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.A good example of an incentive problem that's recently unfolded: now nearly 50% of US households have no federal income tax liability.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".http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-04-07-income-...