Bills should be structured to include:
- Stated goals on what the lawmakers intend to achieve
- When they expect to achieve it
- How success or failure will be determined for a piece of legislation
- If the stated goals are not achieved by the specified date, the bill will be automatically repealed.
This rule encourages the following:
- Direct communication about what lawmakers aim to achieve in terms that the parties and the public should see as mutually agreeable (otherwise you wouldn’t want to be seen voting for it)
- Reasonable policies that have a better chance of actually achieving those goals.
- Feedback from reality: Without testing your ideas in the real world, you might do more harm than good. Outcomes matter.
If your policy can’t achieve what you said it would achieve, it shouldn’t exist.
This way of thinking (state your goals and measure your success or failure against reality) should really be implemented across the whole government, and it’s the most likely outcome of Elon’s proposed audit of the federal government. It works in the private sector, and there may be space for a policy like this in government as well.