Andrew Yang Policy on AUTOMATICALLY SUNSET OLD LAWS

[Sherman A1]

Congress is set up to pass laws. They’re not set up to remove old laws. Because of this, the U.S. Code has become a bloated mess that only benefits those looking to exploit loopholes or avoid responsibility by pointing at the letter of the law.

While it’s important to take the time to revise the U.S.C., we should also proactively stop it from becoming a mess again in the future.

All laws passed should have their success metrics (in business, we call these Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs) defined and included. There should also be a sunset period defined—a time during which, barring Congressional action, the law will be removed from the books.

After the defined period, a Congressional committee could hear testimony about how the law has met its KPIs and, if it’s still relevant and has achieved its goals, can decide to reenact it for another period of time. If it is no longer relevant, or if it has failed to achieve its defined goals, it should cease to be law.

"We have a thicket of old laws that may have made sense when they were passed, but now have given rise to special interests that live off of them. Getting rid of laws is extremely tough—we have to make it easier by having a term and evaluation. This would empower Congress to re-evaluate laws periodically and channel resources more effectively. We live in the present and future, not the past, and we should govern accordingly."

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/automatically-sunsetting-old-laws/

[marylandblue]

1. Sorry, this is the dumbest idea ever.

Do we really need a sunset period for laws on tax evasion with a Congressional review on whether tax evasion should be still be a crime? And how do we measure the success of tax evasion laws? By the number of tax cheats caught, or by a guess of the number of tax cheaters deterred?

[Sherman A1]

3. One would assume that congress would simply renew

Such laws, but might be worth looking at them for updating when there time comes up. BTW how many laws do need to be retired? I suspect it is more than just a few......

[marylandblue]

5. Less than you might think and they are not where the confusion is.

If a law is unnecessary, people just ignore it. Nobody cares if you retire those or not. There is a lot more confusion from badly written laws. There is also a lot of confusion every time a law is changed until people figure out the new law. To accomplish what Yang wants, he should suggest that confusing laws be rewritten.

[B Stieg]

2. Gotta say that this candidate has some very interesting ideas!

Another great Dem candidate.

[calimary]

4. I just saw him on MSNBC. He does have some interesting ideas.

That $1000 stipend idea is interesting.

And compelling giant companies like Amazon that make obscene profits and pay exactly NO taxes to ante up for the greater good. And yet they benefit just as obscenely from the largesse of our system to corporations. I think they have an obligation to give back, to support the economy from which they extract so much benefit. Much blessed/much obligated.

And if they won’t do it voluntarily, then maybe we have to MAKE them do it.

[Politicub]

6. As a person who lives with bipolar disorder, it appears to me that

that Yang is rather hypomanic with all of the policies he puts out there. It's one after the other, and they seem to not be fully thought through. It's too many to follow, and a bad communications strategy since you don't know where to focus your attention. I thought of him as the UBI candidate, and he was doing a great job of communicating the benefits. His side-policies are nonsensical sometimes.

I think he may be bipolar because when I'm hypomanic, the ideas flow like water. It feels exhilarating to be able to think of so many different things. Then, I get back to my baseline of mood and discover that my seemingly wonderful ideas weren't that great. Maybe a couple of them have potential. The important thing is to know when an episode is coming on so my support network (family and friends) can help me through it.

There is nothing wrong with anyone who has bipolar. It's thought that Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Rosevelt were bipolar, and they were two incredibly consequential presidents. Bipolar mania often results in creative ideas. The flip side is depression, which can be deadly. The key is to know yourself so you can keep things as even as possible with medication and therapy.

And, as an aside, seeing the term KPIs makes me want to gag. It's corporate speak for "let's bring in an expensive management consultant to make your life hell". Not everything, especially with government, can be resolved to numbers or dollars and cents. Government should not be thought of or run like a business, which by it's nature a business should return a financial profit.

[Sherman A1]

7. The ideas have been posted on his website for a long time

I am posting them one by one so that those interested may take time to read through them, it is not a case of ideas flowing like water as you describe, but rather a case of many ideas on areas that we often do not even consider to be important but when added together as the sum of a whole are contributing factors. Yes, UBI is central to his candidacy but he certainly is not just a one trick pony having done thinking, research and policy development on many, many areas.

As to KPI, Yes, he comes from a corporate background and will use the terms with which he is familiar, so do you and I. Yes, he crunches numbers and looks for ways to make things better. From what I understand from reading his policies and listening to him, he wants to improve the deliverance of services from government to the citizens and in general improve the lives of everyone. I assume you are not opposed to that even if he uses terms such as KPI.

His campaign slogan is Humanity First and everything he is looking at and looking to do stems from that line of thinking.