Ask HN: Should Governments Set OKRs?

Anyone who has observed American politics for the last few decades would’ve noticed that the party out of power has been incentivized to block any policy change to prevent the party in power to have any sort of legislative wins. We’ve seen very little compromise as a result.

Countries do have pretty clear objectives: keep unemployment low, increase life expectancy, increase disposable income, reduce premature death, etc. Those things are relatively easy to track (we already do that). If we were to reward elected officials (and bureaucrats) for meeting or exceeding those objectives, then it would provide them the incentive to do the best job they can, regardless of who is President or in the majority.

I’d imagine the reward in this case would not just be cash. I’m thinking it should be some sort of security that pays a dividend, perhaps an annuity. The idea there is to not reward short-termism, nor does it try to tease out who did what. If you do a good job and have an impact, voters would keep you in office and you’d get more grants. And the rewards there should be substantial—hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per year, or maybe even more.

Example: Each USSU (United States Stock Unit) pays out $10K for reaching 100% of the year’s KRs (key result). KRs are set for five years in advance (so 2027’s KR would be set this year). The KRs might be something like increase life expectancy by 4 years, keep average unemployment below 4.5%, increase disposable income for each income quintile by 8%, etc. Some independent committee would need to decide what those targets are and what formula is used to determine payouts and what the range of possible payouts would be (I know, easier said than done). So even if everything gets worse, they would still payout, unless life expectancy fell to zero (which is the worst possible outcome).