By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--July 31, 2013
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"Behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that work better, cost less, and help people to achieve their goals,” reads the government document describing the program, which goes on to call for applicants to apply for positions on the team. The document was emailed by Maya Shankar, a White House senior adviser on social and behavioral sciences, to a university professor with the request that it be distributed to people interested in joining the team. The idea is that the team would “experiment” with various techniques, with the goal of tweaking behavior so people do everything from saving more for retirement to saving more in energy costs.Some of those Fox asked thought it sounded like a great idea. But others aren’t so sure.
“I am very skeptical of a team promoting nudge policies,” Michael Thomas, an economist at Utah State University, told FoxNews.com. “Ultimately, nudging … assumes a small group of people in government know better about choices than the individuals making them.”Well, of course it does. Thomas is 100% right. The problem with this policy is that it is not being used to “improve” government. It is being used to sell us on what government wants to do. As Ronald Reagan said, the scariest words in the country are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” These “nudge squads” are “here to help” and they’ll promote all the wrong-headed policies that elitists like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid want to further burden the country with. Lastly, do we really want to sell government like its a commodity, like our politicians are ad salesmen trying to get us to buy a new breakfast cereal? I know I don’t.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.