It would be comforting to think that significant policy changes take place in a rational environment.
Yet, once again, major social security reforms around health and disability benefits are being developed to the soundtrack of frenzied media fantasies painting sickness and disability as the lifestyle choice of the feckless.
The reality is that disabled people are ready - indeed, eager - to educate and support the government in their wish to cut the welfare bill by boosting their employment opportunities. However, that support must be offered without coercion, and in a genuinely supportive and personalised manner.
However, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall and her embattled colleagues in the Treasury seem set on repeating the mistakes of their predecessors. The government does not need a swathe of shiny new "support" initiatives - or "ruthless" cuts to welfare, for that matter.
Alarmingly, the scattergun briefings suggest that funding for the Access to Work programme may be cut. Since it was established 31 years ago, the programme has evolved to support disabled people with significant needs to find - and keep - jobs. In other words, it aligns precisely with what ministers say they want.
Our frustration with the programme is that upwards of 37,000 applications for support from disabled people remain unresolved. The government should simply fund it properly so that it can support disabled people with particularly expensive support needs - such as adaptive technology or a support worker - into work.
Axing or sidelining Access to Work will see many disabled people driven from existing jobs or excluded by recruiters. The government cannot pass those costs on to employers - as the measures often go well beyond the "reasonable adjustments" employers are required to make under the Equality Act.
Ministers should also adopt and fund other employment programmes co-designed with disabled people which have disabled people into work. Many of those are still being piloted, but the early results are impressive.
Building on what we know works is a cheaper, faster and more effective route to supporting disabled people into work than media-friendly "reviews" and faux consultations.
The government is also planning to reform the much-despised Work Capability Assessments. The briefings do little to suggest that the new system will be based on dignity, support and equity. It is likely that it will maintain a punitive approach which drives disabled people into jobs that are unsafe or unsustainable and denies disabled people the very support they need to find or keep jobs.
The government is also suggesting means-testing personal independence payments (PIP) - which help cover the additional living costs that are a fact of life for many disabled people. That will be a false economy. Many disabled people with mobility problems use these payments to travel to work, for example. Means-testing in itself is a costly process that will simply extend the already long waits that many disabled people face after applying for the payments.
Ms Kendall should also have a word with health secretary Wes Streeting, who has described the NHS as "broken". The everyday reality of a broken NHS is pain and - for many - an inability to work while marooned on a waiting list. Recent government-commissioned research by the respected National Centre for Social Research has confirmed that it is waiting lists that are driving the rise in claimants.
Resources should be targeted at cutting those waiting lists - particularly in mental health services for young people.
Finally, we know that people in deprived communities typically begin to experience poor health more than two decades before those in the richest areas. A genuine far-sighted reforming government would address the root causes of much sickness and disability by introducing a comprehensive public health strategy that has teeth.
That, however, takes political courage as savings to the NHS and social security budgets will not be apparent for at least a decade. It would however be the rational approach.