[morgante]

Yup! That idea gives me hope that we are not in an inexorable decline of intellectual thought. Fashions, including intellectual ones, are both faster to appear and slower lived than actual ideological shifts.

I think it's telling that while political and ideological fashions fall in and out of favor, actual policies tend to progress towards effectiveness.

[lnanek2]

What makes you think polices get more effective? The F-35 is a laughing stock. Surely most effective wouldn't be an overbudget, past deadline, aircraft with a host of problems. Surely most effective would mean avoiding things like that with government purchases.

Taxes get more complicated every year. I have a whole extra set of documents and fines to deal with because no health insurance is punished now, for example. Surely more effective would be least overhead to do taxes possible and least burden on the poor people without insurance.

The goal of many politicians is to increase pork barrel spending in their state, so it isn't like they are even trying to be effective for many policies, just to try to wrest the most money and support from the others. So if you mean most effective at making deals with businesses, maybe you are correct.

[Gifford]

The point of ACA was to make not being insured more hassle than being insured, to motivate you get insurance, not complain about the hassle of being uninsured. Maybe you philosophically oppose insurance, but it isn't ineffective at its stated goal