As America approaches its 250th anniversary, we should do more than celebrate the founders. We should emulate their thinking.
Madison and the Federalists understood that good government cannot depend on good people alone. It must be built around incentives and institutions in which those incentives can be embedded.
Today, some of our most obvious reforms are also the hardest to pass: banning congressional stock trading, imposing term limits or limiting pay increases to future members of Congress, not merely future Congresses. The problem is that the people asked to enact these reforms are often the very people who benefit from delaying them.
One tool for breaking this political game theory, which Madison himself might appreciate, is the sunrise clause: pass the reform now, but have it take effect far enough in the future that current officeholders are not voting directly against their own interests.
This would not solve every problem. And yes, it may let some people off the hook. But for so-called 80/20 issues, where public incentives and legislative incentives diverge, it would be a vast improvement, especially if delayed reform were passed by amendment, making it difficult for future Congresses to undo before it takes effect.
The Founders knew the Constitution was imperfect and would need amendment. Their genius was not perfection, but designing mechanisms for improvement. At 250, we should recover that habit.
Dave Bird,
Houston, Texas