Political Bundling
In antitrust law, "bundling" or "tying" happens when you require someone to buy goods or services together rather than à la carte. The economics of it is complicated—it is not always anti-consumer, although it often involves cross-subsidies that favor people with certain preferences.
Anyway the same thing happens in politics in two senses, one of them interesting and the other fairly boring. The boring version is simply enforcing a political deal that has been struck. So for instance, the Democrats might agree to support spending on highways in exchange for spending on mass transit. You put those policies into the same bill to prevent either side from reneging, since in isolation the Democrats might not want the highway spending and in isolation the Republicans might not want the transit spending. So each would fail in a separate vote, but together they pass.
The more interesting version involves public perception. I've been thinking about this in connection with gun control. There are at least four distinct public policy issues that could in theory be separately addressed. (1) The U.S. has a very high rate of gun homicide. This is largely a function of easily available handguns. (2) The U.S. has frequent mass shootings, which are far more shocking to the public but which cause significantly fewer deaths than more ordinary murders. This is largely a function of easily available semi-automatic rifles, which are unsuited for ordinary gun crime. (3) The U.S. has a high rate of death from gun accidents, often involving toddlers. This is largely a function of the loose regulation of gun storage. (4) I have seen evidence that guns increase the rate of suicide. This is a function of the availability of guns in general.
You could very easily address any of (1), (2), and (3) in isolation, while (4) cuts across the other issues. In other words, a rigorous assault weapon ban could make it much harder to carry out a mass shooting while doing practically nothing to address common gun crime. Similarly, a handgun ban could reduce the murder rate while having no effect on mass shootings. And simply requiring guns to be locked up when not in use would save children's lives without affecting gun crime much at all.
If the momentum for gun control grows, Democrats will face a choice about how to present their policies. They could go for across-the-board gun control addressing all of the issues I've mentioned. In a sense, they would be harnessing national outrage over school shootings to make policy gains along another dimension. Alternatively, they could focus on assault weapons, calculating that a broader push will be harder to pull off. These are not easy decisions! I haven't looked up the data, but it seems likely that the victims of school shootings, while diverse, are whiter on average than the victims of ordinary gun homicide. This is one reason that it is difficult to mobilize the public to support broad gun control efforts. But by the same token, tying an assault weapon ban to ordinary gun control might cause it to lose steam.
Of course there is a strategic dynamic where Republicans are essentially on the opposite side of the bundling decision. They can always propose amendments to set up separate votes on the separate issues, or they can insist that any gun control effort should satisfy a long and hard-to-meet list of conditions. Their allies in the media can mock the Democrats for failing to protect their urban constituency or for trying to ban handguns that are not especially deadly in school shootings.
The same thing happened with DACA, obviously, with the bundling question essentially driving everything else. Anyway I don't have much more to say about it, it's just a dynamic to watch whenever the public feels strongly about an issue and a party has a longstanding view on adjacent issues that might or might not be bundled.
Anyway the same thing happens in politics in two senses, one of them interesting and the other fairly boring. The boring version is simply enforcing a political deal that has been struck. So for instance, the Democrats might agree to support spending on highways in exchange for spending on mass transit. You put those policies into the same bill to prevent either side from reneging, since in isolation the Democrats might not want the highway spending and in isolation the Republicans might not want the transit spending. So each would fail in a separate vote, but together they pass.
The more interesting version involves public perception. I've been thinking about this in connection with gun control. There are at least four distinct public policy issues that could in theory be separately addressed. (1) The U.S. has a very high rate of gun homicide. This is largely a function of easily available handguns. (2) The U.S. has frequent mass shootings, which are far more shocking to the public but which cause significantly fewer deaths than more ordinary murders. This is largely a function of easily available semi-automatic rifles, which are unsuited for ordinary gun crime. (3) The U.S. has a high rate of death from gun accidents, often involving toddlers. This is largely a function of the loose regulation of gun storage. (4) I have seen evidence that guns increase the rate of suicide. This is a function of the availability of guns in general.
You could very easily address any of (1), (2), and (3) in isolation, while (4) cuts across the other issues. In other words, a rigorous assault weapon ban could make it much harder to carry out a mass shooting while doing practically nothing to address common gun crime. Similarly, a handgun ban could reduce the murder rate while having no effect on mass shootings. And simply requiring guns to be locked up when not in use would save children's lives without affecting gun crime much at all.
If the momentum for gun control grows, Democrats will face a choice about how to present their policies. They could go for across-the-board gun control addressing all of the issues I've mentioned. In a sense, they would be harnessing national outrage over school shootings to make policy gains along another dimension. Alternatively, they could focus on assault weapons, calculating that a broader push will be harder to pull off. These are not easy decisions! I haven't looked up the data, but it seems likely that the victims of school shootings, while diverse, are whiter on average than the victims of ordinary gun homicide. This is one reason that it is difficult to mobilize the public to support broad gun control efforts. But by the same token, tying an assault weapon ban to ordinary gun control might cause it to lose steam.
Of course there is a strategic dynamic where Republicans are essentially on the opposite side of the bundling decision. They can always propose amendments to set up separate votes on the separate issues, or they can insist that any gun control effort should satisfy a long and hard-to-meet list of conditions. Their allies in the media can mock the Democrats for failing to protect their urban constituency or for trying to ban handguns that are not especially deadly in school shootings.
The same thing happened with DACA, obviously, with the bundling question essentially driving everything else. Anyway I don't have much more to say about it, it's just a dynamic to watch whenever the public feels strongly about an issue and a party has a longstanding view on adjacent issues that might or might not be bundled.
posted by James | 12:32 PM
3 Comments:
As in the DACA issue, trying to "bundle" on gun control is interpreted by many as a sign of bad faith (which it sort of is). Liberals try to use mass shootings, which everyone cares about, to push for policies that cut down on ordinary gun violence, which very few people care about. "Well, actually most gun deaths are not mass shootings" is a canonical "well, actually" move.
I don’t know if it really is a canonical “well actually”, Typically those are when someone is wrong about a detail that is mentioned but not operationally relevant. E.g. “I went snorkeling and we saw all kinds of cool fish like parrot fish and clown fish, and dolphins.” “well, actually, the dolphin is mammal not a fish.” True, but maybe not relevant to the person’s story.
On the other hand, a correction when relevant is different. “Drat, we are out of paper towels, I’ll go six blocks north to the nearest store.” “Wait, the nearest store is actually one block east, you can save yourself a lot of time going there instead.”
In this case, it matters what is in a gun bill because spending huge amounts of political capital to save 200 lives a year isn’t good value when you could save that many lives with minor tweaks to environmental or safety regulations at only minimal political cost. It’s not worth it to spend political energy on guns unless you address the real cause on gun deaths, i.e. hand guns not ‘assault weapons’.
That assumes people are actually interested in reducing gun deaths whereas they really care about reducing mass shootings. It's more like, "Fuck I'm hungry, I'm going to the McDonalds" "Well actually there is an organic food store somewhat nearer"
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