Both President Obama’s 2016 signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change and President Trump’s withdrawal from that agreement today fit into a category I will label as QTIIPS.

QTIIPS stands for Quantitatively Trivial Impact + Intense Political Symbolism.

QTIIPS policy changes provoke fierce political battles over trivially small policy impacts. Passionate advocates on both sides ignore numbers and policy details while fighting endlessly about symbols.

A policy change is QTIIPS if:

• its direct measurable effects are quite small relative to the underlying policy problem to be solved;
• it is viewed both by supporters and opponents as a first step toward an end state that all agree would be quite a large change;
• supporters and opponents alike attach great significance to the direction of the change, as a precursor to possible future movement toward that quantitatively significant end goal; and
• a fierce political battle erupts over the symbolism of this directional shift. This political battle is often zero-sum, unresolvable, and endless.

Advocates on either side of a QTIIPS policy change have desired end states that represent fundamentally different policy outcomes. But while the policy gap between their desired end states is measured in miles, on a QTIIPS policy, actual changes are measured in inches. The battle rages over which end state is the right one, but when policy shifts back and forth it changes direction often but moves only a tiny bit each time. Political constraints make the theoretical debate about miles-apart differences irrelevant because neither end state will ever occur, but that does not deter the theoretical war from raging during the real-world battles over a tiny actual change in direction.

If you listened to President Trump’s remarks today you would think staying in the Paris Agreement would destroy the U.S. economy. If you listen to many advocates who support the agreement, you would think you need to start building an ark, soon.

I therefore read the text of the agreement to see for myself. Doing so reinforced the view I developed when the agreement was concluded. Relative to the scope of the problem it is trying to solve, the Paris Agreement is quantitatively trivial. It is a set of weak process agreements, with many areas of ambiguous language and “flexibility” for countries to reinterpret their only loosely binding quantitative commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions many years from now.

The national leaders who supported Paris, including President Obama, had a political interest in overselling their policy accomplishment. Similarly, President Trump has a political interest in selling today’s move to his base as an enormous policy win, when to me it appears he is nullifying American participation in an agreement that on policy grounds was insignificant to begin with.

QTIIPS policy changes rest on the assumption that the first step is likely to lead to that theoretical quantitatively significant outcome. Most supporters of the Paris Agreement would privately concede that it is only a modest first step, and would then express hope that it could/will/might/should lead to further progress in the future. Opponents of the agreement would share their fears that this first step could/will/might lead to an eventual outcome they fear.

But this shared assumption, of a first step or slippery slope, could easily be wrong. If the Paris Agreement were never to have led to a more significant next step, then a key premise of the fight is wrong. The intense political symbolism and the fierce battles waged over both President Obama’s and President Trump’s relatively small policy moves would then be unsupported by strong policy arguments.

I think that’s the case here. I think Paris was not just the first step, I think it was likely the last step, that those who hoped it would lead to “deepening future commitments” were fooling themselves and others. I think Paris was agreed to only because national leaders realized it was impossible to get a numerically meaningful set of binding national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by specific large amounts. They therefore grabbed the best agreement they could, however weak, kicking the can down the road in the hope that somehow their successors might have more luck. Because I am so skeptical about the first step claim, and because I care far more about the policy impact than about the symbolism, my reaction is mild both to President Obama’s signing in 2016 and to President Trump’s withdrawal announcement today. I think neither agreeing to Paris nor withdrawing from it would have changed future global temperatures by any meaningful amount. Even before today I was skeptical that it would lead to any significant next steps, so I conclude that these symbolic battles about the Paris Agreement are almost meaningless.

A surprising dynamic often surrounds QTIPS policy changes—the most passionate supporters and opponents have a common interest in arguing that this particular policy change is enormously important, while downplaying the reality that its direct impact is barely measurable. These mortal opponents have a shared goal of hyping the issue and the battle. Issue advocates on both sides can generate political and financial support by convincing you this fight is important, even when it’s not. If you hear advocates arguing fiercely about “what this policy change means more broadly” or “the precedent it sets for future action” or “what it says about us/America/society” rather than about “what it does” and “what effect it has,” there is a good chance it is QTIIPS.

QTIIPS issues are unfortunately great fits for our modern advocacy, political, and communications structures. Everyone can virtue signal to their heart’s content. No one has to read the text of the policy change, look at the numbers, or ask hard questions of a relevant policy expert. Political tribes can inhabit their comfort zones and preach to the converted while heaping scorn and derision on the other tribe. Passion abounds while everyone ignores the policy nerds saying “Um… I think the actual effect here is too small to matter.”

I’ll end with two questions for the reader.

Q: Do you agree with me that agreeing to and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement are QTIIPS?

Q: What other hotly debated policy changes are QTIIPS?

How about the 2014 debate about banning immigration of refugees from Ebola-infected West African countries? Or the debate about incremental changes to gun laws? Or other hot-button social issues that dominate news cycles? Are they QTIIPS? Can you think of others?

Last Tuesday President-elect Trump said, “My Administration will be focused on three very important words: jobs, jobs, jobs.” Mr. Trump emphasizes geography: American policies should encourage economic growth “right here in America.” Nothing wrong with that.

He follows a hallowed tradition of politicians emphasizing jobs and talking about the number of people employed as if it were the only measure of economic well-being. This is effective political communications about economics and quite common.

Any time a policymaker does this he or she is oversimplifying. Employment levels, that is, jobs, are an important metric of economic health. Maximizing the number of people working is a laudable goal for policy. But jobs are not the only thing we should care about. Economically we are more than just workers.

• We care not just about how many people are working but also about how much we are earning. We are wage-earners.
• We care not just about wages but also about non-wage benefits like employer-paid health insurance premiums and employer contributions to retirement savings. Wages plus benefits equals total compensation.
• We care about the prices of the goods and services we buy. Those prices can be affected by the extent of domestic and international market competition and also by inflation. We are consumers.
• We can only spend what the government doesn’t take from us, so we care about the taxes we pay. We are taxpayers.
• On the flip side, we may receive cash or other transfer payments from the government. Some of us are recipients of government benefits.
• And since many of us own financial assets we care about economic growth and its effects on financial returns. We are investors.

Politicians talk about economic policy as if having a job is the only thing that matters to you. While being employed is critical to your economic status, you are more than just a worker.

When thinking about economic policy, each of us is a worker and a wage-earner, a consumer, a taxpayer, and often an investor and a recipient of government benefits.

OK, but so what? Does it really matter if politicians oversimplify and talk only about jobs, rather than about jobs and wages and compensation and prices and taxes and benefits and market returns?

It matters if political rhetoric drives policy to prioritize one element over the others. If we ignore a policy’s effects on consumers and taxpayers and measure only its impact on jobs, then we are getting an incomplete view of that policy. If we measure a policy’s success only by counting how many more jobs will result without considering the effects on wages and prices and other measure that matter, then we’re going to choose bad policies.

I am not arguing we should ignore the employment effects of a policy; I am not arguing that jobs don’t matter. Quite the opposite. We should start by looking at the effects on jobs and then keep going, analyzing the effects on wages, non-wage benefits, prices, taxes, transfer payments and financial returns. We need to measure, estimate, and understand all the economic effects of a proposed policy change, not just the one effect that is easiest to communicate.

Example 1: Buy American provisions, aka domestic content restrictions, require the government to buy certain things only from American producers. This helps steelworkers while harming taxpayers and those who use the government’s services (a fixed number of tax dollars buying more expensive steel will buy fewer rail cars and buses). We should evaluate these policies not just on the American jobs they create or protect, but also on the Americans’ taxes they increase and the services they reduce for other Americans.

Example 2: Erecting trade barriers with China and other sources of inexpensive imported goods would help American workers in the protected industries, at least in the short run. It would also raise prices for those products. We should consider the effects on both American manufacturing workers and on American Walmart shoppers. If we ignore the latter, much larger group, we’re not making good decisions.

Example 3: A large deficit-increasing increase in government spending or cut in taxes next year (aka fiscal stimulus) could, by itself, increase employment and wages. It could also lead to higher inflation and harm consumers. Or the Fed could react to the fiscal stimulus by raising interest rates more rapidly. This would slow growth in interest-sensitive components of our economy, at least partially offsetting the effects of fiscal stimulus. Higher interest rates would also affect financial returns, the ability of American farms and firms to export goods, and the prices of things we import. Policymakers need to look at the complete set of impacts of a proposed fiscal stimulus, not just at the gross number of jobs someone thinks it will create.

Jobs are important and Mr. Trump deserves credit for signaling early that he will prioritize faster economic growth. We should not single him out for focusing his rhetoric solely on jobs, as most other politicians do the same. At the same time, each of us is more than just a worker, and the number of jobs is not the only measure of a good policy. When we forget this we risk doing more harm than good.

How much advice does the president need? Should the president rely on just one person for advice on a straightforward policy question, or delegate a decision to a single person?

Challenge #1: Any policy problem difficult enough to make it to the president’s desk is usually multidimensional.

Challenge #2: The work of government is often highly interconnected. What one department does affects another.

Challenge #3: Once you get past the analysis, most presidential decisions involve tradeoffs among competing values and interests. I believe those judgment calls should be made by the person selected by voters.

Let’s construct an imaginary example of what appears to be a straightforward, even simple, policy question, and then use that to understand how policy advice to a president typically works.

Suppose House & Senate Republicans are moving a bill to increase government infrastructure spending by $200 B over the next decade, fully offset by cuts to other government spending. Let’s pretend Senator Ron Wyden, senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, proposes doubling that new spending to $400 B over ten years with the increment to be offset by a roughly ten cent per gallon tax increase on gasoline and diesel fuel. Suppose Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has told White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus that he wants to talk to President Trump about this proposal. Finally, suppose President Trump decides he wants advice on how to respond to Senator Schumer.

Thus the question is: How should President Trump respond to Congressional Democrats’ proposal to double the proposed government infrastructure spending increase to $400 B, offset by a tax increase of roughly ten cents per gallon on gas and diesel fuel?

Pretty straightforward, right? Let’s unpack the question the way a White House policy council staff would.

Policy dimensions

• Numbers: Are Senator Wyden’s numbers right? Will a ten cent per gallon fuel tax increase raise $200 B over ten years? A tax increase will increase the gross pump price, which will reduce demand for fuel, partially offsetting the initial price increase. What is the net effect on the pump price from a ten cent per gallon gross increase?
• More infrastructure: How much should the president value an additional $200 B of infrastructure spending? How much more economic growth and how much better of a quality of life will an additional $200 B buy? What does it mean for people and stuff traveling by air, rail, car, truck, bus, and ship?
• Economic effects of tax increase: What are the economic effects of tax and price increases of that size? Will they slow growth and by how much? What are the distributional impacts: regional geographic distribution, urban vs. rural, income distribution? What are the sectoral impacts: trucking, agriculture, Uber/Lyft/taxi, the transport component of the cost of consumer goods?
• Environmental: More expensive fuel —> less driving —> less pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. How big are these effects and how do they compare with other policy tools like fuel economy requirements and limits on power plant and industrial emissions?
• Energy supply and demand; national security: How much will domestic fuel demand decline? How will that affect domestic oil and gasoline suppliers? How will it affect U.S. oil and fuel imports and exports? Will those changes affect our relationships with foreign oil suppliers like Venezuela and the Middle East?
• Other increments: What if we did half what Senator Schumer is offering, +$100 B for a 5 cent increase? What if we doubled Schumer’s proposal to $400 B / 20 cents? What if we did Schumer’s +$200 B paid for half by gas tax and half by further spending cuts, or all by spending cuts?

Legislative, political, and communications dimensions

• Communications: Fuel tax increases are extremely unpopular and communicating support for them is hard. What is the best communications strategy? What exactly will the president and his Administration say?
• The politics are multi-dimensional:

• left-right: The more
  [economically] conservative you are, the more you tend to oppose any tax increases, including these.
• urban-rural: City dwellers are affected less than rural folk. If you drive your F-150 forty miles to and from work each day, you care a lot about fuel taxes.
• infrastructure spending: Almost every Member of Congress wants to spend more money on infrastructure. Most will suck up a lot of other political pain if it means fixing a bridge in their district or State.
• campaign fear: The campaign attack ads against an incumbent who voted for a gas tax increase write themselves. I wonder if I can get an ad on that little TV built into the gas pump?
• political cover: Bipartisanship and/or presidential support might partially mitigate someone’s re-election risk.
• States and localities: When the Feds raise these taxes it makes it harder for Governors and Mayors to do the same, triggering political pushback from those officials.
• Legislative:
  • votes: How many Republican votes do we lose in the House and Senate if we support including a gas tax increase? How many Democrats do we pick up? Would we risk a Senate filibuster on the right? What would the votes look like if we counter-offered a different pay-for?
  • leadership support: Would Ryan and McConnell go along with it if the president insisted? They control the legislative process and without them we’re sunk.
  • other effects on the bill: If we lose Republican votes do we have to make other policy sacrifices because we now rely on Democrats to pass the bill? Will Congressional Democrats then demand further changes to the type or location of spending, or to union-related or environmental provisions?
  • legislative linkage: How would splitting Congressional Republicans and antagonizing their leadership weaken our ability to get them (the majority party) to help us with other parts of our legislative agenda? Would an alliance with Schumer on this bill provide other legislative benefits?

Someone needs to be able to educate the president about all these aspects of this decision as well as to answer these questions as needed. Let’s look at the president’s most senior advisors: Cabinet Secretaries and the most senior White House staff. Which of them have information, expertise, and/or formal responsibility for these questions and should be given an opportunity to advise the president on this decision?

Two Cabinet-level officials are particularly important:

• Secretary of the Treasury because it’s taxes; and
• Secretary of Transportation because of the infrastructure spending.

Six additional Cabinet-level officials can make strong cases that they should be part of the discussion:

• EPA Administrator because of the environmental impacts;
• Secretaries of Interior and Energy because of the effects on oil supply (Interior) and demand and import/export (Energy);
• Secretaries of Commerce and Agriculture because of the sectoral impacts;
• Secretary of Labor if a legislative alliance with Democrats necessitates changes in labor policy.

So far we’re between two and six Cabinet level officials who probably should be part of this decision. Now let’s look inside the White House (technically the Executive Office of the President, which includes the White House as well as other offices). We’ll start with the in-house policy experts.

• The President needs to have the Director of the Office of Management and Budget who manages both the spending and tax sides of the ledger. $200 B is a lot of money.
• He’ll need his chief economist (Council of Economic Advisers) to answer the economic questions. In theory maybe SecTreas or SecCommerce could do that, but while those two have economists working for them, you’d like to have an economist principal in the room. That’s the CEA Chair.
• If you include EPA you’ll also include the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Then you need the non-policy advisors in the White House:

• the head of White House Legislative Affairs to address all the legislative complexities described above;
• the president’s White House political advisor to advise on how this affects politics, including popularity, partisanship, and interest group support and opposition; and
• the communications director and the press secretary to advise on how this fits (or doesn’t) in the president’s overall message and on how to talk about it publicly.

We’ve added another seven White House advisors so far. Just a few more:

• the Vice President;
• the White House Chief of Staff;
• the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy; and finally,
• the Director of the National Economic Council, who corrals all these people, coordinates the process, produces the paper and runs the meetings.

Phew! That means the skinny version of this decision, with only two cabinet secretaries, has twelve senior people who merit advising the president on this simple question. The fuller version has up to nineteen advisors, each of whom has a strong argument for participating in the discussion leading up to this presidential decision. In practice nineteen is too many; you’d probably end up with around 15. And the president might take input from a dozen or more senior advisors, then have a follow-on smaller discussion with just a few of them. Even so, a lot of people need to advise the key decision-maker, even if they’re not all in the room when he makes the final call.

Why do you typically include so many people in providing input into a presidential decision?

1. These advisors have information and expertise—Each question listed above requires analysis and research. The experts who do this work report to these 12-19 principals throughout the Cabinet and White House. These principals also have personal expertise, experience, and judgment (if you hired right). And they are each in close and frequent contact with relevant constituencies (Congress, truckers, farmers, drivers, labor unions, the press, farmers…) and can therefore add useful context and texture to a policy discussion.
2. They have formal jurisdiction—Part of their job is to advise the president on policy issues within their portfolios.
3. Cabinet management, morale, and policy implementation—These senior advisors are successful people who were told they’d have an impact on policy. They’re working hard on the president’s behalf every day. Many have not-small egos. If you exclude them from the big decisions you’ll have to spend more time and energy managing them, and you’ll have a tougher time getting their portions of the bureaucracy to faithfully implement the president’s decision.
4. Cabinet effectiveness — A Cabinet secretary who is excluded from providing input directly to the president quickly loses the ability to be effective with others: Congress, the press, and interest groups. If you don’t have the President’s ear people figure that out quickly and work around you.
5. Reduce insularity — Mixing up and expanding the personnel involved reduces the chance the president and his closest advisors will get trapped in a small groupthink bubble.

Could President Trump delegate a policy decision like this to one person, either a Cabinet Secretary or someone in the White House? Sure, but which one? Either you delegate to one person who likely prioritizes their part of the problem, leading to an unbalanced decision that doesn’t account for all of the President’s interests. Or you simply push the advise problem down a level: if you delegate to the White House Chief of Staff, or the Vice President, or the DCOS or NEC Director, then that person needs to get advice from these other dozen or more senior advisors. You haven’t solved the advice management challenge, you’ve simply relocated it.

All of the above was to advise the president on an apparently easy question. Imagine how complex it gets when you’re dealing with something hard. Can the president rely on one person for policy advice? Of course. A president can make decisions any way he wants. If he wants to make the judgment calls, and if he wants to make a well-informed decision, he needs information and counsel that represents a wide range of experience, expertise, and viewpoints.