity (virtues though these were), but in the new birth it gave to those who had become discouraged and wearied by democracy’s follies, and in the reminder that democracy’s survival rested ultimately in the hands of citizens who saw something in democracy worth dying for. We could use that reminder again today.

Today, the urgency with which we are called to belief in the democratic experiment is as strong as it has ever been.

Big Data and Mass Transit: From Bikes to Buses

“I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”

-- Editor, Prentiss Hall Books, 1957

Last week, the Globe profiled an effort by 23-year-old entrepreneur Matthew George to use data analytics to provide “pop-up” bus service across many underserved routes in the Cambridge-Boston area. This “pop-up” service—called Bridj—is designed to use data about “where people live, work, and play” to predict where non-stop service is needed and adjust schedules based on time of day/day of week, etc.

George’s introduction of disruptive analytics to the metro-Boston transit network is long overdue and I’m anxious to see how his system works (and to try it myself come July 4th weekend). But, as noted by MIT Professor Nigel Wilson, George’s service (which is expected to launch at a cost of $5-8 pre trip) has the potential to siphon riders from the MBTA. Indeed, while the Bridj homepage champions “Better Transit. For All,” it is not yet clear whether the business model can rely solely on routes not directly served by the T.

In a normal setting, competition would be an unquestionable good—with the better product/price/service winning out over time. However, public transit is a unique animal—a deeply subsidized public good that must cater to the needs of very low-income city dwellers (among others).

To his credit, George seems quite cognizant of this fact and has indicated that he hopes to reduce fares to a price approaching a single-ride T-pass ($2-2.50). However, it is ultimately not the job of entrepreneurs like George to worry about how their innovations might affect competitors like the MBTA.

Instead, as I briefly noted last year, what the MBTA and other transit agencies from New York City’s MTA to the smallest regional network in Berkshire County need to do, is to get in the data analytics game themselves. In Boston, this effort should include investing in smaller vans that can operate at lower cost than articulated buses, depending on demand, GPS tracking to allow riders to plan their trips, and demand-responsive transport during late nights and weekends. In the spirit of George’s “pop-up” service, demand responsive transport covers a fixed service area but without fixed routes, allowing it to cater to fluctuations in ridership.

This type of planning should not be limited to buses, but should instead be used to integrate a municipal transit network’s bicycles as well. In NYC, CitiBike recently released a trove of data charting hundreds of thousands of rides and, as shown in the graph below from the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, there is a slight, but meaningful correlation between subway disruptions and use of CitiBike along those routes.

Dubbed “reactionary biking” by the Rudin Center, this pattern should lead to partnerships between the MTA and CitiBike. For instance, when there is a planned service outage—especially a long-term outage, like the 5-week closure of the G train’s Greenpoint Tube planned for this summer—MTA should not only provide replacement bus service, but also work with CitiBike to extend bike share to affected communities. Similarly, the two systems should share data on ridership so that CitiBike can do a better job of balancing stations near transit hubs which, at certain times of the day, are overrun with passengers (most notably on the Lexington Line (456)).

In 2012, Peter Sondergaard of the Gartner Group declared, “Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.”

If Sondergaard is right, public transit systems cannot sit back in the horse and buggy age while private companies like Bridj act like the Maseratis of the data world. They need to get in the game themselves and use “big data” to increase efficiency and improve service for the millions of Americans who rely on buses, trains, trams, and bike share.

What it Means to be #1: Happiness and Social Policy

“Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product.”

-- His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan

Last week, Nicholas Kristof of the Times noted that between 1975 and 2006, “99 percent of the French population actually enjoyed more gains in that period than 99 percent of the American population.” In other words, if you exclude the top 1 percent, the average French citizen did better than the average American.

Nevertheless, on one of the more common metrics used to determine the prosperity and halth of a nation—the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—the U.S. actually came out on top during the same period, as the American economy significantly outperformed the French.

So who’s “#1”? Before you start chanting, “U-S-A! U-S-A!” (too late?), let’s take a closer look at just what we’re trying to measure.

In recent years, researchers have prodded cities and states to step away from the traditional measures of prosperity and embrace tools to measure overall “happiness”. In December 2013, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report calling on governments to ask citizens a series of questions related to their happiness and to use the results to shape social policy priorities and prescriptions.

This type of survey—which began in the small nation of Bhutan in the early 1970s—has spread to other nations, like the U.K., France, and Canada, all the way down to the local level, as in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Indeed, several U.S. cities are now experimenting with happiness or wellbeing measures. Santa Monica, California, which defines “wellbeing” as, “[p]ersonal satisfaction with life, influenced by social connections, economic stability, personal safety, physical surroundings, fulfilling employment, civic engagement, and health,” recently won a Bloomberg Philanthropies award for its efforts to measure wellbeing and respond accordingly.

In New York, Megan Golden (NYU) and Liana Downey (Liana Downey & Associates) wrote that the de Blasio Administration should pilot a happiness survey to determine “whether some groups are struggling more than others, where problems are concentrated, and what conditions affect New Yorkers’ happiness the most.” This pilot would borrow from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which already surveys Americans every four years about health and life satisfaction, as well as “Measure of America”, a project of the Social Science Research Council.

Of course, measuring happiness is easier said than done. As with any broad survey, getting a representative sample is a challenge, particularly in a City like New York, where many are often wary to respond to formal government surveys (see: New York’s experience with the 2010 Census). Furthermore, since most people filling out the survey have different definitions of happiness, questions that seek to gauge the subjective mindset of any population may be inherently suspect.

An even more fundamental question exists, however. And that is whether happiness, however defined, should be the goal of social policy in the first place. As David Brooks wrote this week, “Happiness wants you to think about maximizing your benefits. Difficulty and suffering sends you on a different course.”

No, Brooks is not advocating for a political system that promotes difficulty and suffering. But he’s also cautioning against viewing certain types of suffering as in need of eradication. To put it in concrete terms, suffering that flows from hunger, disease, violence, or neglect carries no short or long term benefit (much to the contrary), whereas the pangs that come with failure, the loss of a loved one, or can make us fuller people—changed souls, rather than shattered ones.

Ultimately, since that the unique number of paths to happiness is roughly as numerous as the number of people alive, the Framers probably got this one right—namely, that the government’s role is to ensure the foundational elements necessary for the pursuit of happiness (food, shelter, health care, employment), leaving to the individual citizen to decide how to chart his own course toward that seemingly universal goal.

The Limits of Language: Longing for Home and Love

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.”

-- Ludwig Wittenstein, 1953

“Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.”

--Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkh (aka Rumi), 13^th Century Poet

Bay State Brahmin is a blog about politics—a topic that easily lends itself to the written word. However, thanks to a few masterful pieces published over the past week, the limits of language have been weighing on my mind.

The first piece is a column titled “In Search of Home” in which Roger Cohen of the New York Times tries to answer the question, “If I had only a few weeks to live, where would I go?”

Cohen references an essay in the London Review of Books in which James Wood asked the same question of Christopher Hitchens before Hitchens was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He told Wood that he would not stay in America, but would return to Dartmoor, “the landscape of his childhood.”

Wood goes on to write that, “The desire to return, after so long away, is gladly irrational, and is perhaps premised on the loss of the original home…Home swells as a sentiment because it has disappeared as an achievable reality.”

That may well be true, but Cohen’s description spoke to a sentiment beyond what can be expressed through the language of loss. The landscape of Hitchens childhood, Cohen wrote,

…was the landscape, in other words, of unfiltered experience, of things felt rather than thought through, of the world in its beauty absorbed before it is understood, of patterns and sounds that lodge themselves in some indelible place in the psyche and call out across the years.

The second piece was Jessica Rassette’s essay “His Promise Would Not Be Denied,” for the weekly must-read “Modern Love” in the Times.

In describing her then-ex-boyfriend (now husband’s) response to her insistence that their relationship was over, Rassette wrote, “He loved every footprint I left behind. He kept his dreams of us tucked away, hoarded them like those gas-station receipts he jams into the back pocket of his jeans. He loved and longed. He waited.”

The two pieces may be about “home” and “love”, respectively, but they are really about the same thing. They are about a challenge that everyone faces many times in life—of what feels right to one’s soul; of where (and with whom) one’s destiny lies.

Someone once told me—in reference to my love of both New York City and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—that it was imperative that I be honest with where loyalties lie and that to be truly at home in one place or the other required almost every piece of my heart.

I didn’t know how to respond to that idea then, and I must admit that I still don’t today. Language—as it often does—fails to provide a useful instrument. How could I express the tingling of my chest when that distinctive sign comes into view, welcoming home sons from Hatfield to Hamilton?

How could I express the feeling of turning the corner of 43^rd and 5^th Avenue at twilight—the Chrysler Building illuminated above—and walking on air through Grand Central Terminal as the ghosts of generations of my family propel me forward, whispering in my ear that I belong under all those stars?

In Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “To be great is to be misunderstood.” But I don’t think that Pythagoras, Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton were alone in this scourge. Instead, it seems to me that to be human is to be misunderstood, or, perhaps more aptly, that to be human is to lack the tools necessary to be understood—except, that is, for the “tool” of love.

As Rassette notes, “Tom and I might glance at each other with a weary look that means, ‘Do you love me?’ Neither of us ever has to answer.” 

In the end, if “speech is a river,” Rumi wrote—a flowing dialogue of the inner-workings of our mind—then “silence is an ocean”—a seemingly bottom-less repository of secrets out of sight and far from earshot.

Silence—those thoughts unspoken, dreams unrequited, tragedies unseen, sentiments unshared—is the “dark energy/matter” of our world, weighing us down while powering us forward, to an end we know not of.

Social Impact Bonds: Spurring Innovation in Mass./NYC

“Social impact bonds offer an innovative way for public, private, philanthropic and nonprofit actors to come together and align their skills and resources in pursuit of measurable, positive social change.”

-- Kristina Costa, Center for American Progress, 2014

Last week, Dax-Devlon Ross profiled Roca—a Chelsea and Springfield, Mass. based non-profit designed to steer “high risk” youth away from poverty and violence and toward gainful employment and a middle-class life. Roca has done something all too rare in the social service world—commit to a data-driven approach to securing its goals, whereby success must be proved, rather than assumed.

Roca’s latest project is designed to reduce recidivism among young men. As part of the project, Roca plans to track every interaction between its employees and the participants in an online data system. At the first sign of trouble, employees initiate an intervention to get at the underlying cause of concern and forge a plan to keep the participant on track.

Roca’s program was recently awarded $27 million in seed money from Governor Deval Patrick’s Juvenile Justice “Pay for Success” Initiative. As stated in the award release:

[I]n Massachusetts, 64 percent of young male ex-offenders reoffend within five years, and only 35 percent of these young men gain employment within a year of release. Roca’s groundbreaking approach to positive youth development aims to interrupt the cycle of recidivism by filling a gap in services for high-risk populations. Through this project, Roca will aim to reduce the number of days that young men in the program are incarcerated by 40 percent. If this goal is met, the project would generate millions of dollars in savings to the Commonwealth that fully offset the cost of delivering services. 

The Social Impact Bond (SIB) model (shown in the nifty graphic from the Rockefeller Foundation) holds great promise, not simply as a financing mechanism in an era of budget shortfalls, but as a spur to creative experimentation within cities and states to solve some of our most pressing problems. SIBs allow government to invest in programs today that improve the lives of thousands and save money over the long term.

On some level, this is not a particularly novel concept. Indeed, business owners have long understood that investing in new equipment or hiring additional employees imposes short-term costs in pursuit of long-term profit. American families understand that buying life insurance and depositing money in their children’s college savings plans will pay dividends down the line.

Government should be no different. And yet, we have encountered many situations in recent years where we fail to make short-term investments that yield long-term gains. For instance, in New York City, we continue to shelter families without homes for as much as $36,000 per family per year, while rental assistance with support services for families can cost less than $10,000/family annually.

While SIB programs have heretofore largely been confined to programs concerning recidivism and formerly incarcerated individuals, many have openly wondered whether they can be put to use in other fields, most notably early childhood education and public health initiatives that allow for concrete measurements over a discrete period of time.

In 2012, my boss, then-Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, proposed using a SIB to expand availability of Early Head Start (EHS), an early intervention and prevention program for pregnant mothers and families with children ages 0 – 3. Despite the fact that children who attend Early Head Start are more successful educationally and emotionally, the program is so poorly funded that it enrolls less than 1 percent of eligible infants. Only 7000 slots are funded for children in all of New York State. Once full-day pre-K is up and running, the Administration should turn its attention to the critical formative years before pre-K, with SIBs as a possible financing mechanism for EHS or other programs.

SIBs aren’t the only mechanism that should be used to secure long-term savings. Municipal labor should also play a key role in this effort through “gain sharing.” 20 years ago, Mayor David Dinkins launched a “Productivity Advisory Council” that advocated for a gain-sharing model that would streamline city services and share savings with city workers.

One of the great successes was a Parks Department effort to improve efficiencies in the mechanics of tree pruning throughout the five boroughs. In short, New York had been force to cut workers to balance the budget during the early 90s recession. In the winter of 1993, the city’s tree workers were given the power to craft their own strategy, with an implicit promise of hiring back some of those laid off should city workers prove the victors.

As noted in a Harvard Business School case study, “Prior to the study, climbers and pruners had no input into how the crews were configured or what work they would be assigned on a given day; these decisions were the prerogative of the supervisors, only some of whom had any prior forestry experience.”

In two months, the workers’ improvements made them far more efficient than contractors and saved the city an estimated $100,000.

Whether through a public-private SIB model or a gain-sharing model that leverages the expertise and ingenuity of public employees, cities and states owe it to taxpayers to do all they can to reduce preventable costs by proactively investing in innovative programs.

Silence Over Sacrifice: Generational (In)Equity in American Politics

“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

-- Gaylord Nelson, Senator from Wisconsin (1916-2005)

In February, BSB wrote that one of the “First Principles” of American Politics should be to “assume that present sacrifice for future benefit is the appropriate path,” and that, “The burden of proof should be on those who would take today and pay tomorrow, not the other way around.”

All too often, however, whether the topic is wages, housing, pensions, or the fight to combat the catastrophic effects of climate change, we are quick to sell the next generation short to avoid sacrificing our own benefits/lifestyle.

As Joanna Weiss highlighted in the Boston Globe last week, 26 states currently provide a modified minimum wage for teens, ranging from offering teens 85 percent of the minimum wage and allowing substantially lower wages for short-term work to exempting students from the minimum wage altogether. Weiss concluded, “Who’s to say, based on age, that their work is less valuable than anybody else’s?”

In New York State, teens make the same minimum wage. However, the State recently enacted a tax credit that subsidizes the wages of 16-20 year olds, making the effective wage of a teenager lower (from the employer’s perspective).

As important as wages are to success in New York, perhaps nothing is more closely tied to opportunity than housing. The dreams of youth coming to Gotham—whether from small, rural towns in Massachusetts or metropolises from across the sea—invariably run into the reality of New York’s affordable housing crunch.

Last week, Harry Siegel of the New York Daily News once again noted what many economists across the political spectrum have said for years about New York’s housing market, “the more subsidized housing we have, the more outrageously expensive it gets for everyone not lucky enough to have it.”

And as you would expect given that housing, like wages, is a zero-sum game, older people are vastly overrepresented among subsidized housing units. As shown in the table below from the Furman Center’s 2012 Annual Report on the State of NYC’s Rent-Stabilized Housing, people over the age of 65 are much more likely to reside in rent-regulated, public, and other subsidized housing than the young.

Most acknowledge that the only way out of this conundrum—save for an unwinding of NYC’s rent-stabilized housing program (disclosure: I live in a rent-stabilized unit on Manhattan’s Upper East Side)—is to build more housing. And the only way to do that in New York City is to build up.

However, as Siegel adroitly points out, this solution once again pits the generations against one another, creating, “a fight between those of us already here, protecting what we have, and the needs of those who might join us — between the city’s present and its future.”

A third area where this type of generational clash frequently takes place is government pensions. In 2012, New York recently enacted Tier VI—a new benefit tier for employees entering City/State service after April 1, 2013. Tier VI asks future employees to pay more for fewer benefits than Tier V employees (disclosure: I am a “Tier IV” member), continuing a long tradition of “pension reform” that solves present problems by borrowing from future employees. As the Fiscal Policy Institute found, the average Tier VI employee will receive a pension with a value that is 39.8 percent lower than currently provided under Tier 5.

While some insist that “reliance” on benefits should prevent them from being impaired in any way, that ideological rigidity necessarily assumes that the benefits of future workers/veterans should be sacrificed to maintain the status quo.

Some interest groups have recognized the generational tension in politics and sought a path forward. Common Sense Action and the Bipartisan Policy Center have created an Agenda for Generational Equity (AGE), which seeks to protect today’s seniors and future generations through entitlement reform and investments in education and development that improve mobility and opportunity.

However, while AGE is an ambitious and well-meaning effort, it falls short by failing to use the language of sacrifice, of tradeoffs, in rendering its judgment. Indeed, the AGE appears to want readers to have their cake and eat it to—implying that there is a way forward in which all will be healthier, happier, wealthier, and without any additional burden (tax or otherwise).

It is yet another example of how sacrifice has become a verboten term in American politics. How this came to pass is something of a mystery, particularly given how we have historically revered sacrifice (whether of life, liberty, or treasure) as one of the pinnacles of a democratic society.

On the other hand, concerns about generational equity are nothing new. Nearly 30 years ago, Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times wrote that the very term “Generational equity” was slowly creeping into the political discourse as economists, “assert that the generation in power is blithely passing the bill to its successors.”

No one is blameless in this story—from the politicians who are too scared to level with constituents, to the constituents themselves, who allow politicians to infantilize them by reveling in the fiction that solving problems is painless and that merely saying that nothing is more important than our children is more important than actually backing up that sentiment through collective sacrifice.

In the end, sacrifice shouldn’t be a dirty word in American politics; it should be something to which we all aspire.