Quick Fixes?

Sometimes we look at the way we do things and then cant remember why we do it that way. Just take a look at the Bharat Nirman scheme or the debt relief scheme of the GOI. We've spent thousands of crores and dont have much to show for it.  Someone once said that instead of waiving the loans, if we give each poor person one hundred thousand rupees, it will be far more effective. I agree with this - we could use an effective self selection mechanism like choosing the people who sign up for the NREGA. I mean, with the backbreaking work and low pay, only the poorest of the poor people who dont have other options are likely to sign up for it, and lets give each of them some money. It will be far far cheaper than the loan waiver which cost the taxpayer 600,00,00,00,000 rupees or the Bharat Nirman which cost  480,00,00,00,000  rupees or other such schemes. But any suggestions like these will not be well-received because of mainly the following:

1. For some reason, it is believed that the benefits should "trickle down" through means of a strong policy that is self sustaining in the long run.  True, but while we are perfecting the system, there is an unfortunate mass of people who suffer in the short-run for it.

2. It is not in the interest of the person/ people/ party implementing it because they will get little or no mileage out of it since it will not be politically popular.

3. There is this concept of inclusion of various sections of people. People might argue for example, that the statistics show that NREGA is not working in all states, so what about the poor in those states? And then we will digress in our effort to do the right thing by all. I really think that in an effort to benefit all (read: please everyone), we really end up with blurry goals.

I can think of many more reasons but I will leave it to the readers to think this through. You would all have heard of the suggestion to the American President that came to be known as "Patriotic Retirement" in the St. Petersburg Times. For the benefit of those who haven't read it, 

Dear Mr. President,

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings. Unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered. Auto industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage. Housing crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!
P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress and their constituents pay their taxes.
 

For some reason, I was curious to see what various critics had to say about this, so I combed many of  the blogs and opinion pieces online. It was surprising - most people contented themselves with pointing out that the cost of this scheme would be $ 40 trillion and therefore it is unrealistic. I am sure we could argue a reasonable case for this plan by pointing out the huge costs saved on bailouts (pegged at $ 24 trillion),  the  costs saved on the "Stimulus Plan"  and the other numerous plans etc, but thats not the point...the point is that such a direct approach which is too low-lying compared to policy measures (which have the backing of the "sound" economic theories, of course) and for all the other reasons pointed out above is not appreciated.