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How to Get Better Public Decisions 2010/01/25 (09)
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Jun 5, 2025
Jon Roland explains how public decisons are made so poorly and how the quality might be improved. With Lela Pittenger. Austin Constitution Meetup Jan. 25, 2010.
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and the the warnings are out there I
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mean I'm delivering one of them to you
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right
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now you know I am one of the people who
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can look at a complex derivative and
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understand it and I could also tell that
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the people who were writing these things
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did not understand it and the people
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they were working for didn't understand
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them so you know what's wrong with that
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picture if you can't understand it you
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can't explain it it then maybe you
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shouldn't be selling
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it
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um
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so we have the d The Dilemma we're
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in how do we get higher quality
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decisions to be
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made well I have a lot of ideas about
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that
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um
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but uh it's not
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easy when you pass leg
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ation you have to realize that the the
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legislation is not going to be carried
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out by people like
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you uh I have gotten legislation adopted
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in
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Congress and it mostly got screwed
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up because one of the first problems you
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run into is that to when you hire people
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to carry out legislation you have to to
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just put out an ad and take whoever
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walks in the door that passes the the
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the general Services
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examination uh you have to hire by the
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Numbers you're not getting True
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Believers you're not getting people who
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are particularly train well trained in
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the subject area of the
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legislation you're getting people who
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can pass a you know get a an exam to get
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a GS
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level uh that's intended to prevent
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corruption to prevent patronage well it
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doesn't you don't get specific patronage
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perhaps being able to pick and choose
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who your you're going to hire for
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particular
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jobs
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but as the Democrats have discovered you
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get a general patronage by passing
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legislation that hires a whole bunch of
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people that then
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feel that they want to vote for
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Democrats in order to get even more jobs
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of the same kind or uh get their larger
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budgets and so forth which enables them
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to get promoted and bigger pensions and
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so you create a general patronage system
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even if you don't have specific control
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for you know picking and choosing
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particular
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individuals uh back when I was in the
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military we had tried to avoid the
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problem by reassigning people
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regularly CH
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officers an officer would stay in a uh
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particular Duty station at most 3
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years usually less time than
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that the idea was to avoid Empire
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Building you keep moving people around
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and keep reassigning
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them uh don't leave anybody in in one
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position for too
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long
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um that is
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a crude way to try to deal with a
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problem but it has its
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merits and one of my proposed reforms
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for uh the civil
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service is to keep rotating people
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around from job to job so nobody stays
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in a job for too long
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that also needs to be done among
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staffers for
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congress a lot of people will call for
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term limits of members of Congress but I
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point out all that would do is make
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staffers more important
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yeah and what you really need to do is
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to have a rotation among
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staffers Let each one stay long enough
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to acquire skills but not in one any one
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position so that they don't have a
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chance CH to develop these networks of
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cronies that then become the real
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power uh I also discovered U when I was
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living on Capitol Hill I live six blocks
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from the
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capital I would sometimes hang out in a
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local clubs one of them was called and
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it's still there the hawk and
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Dove I could sit at a table and be with
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an earshot of another table
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or I could hear Congressional staffers
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meeting with their
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handlers and interestingly enough the
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handlers did not seem to be the
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lobbyists of private
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firms they mostly seem to be uh
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executive branch a
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agencies especially and I got the
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distinct impression
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CIA so you have had federal agencies
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perhaps the
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CIA uh developing personal relationships
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with staffers in Congress inducing them
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to do what the agencies
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wanted now in that kind of situation
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who's working for whom and to what
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end uh I think if most
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people uh could see what I saw they
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would become rather dist
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[Music]
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Disturbed uh it was certainly an
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education for
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me and one of the reasons why I came
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back and ran for
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congress uh but it was
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uh a kind of learning experience that be
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very difficult to achieve in any other
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way you don't learn that kind of thing
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you don't learn what I learned in
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college or university or even in a
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government job most government
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jobs uh you just have to get out there
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and become involved in the process and
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watch it from the inside and sometimes
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he's drop on the next
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table do a little spying of your own yes
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well one of the favorite things uh sort
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of favor
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things a lot of what happens in
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Washington happens in cocktail parns and
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some are get
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gathers well a lot of of
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the actors players as we would call them
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were attractive
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women lobbyists spies
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whatever uh most of them were not
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attached so I would occasionally be
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called to serve as an escort back in
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those days it's no longer true but in
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those days it was considered for you
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know normal Al for uh men and women to
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appear in Paris at these things so my uh
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lobbyist by whatever uh female type
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would invite me to be her escort so she
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could show up with a guy we wouldn't
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leave together we show up together and
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she'd go do her thing trying to button
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this Congressman or Senator or whatever
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and uh you know I would do this doing
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similar things uh trying to talk about
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my favorite legislation or
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whatever uh well we we'd occasionally
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had some interesting conversations as we
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were driving to the to the
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event and I got a lot of insight into
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how all that
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worked uh now when I say spy I don't
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mean spy of for foreign government
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mostly spies for other uh special
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interests
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trying to figure out what the opposition
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was doing you know so they could head
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off uh the
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opposition
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uh
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um and frankly I think most of the
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gals uh were using sex as one of their
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tools uh I couldn't prove it they didn't
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admit to it but but you didn't do that I
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didn't do that okay just making sure
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