Short Paper Kludgeocracy comes from the words “kludge” and “cracy”. Kludge is an ill-assorted assembly of persons gathered to meet a particular purpose, and is a clumsy but non-permanent solution to a particular fault or a challenge. “Cracy”, in simple terms, means “rule” or “government by”. A kludgeocracy, therefore, is a clumsy government and that rules in a temporary manner to sort out particular challenges using quick fixes. The word is insulting and politically loaded. Steven Teles, a Johns Hopkins political scientist, says a policy or program meets the qualifications of a kludge if its underlying policy mechanism is a substantial complication to the challenge it is attempting
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According to Teles, there are many reason why the tax code is so messy: it is easier to add things to it than subtract; resource transfers through the tax code seem to enlarge government more than direct spending, regardless of similar effects; the conservative immune system of big government in the tax code is lower than to the big government through expenditure, and finally, people attempting to attain special deals can do it more easily through the tax code than through directing spending, since there is minimal visibility; and the hurdle of the distributive policy they get is less, creating a spending program with the distributive effect of the mortgage-interest deduction. The current American kludgeocracy is as a result of the design of American institutions implemented by the founders. It is a predictable consequence of some of the features of the American regime. The primary cause of kludgeocracy is the urge to maintain the fiction of small government while addressing public problems, and the emergence of a kludge industry that distributes stable, sophisticated, cycle …show more content…
Government today could not be anything other than clumsy. Kludgeocracy is a predictable result of the complex features of the American regime. Its baleful consequences cannot be minimized without significant changes in dominant societal values and the larger government system, although changes can occur in institutions at the margins, and values can shift. It is necessary to come up with a solution to reverse the problem and find ways to prevent it from worsening. America could be anywhere else rather than the clumsy situation it finds itself in
According to Teles, there are many reason why the tax code is so messy: it is easier to add things to it than subtract; resource transfers through the tax code seem to enlarge government more than direct spending, regardless of similar effects; the conservative immune system of big government in the tax code is lower than to the big government through expenditure, and finally, people attempting to attain special deals can do it more easily through the tax code than through directing spending, since there is minimal visibility; and the hurdle of the distributive policy they get is less, creating a spending program with the distributive effect of the mortgage-interest deduction. The current American kludgeocracy is as a result of the design of American institutions implemented by the founders. It is a predictable consequence of some of the features of the American regime. The primary cause of kludgeocracy is the urge to maintain the fiction of small government while addressing public problems, and the emergence of a kludge industry that distributes stable, sophisticated, cycle …show more content…
Government today could not be anything other than clumsy. Kludgeocracy is a predictable result of the complex features of the American regime. Its baleful consequences cannot be minimized without significant changes in dominant societal values and the larger government system, although changes can occur in institutions at the margins, and values can shift. It is necessary to come up with a solution to reverse the problem and find ways to prevent it from worsening. America could be anywhere else rather than the clumsy situation it finds itself in