‘The future ain’t what it used to be’
CONGRATULATIONS to the newly sworn in youth senators! We wish them well, and we hope they make the most of their two-year term by learning as much as they can about government and the lawmaking process.
The 1993 law that created the Youth Congress aimed “to provide a system which allows the youth to prepare to meet the challenges of the future and to make recommendations to the policy makers on youth programs.”
It’s a noble goal, to be sure, but the reasoning is somewhat questionable. How exactly can the Youth Congress “prepare the youth to meet the challenges of the future?” Does membership come with a crystal ball? And is there no other way for the youth to make recommendations on youth programs?
But no matter. The Youth Congress can be a valuable learning experience for young leaders, although not in the way that many people think. For starters, learning how a bill becomes law is not enough. Youth senators should also know the history of NMI legislation: the laws that have already been passed, including those pertaining to the youth and existing youth programs as well as these laws’ goals compared to the actual results when they were implemented — if they were implemented; and if not, why not? The youth senators may also want to look into the government pay hike measure that resulted in a pay cut for lawmakers; the anti-littering law; the blighted property law; the youth curfew law; the law that created CHCC, among other “popular” laws that were passed with great fanfare but ultimately fall short of their promises.
Youth senators, moreover, must learn how the government raises and spends money — and what are its ongoing financial obligations. Like most of us, youth senators must also learn that nothing from the government is free, and that someone else, somehow, will have to pay for it.
Ultimately, what youth senators — and the rest of us — must learn is that legislation is not a magic wand; government is not a magician; and politics is basically about popularity, and the most popular politicians are usually the most generous with their time and/or money, or who have access to reliable funding sources and are more than willing, as one successful U.S. politician once said, to “spread the wealth.”
And if any youth senator eventually realizes that there are other and more worthwhile careers than politics, then our work here is done.
Speaking of legislation
THREE newly enacted public laws are essentially corrections to previous legislation. This proves, once again, the following observation made by British philosopher Herbert Spencer in the 19th century: Even if we think we know how a given measure will work, we can infer from human experience that there is a good chance that our expectations will be wrong.
It was also Spencer who noted that “the mischiefs wrought by uninstructed law-making, enormous in their amount as compared with those caused by uninstructed medical treatment, are conspicuous to all who do but glance over its history.” In human affairs, he added, “the most promising schemes go wrong in ways which no one anticipated.”
Hence, the need for research, public hearings, feedback from stakeholders, debates and deliberation when considering legislation — especially those that aim to “solve” long-standing issues or problems.
While every day chronicles a failure of legislation, Spencer wrote over 170 years ago, “there every day reappears the belief that it needs but an Act of [Legislature] and a staff of officers to effect any end desired…. Ever since society existed Disappointment has been preaching, ‘Put not your trust in legislation’; and yet the trust in legislation seems scarcely diminished.”
We’ve been warned.
