Some policies seem like low-hanging fruit to benefit the US and its people, yet don’t get implemented. Why? It’s probably a combination of:
• political wars that pull things back and forth instead of moving forward
• voter confusion
• voters prioritizing other topics
• collective action problems
• they’re blocked by the few who are made worse off by them
• they are bad ideas, I’m wrong about them, or people’s values around them differ too much
Regardless of the reason, here are some ideas for what I would consider “low-hanging fruit” policies that would make things better:
1. Require regular mail to have a clearly labeled unsubscribe phone number or URL on the outside of the envelope, much like how we already require email to have an unsubscribe link.
2. Prefill all of our tax forms, and then simply send them to us to edit/approve. For many people, the U.S. government already knows what they owe! It’s insanely wasteful that they have to go through the lengthy and tedious process of filing taxes in that case.
3. Release everyone in prison for charges related only to marijuana possession or sale, and stop arresting for it. It is legal or decriminalized for some uses almost everywhere (except 2 of 50 states?). Yet somehow people are still in prison. The public is now pro-legalization.
4. Add a gradually ramping up corporate tax for air pollution (or cap & trade system) and pay this money immediately back to all people (directly or as tax relief). Air pollution has multiple negative externalities not properly priced in by the market.
5. Over time, ramp up regulations to prohibit keeping animals in a hellish nightmare, which is currently the normal life for most farm animals. The food industry secretly implicates most Americans in moral atrocities that most would be sickened by if they witnessed them. Most people are actually against the conditions that some animals are routinely kept in when they understand what they actually are.
6. Gradually switch some income tax to instead be collected via other more efficient/less distorting forms of taxation, for instance, a combination of (i) “land value” tax, (ii) tax on social signaling items (like super expensive watches/jewelry/yachts), and (iii) consumption taxes. Most economists agree that there are better approaches to taxing than we use.
7. Gradually remove tax breaks that incentivize things we don’t actually want to incentivize (unfortunately, there are many). E.g., the mortgage tax deduction on interest and the tax deductions employers get for health insurance. Instead, this money could be distributed to everyone while simplifying the tax code.
8. The law gets longer and more complex each year, is impossible for anyone to understand, and is expensive to comply with. This could be improved by requiring law removal (of matching length) when adding new ones, or creating a body to find antiquated laws and bring them to Congress to vote on removing.
9. Currently, sex workers are much more likely to be punished than those who seek their services, despite sex workers having a high chance of being impoverished/in a dangerous situation/exploited. All the major alternatives may be an improvement to the current system: decriminalizing, making legal and regulating, or flipping who is prosecuted.
10. Prevent gerrymandering. It’s a horrendous abuse of the political system, and both major political parties do it. It’s appalling that this still happens regularly. It’s not an easy problem, but mathematicians can design a set of requirements in setting voter district lines that make it much harder to manipulate election results. Or, a simpler solution comes from Nicholas Gruen: districting can be done by a randomly selected group of citizens instead of being determined by politicians.
11. For those terminally ill with a short, excruciatingly painful future, provide a way for those who want it to get assistance with painless suicide if they choose (after passing a psychological and medical evaluation). We subject people who are already doomed to die in pain to live for months or years in torturous circumstances, rather than dying in peace.
12. Right now, we have solitary confinement prisons, where people can end up being alone for years, amounting to torture that would drive most crazy. It should be totally banned or severely limited in duration (e.g., no more than 2 days per month).
This piece was first written on August 23, 2020 and first appeared on my website on June 17, 2026.
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