I didn't know this – and I suspect I'm not the only one:
A somewhat surprising bi-partisan effort is Speaker Ryan and Senator Murray (D-WA) having submitted bills in each chamber of Congress to develop a Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking. (It's passed in the House.) This commission will be charged to “determine the optimal arrangement for which administrative data on Federal programs and tax expenditures and related data series may be integrated and made available to facilitate program evaluation, policy-relevant research, and cost-benefit analyses”.
It will make recommendations on how data infrastructure and statistical protocols should be modified” to achieve this. This Commission will be a big deal and, unless you are among the most skeptical or a conspiracy theorist, this commission will turbocharge the awareness of the power of data at all levels of government.'
This information comes from the first in a series of blog posts by Robert George about the public sector's use of data to improve well-being. If this law passes, government will become a data-driven enterprise by default. That will be a great advance. govloop
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