Credit Unions and Moneyball for Government

Jim Nussle, the CEO and president of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), last summer teamed up with Peter Orszag to write Moneyball for Government.

According to the Moneyball Principles, government at all levels should help improve outcomes for young people, their families and communities by:

• Building evidence about the practices, policies and programs that will achieve the most effective and efficient results so that policymakers can make better decisions;
• Investing limited taxpayer dollars in practices, policies and programs that use data, evidence and evaluation to demonstrate they work; and
• Directing funds away from practices, policies, and programs that consistently fail to achieve measurable outcomes.

I suspect Mr. Nussle would also agree the same should apply to tax expenditures, which includes the credit union tax exemption.

However, NCUA does not practice the Moneyball Principles. The agency does not gather data and evidence to evaluate if credit unions are fulfilling their public policy mission of serving people of modest means.

If Mr. Nussle believes in the Moneyball Principles, he will use his new position as the head of CUNA to focus the agency on gather evidence and data about credit union services to people of modest means.

This information should go beyond the number of members served or the number of credit unions that have a low-income designation.

This will allow policymakers to make better decisions about the credit union tax expenditure and whether it is achieving the desired measurable outcomes.