Tradeoff s are abundant in politics. Have you ever wondered why governments keep passing new laws, even though they hardly ever repeal any old ones? You would think that with the addition of more and more laws every year for hundreds of years, there would finally be enough.
One explanation is that most laws are designed to remedy an existing problem, but sometimes they create new problems. Tradeoff s are responsible for some of the problems that arise. As one famous example, in the 1990s the Ohio state legislature heard some sad stories about babies being born in prison (because their mothers were serving time). Taking pity on the babies, the government passed a new law to release pregnant women from prison. This solved one problem but created another, because all the women in Ohio prisons realized that they could get out of prison if they got pregnant, and many women would rather have a baby than be in prison. Female convicts began eagerly trying to have sex with male guards and lawyers. Some inmates would get a weekend pass to attend a relative’s funeral—but would skip the funeral and spend the weekend having as much unprotected sex as possible. Thus, there was a tradeoff between preventing babies from being born in prison and encouraging more prisoners to get pregnant. In this case, the law was repealed.
