I suppose that, as Thaler and Sustain argue, putting people in the position to choose is not always wise, and remaining neutral is not always possible!

Yeah, I thought about that as well. But this mainly refers to situations with too many options to choose from and no idea about which might be the beneficial one. I tend to think that many public officials don't even know about it - but I somehow doubt that, especially in the US. Sunstein was even working with the Obama administration a couple of years ago, so there should be at least some kind of awareness.