This article originally appeared in The Detroit News July 15, 2025.

Voters want to understand vast and complex public policy ideas, ranging from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to ballot measures before Michigan voters to road-funding deals percolating in the Michigan Legislature. But there are so many issues. People are busy and probably won’t develop a broad range of policy expertise. So it can be easy to judge a bill using weak indicators like which party proposed the idea or who endorsed it.

It’s worth digging deeper to understand what a bill will actually do. Here are seven ideas to help with that analysis.

One: Policy proposals seek either to fix a problem or to create some desired outcome. So, what problem does the legislation try to fix? Will it fix the problem or merely mask it?

Here’s an example: Michigan students are not learning to read well, which inhibits educational outcomes. In 2016, the Michigan Legislature enacted a law to have students repeat the third grade if they were not reading at grade level. In 2023, the Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer repealed this law. Repealing the student retention law doesn’t fix reading scores but only kicks the problem down the road.

Two: When analyzing a policy idea, ask, “Who will pay for this?” Is it a broadly applied tax increase or a targeted fee? Does the proposal reprioritize public funds that had been used for lower-priority programs?

Three: Who benefits from the proposed policy? Does it help most people, or does it offer benefits to a narrow few? The Michigan Economic Development Corporation currently faces scrutiny for giving a $20 million grant to a Whitmer campaign donor. Most people understand the inherent unfairness of programs that serve a well-connected few.

Four: Does the proposal get the government out of the way or grow its footprint? When something bad happens in society, a natural reaction is for people to call for a change. “How did we allow this?” they ask. “There ought to be a law!”

Creating a new agency or new government program may give the impression of action, but it is foolish to grow government in response to every crisis. Can civil society address the problem? Can private philanthropy address it?

Five: Does this idea restrict government power or does it restrict people? Five years ago, we saw major assertions of government power with the COVID-19 lockdowns. The state regulated who could work, who could go outside, what kinds of gatherings were allowed and what you were allowed to buy. Meanwhile, state and local governments eased requirements that applied to them, such as transparency rules.

Six: “A government program is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth,” Ronald Reagan said. When analyzing a new proposal, ask whether the program should run indefinitely. New taxes are difficult to repeal because public agencies become dependent on the revenue.

When a program enjoys a dedicated revenue stream, that’s hard to change as well. For example, in Michigan some of the sales tax on gas goes to the School Aid Fund. Any debate about road funding triggers discussions about education funding because the two are connected. Similarly, new entitlement programs are politically difficult to reduce or end.

Seven: What are the long-term consequences of this idea? The government response to COVID-19 showed us that an attempt to fix one problem led to many others. State-mandated lockdowns hampered student learning, shuttered small businesses and put people out work.

Every policy idea involves tradeoffs. These questions help identify those tradeoffs.

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