Currently, our economic and societal health is gauged by metrics like the stock market and GDP. However, these indicators can often be misleading. Even Simon Kuznets, the inventor of GDP, acknowledged its inadequacy as a holistic measure of national well-being. In today's context, this is evident as parameters such as life expectancy, unity, mental health, patriotism, culture, and confidence are on the decline, even as GDP and the stock market continue to rise. In essence, we are focusing on the wrong indicators to gauge our country's health, to our own detriment.
It's time to broaden our evaluative framework to more accurately reflect our societal progress. Life expectancy, freedom from substance abuse, childhood success rates, and meaningful retirement rates should be recognized as key indicators of our nation's well-being. Policies should be evaluated and ranked based on their impact on these metrics, rather than the wealth accumulation of a few stockholders.
Challenges with Current Indicators The GDP does not account for cost of living, inflation rates, stability, inequality, health, or happiness. Consequently, the United States has seen a significant drop in rankings across various essential measures, such as life expectancy, clean water, and infant mortality.
Re-election rates bear no connection to the quality of legislation passed. At present, there's no reliable way for Congress to measure if their laws have positively impacted their constituents' lives.
In 1934, Simon Kuznets warned against using GDP as a measure of national well-being, yet, almost a century later, we continue to rely heavily on it. As Bobby Kennedy aptly stated, GDP "does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play….it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
A Proposed Solution Our party will base its decisions on policy performance, relying on open online cost-benefit analysis to gauge a policy's potential to meet our valid interests and goals.
We will require our candidates to present valid arguments indicating how each policy will lead to improvements across a range of potential costs or benefits.
Potential measurements could include, but are not limited to:
- Poverty rates
- Life expectancy
- Rates of business formation
- Clean water accessibility
- Crime rates
- Overdose deaths
- Government efficiency
- Mental health indicators
- Income growth & average incomes
- Affordability
- Environmental sustainability
- Recidivism
- Labor-force participation rate
- Military readiness
- Marriage rates
- Quality of infrastructure
- Rehabilitation rates
- Civic engagement
- Education rates
- Public debt and repayment interest loans.
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