Evidence-Based Funding of Social Programs

This opinion article from the New York Times by Ron Haskins, a former policy advisor to President George W. Bush, offers useful insights into social policy and an “evidence-based” approach to funding. Haskin praises the Obama Administration’s efforts to identify and fund social programs that work – nurse visits to single mothers, K-12 education, pregnancy prevention, and others. He urges Congress not to cut these evidence-based initiatives, i.e., those “with rigorous evidence of success, as measured by scientifically designed evaluation” and urges that this approach “be a prerequisite for any program to get federal dollars.” Such an approach is laudatory for direct spending, but ironically, would apply awkwardly to tax expenditures like the charitable deduction, which relies on donors to assess evidence of success, and not the federal government. Indeed, this is both a virtue and vice of the charitable deduction. By awarding donor contributions with a deduction, the government essentially supports a broad array of organizations based not on the evidence but on donor choice. Compliance is not measured by programmatic effectiveness, but by meeting various organizational and operational requirements. But even here, enforcement is weak, as emphasized by the recent GAO report on exempt organization compliance.

Roger Colinvaux