Understanding and explaining trade-offs is key to making smart public policy. To get one particular thing, American voters, you have to give up something else. Sure, you might be better off despite the trade-offs, but choices have consequences or costs. There’s no such thing as a free lunch and all that.

Americans would be better served if our politicians, policymakers, and policy commentators honestly highlighted the trade-offs of their ideas. A few examples:

• Although tariffs can shield domestic industries from foreign competition and boost government finances over the short run, they come at a cost to consumers and businesses that rely on imported goods and materials—not to mention the often-ignored risk of other nations retaliating with their own tariffs. Trade-offs.
• Immigration restrictions might create more job openings for people already living here and take some pressure off public services like schools and hospitals. But businesses that depend on workers from other countries might struggle to find enough employees. Also, with fewer people coming in, there might be less overall economic growth. Trade-offs.
• Freezing or cutting science investment might seem like an easy way to trim government spending. But reduced spending today can stifle innovation tomorrow, weakening a country’s competitive and national security edge in a competitive and dangerous world. Trade-offs.

Then there’s this: Right now, we’re dealing with the trade-offs from the 1970s choice to stop building and even shut down nuclear reactors. In my 2023 book, The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised, I point to the consequences of relying on dirtier energy sources, such as coal-fired plants. 

There were no immediate fatalities [after Three Mile Island]—either from the minor radiation release or evacuation—and most studies have found no observable long-term effects, either. Following Three Mile Island, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ramped up inspections. This led to the shutdown of two large Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plants, shifting power generation to coal-fired plants. Then the unintended consequences kicked in, especially increased particle pollution and higher infant mortality in the counties where those coal plants were located. Now spread that “unanticipated” impact over the entire past half century, and across all of America where we’ve burned dirty fossil fuels when we could already be getting most of our energy production from nuclear rather than just a fifth, which has been the case since TMI. 

Or this from the paper “The unintended effects from halting nuclear power production: Evidence from Fukushima Daiichi accident“:

After the accident, nuclear power stations ceased operation and nuclear power was replaced by fossil fuels, causing an increase in electricity prices. We find that this increase led to a reduction in energy consumption, which caused an increase in mortality during very cold temperatures, given the protective role that climate control plays against the elements. Our results contribute to the debate surrounding the use of nuclear as a source of energy by documenting a yet unexplored health benefit from using nuclear power, and more broadly to regulatory policy approaches implemented during periods of scientific uncertainty about potential adverse effects.

Do you have any ideas about policy? Maybe something about taxes or the Federal Reserve? What are the trade-offs? Because there definitely are some.

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