How Do You Stop Sea Captains From Killing Their Passengers?
It should be mandatory for any incoming politician to take a couple introductory economics courses before serving.  There are too many laws where incentives are not aligned properly, fundamentally dooming the policy to failure.<p>A good example of an incentive problem that's recently unfolded: now nearly 50% of US households have no federal income tax liability.<p>Edit: It's nearly 50%. It was 38% in 2007, 47% in 2009. Also, 40% of households "make a profit from the federal income tax system, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes".<p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-04-07-income-taxes_N.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-04-07-income-...</a>