Data wonks understand that if you put all the candidate information, the political donor information, the lobbyist information, and legislation, fiscal impact, contract, and vendor information into one database and perform basic businesslike analytics on that data, you would discover tremendous duplication of services at different costs, low-value program cost-benefit relationships, and even the appearance of influence peddling, which could be used to establish new due diligence protocols for policymakers and politicians. The public is quickly learning how to do such analyses themselves, through new social networks developed on the Internet.
Our democracy, already a powerful and vibrant method of organizing activities and resources for the common good, can become even more effective by applying simple cost-benefit measures at the policy implementation level, and placing a broad understanding of the players and their motivations at the forefront of the debates.
If we let it, the Internet will ensure that many eyes are on the lookout for bugs in the policy/fiscal soup.
Institute Deputy Director of Operations Linda King contributed to this chapter.