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Washington used to be petty and inept. Now it’s a roller-coaster. What will Trump do tomorrow? New York too. Is the “warmthof collectivism” promised by Mayor Mamdani a precursor for class warfare?
Americans are right to want a new vision for governing. But the political instinct for radical cures ignores a main cause of public frustration—the inability of government to do almost anything sensibly.
Sooner or later the focus on affordability will shine the spotlight on how government spends taxpayer dollars—almost 40% of GDP is spent by government. How much is wasted, how much productive initiative is stymied, when government is effectively unmanageable?
The strength of America, I think, is our culture of self-determination. What we choose to do, and how we do it, is up to each of us. We can make a difference—to ourselves and our community. This sense of ownership creates what Tocqueville saw as “a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it.” It also creates a hopeful culture—the future can be better because we can make it better.
Americans’ confidence has eroded in recent decades. This is due in part to the intrusion of forces beyond any individual’s control—global markets that supplant jobs and opportunities; centralized bureaucracies that suffocate human instincts and interactions; and cultural clashes that dislodge community values.
Even Americans who are “doing well” feel pushed around.
Philip K. Howard, a graduate of Taft prep school, Yale and the University of Virginia School of Law, says he never wore “white bucks.” This 1950s campus fashion waned before he matriculated. Those buckskin shoes were popular among young blades destined to become “white-shoe lawyers” at prestigious “white-shoe law firms,” such as Covington & Burling, where Howard, 76, is senior counsel.
He also is a genteel inveigher against the coagulation of American society, which is saturated with law. In his new book “Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America,” he argues that law’s proper role is preventing transgressions by authorities, not micromanaging choices so minutely that red tape extinguishes individual responsibility and the social trust that individualism engenders.
In Saving Can-Do, Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard unlocks the quandary of populist resentment and also of broken government.
America is flailing in legal quicksand. The solution is a new governing framework that allows Americans to roll up their sleeves and take responsibility. We must scrap the red tape state. What’s required is a multi-year effort to replace these massive failed bureaucracies with simpler codes that are activated by people using their judgment. As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the revolution, it’s time to reclaim the magic of America’s unique can-do culture.
Saving Can-Do was published by Rodin Books on September 23, 2025.