U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) says he pushes his Congressional colleagues to use evidence-based decisions when it comes to policy making.

Young’s remarks came Thursday at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The forum was about evidence-based policy in the Trump era.  Young made no mention of the president. But he says any shift in Congress toward decisions based on verifiable, data-driven outcomes will be, in part, because of the nation’s $21 trillion debt.

“That leads to an imperative during this era of scarce resources to make sure that every taxpayer dollar that is spent is spent wisely,” Young says.

Young says part of the way he personally tries to convince colleagues is to withhold sponsorship of bills unless they include outcome verification.

“Set aside a modest amount of money to evaluate the effectiveness of a given program,” Young says.

Young says he also wants each program to have an expiration date that forces lawmakers to re-evaluate it.