Nothing is actually "politically impossible"—it’s just stuff we haven't written a check for yet.
April 3, 2026
Original Paper
The Price of Political Change: A Cost-Benefit Framework for Policy Incentivization
SSRN · 6236480
The Takeaway
Researchers calculated that the most controversial US policy changes could be 'bought' through legal lobbying and campaign support for just $25 billion. Compared to the trillions in benefits those changes would bring, our political gridlock is essentially just a failure to allocate capital.
From the abstract
What is the maximum cost to achieve any policy change through legal democratic channels? We estimate $25 billion for the United States and $200 billion globally. These figures represent the upper bound of matching all opposition spending (campaign finance, lobbying) and providing career alternatives for affected legislators. For high net-societal-value policies, even these maximum costs yield extraordinary returns: military-to-health reallocation achieves ROI exceeding 400,000:1, carbon pricing