America is bogged down in red tape. This is not a secret. Common sense is nowhere, because common sense is illegal.
A brigade of worthy new books is sounding the alarm, and are summarized by David Brooks in his column this week: “We Can Achieve Great Things.” Other public intellectuals calling for a better way of governing are IT expert Jennifer Pahlka, law professor Nicholas Bagley, and political scientist Francis Fukuyama.
What's missing is a discussion of the philosophical flaw underlying the modern state.
Yes, the bureaucracy in Washington is a clogged-up tangle. That’s why two-thirds of Americans think it needs a major overhaul.
But slashing away at Washington’s many stupidities won’t fix much — like trying to prune a jungle. The way to drain the swamp is to pull the plug on its flawed operating philosophy — the post-1960s red tape compliance model. Americans are swimming in red tape. Is your paperwork in order?
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Philip Howard and Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute talk with Margaret Hoover about President Trump's deep state blitz, what DOGE is getting wrong, and their advice for Elon Musk in a forum at Hofstra University.
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In recent weeks, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has moved to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development, while President Trump prepared an executive order to wind down the U.S. Department of Education. It’s the latest attempt to make government more efficient by eliminating things that it does. Merely shuttering departments, however, won’t get to the heart of the problem DOGE seeks to correct: The American public sector, at any level of government, can’t get things done in a time-effective and efficient manner.
A new Manhattan Institute report provides an antidote to this public malaise in the context of infrastructure. Its author, Philip K. Howard, offers a new governing vision that authorizes officials to weigh tradeoffs and make decisions for the public’s benefit.
Disruption can be good or bad. Or both. Courts will decide how far the new administration can go. At Common Good, our focus is to try to ride in front of the DOGE stampede and turn it towards new visions of how to fix endemic public failures.
Tearing down the status quo is not enough, and will have unintended consequences. America needs a new governing philosophy. Here are two big opportunities for new operating structures.
Everyone knows that Washington is broken. Reformers on the right want to cut useless programs, and reformers on the left want to streamline rules and procedures. But neither reform approach will remove the red tape that suffocates common sense. There’s always another rule, another process needed to discuss a new issue.
Americans are harmed, not helped, by all this process.
The modern state is built on a flawed philosophy of law. Governing requires officials, not law, to make decisions.
Read MoreIt's hard to keep track of what's being knocked over in the continuing DOGE stampede. Broad public resentment at Washington fuels the deconstruction, and shows no sign of abating. Over time, courts will try to impose some order on the bureaucratic rubble.
The end goal, presumably, is a government that works better and is more respectful of local needs and values. But tearing things down is not a vision for sensible government. Will a better form of government emerge from the rubble?
In a report published by Manhattan Institute, Philip Howard argues that Washington needs to abandon the bureaucratic compliance model, and replace it with a simpler framework that empowers designated officials to make tradeoff judgments to modernize infrastructure and achieve public results.
Governing structures created after the 1960s are designed to fail because they presume legal rules and processes can validate correct choices. But law can't think. The proper role of law is to provide a framework that delineates the authority to make that decision, and provides public transparency and oversight.
Read MoreThe noise from Washington is an orchestrated symphony of wrecking balls. Most Americans agree that the red tape state needs to be replaced. But where's the vision for its replacement?
Take civil service—today, federal employees are unaccountable and unmanageable, thanks to statutory and union controls that eviscerate executive authority. What's needed is not a regime based on fear, however, but one that instills mutual trust and pride.
Philip Howard sits down with John Avlon to talk DOGE and government reform: Elon wants to cut government programs, but that won’t make government more efficient. But changing how the government does things—by streamlining the permitting and purchasing processes, for example—will make government more effective, efficient, and responsive to the public.
Read MoreThere’s lots going on in Washington, and in the world, without any clear ending points. Sometimes, in these periods of change, it is possible to break free of outmoded conventions that prevent society from moving forward. Our mission at Common Good is to simplify governing frameworks so that Americans can roll up their sleeves and take initiative. The opportunities are nearly endless—to modernize infrastructure, fix broken schools, and refocus government on results instead of red tape.
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Federal agencies need more discretion, not less. Many of the rules they follow are not statutory, and one useful function that DOGE could perform is to identify and eliminate the most outdated and inefficient of them. As Philip Howard, the author of many books on simplifying government and founder of the nonpartisan group Common Good, has pointed out over the years, bureaucrats need more freedom to use their own good judgment regarding the implementation of policy, rather than being forced to follow rules.
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Philip Howard joins Michael J. Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss what it takes to create positive school environments, as outlined in his recent Hoover Institution essay, “The Human Authority Needed for Good Schools.”
Read MoreThe prospect of overhauling government has near-universal appeal. But experts from all sides are dousing the dream with cold water. Changing regulations takes several years. De-regulation will often conflict with statutory mandates. Most of what government does is not controversial—say, Medicare, a standing army, and national parks. Experts such as Brookings' Elaine Kamarck have shown that the impacts of any plausible de-regulation will be at the margin.
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The litmus test for a good school is its culture—its caring, energy, mutual trust, and commitment to a common mission. Good cultures require teachers to feel ownership of the classroom and principals to enforce standards and values, while red tape and entitlements undermine the authority and human spirit that are essential. Fixing K–12 education requires stripping away bureaucratic and union controls and empowering educators to build good school cultures.
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On "Forbes Newsroom," Philip Howard spoke about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's proposed Department of Government Efficiency, and how President-elect Trump can use their cost-cutting recommendations—despite ‘DOGE’ operating outside of the federal government.
Read MoreVoters have revolted. But laws and institutions don't change just because people are angry. Appointing rebels to run agencies won't change their massive legal superstructures.
Real change in American democracy doesn't happen by diktat from the top. Change requires a vision for a better system, backed by broad support of public opinion.
What's the new vision? The best hope for a new vision might come from Elon Musk's efficiency commission.
Most Americans know that Washington is overdue for a Department of Government Efficiency. But what should such a commission fix?
The civil service certainly needs an overhaul to establish accountability from top to bottom. The point, however, isn’t to inject a sense of terror in government employees but to instill trust that everyone is held to the same standards.
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They also should give a prominent spot on their team to the lawyer and longtime government-reform advocate Philip K. Howard, author of The Death of Common Sense and numerous other books outlining a new vision for how government agencies should operate. Nobody has thought longer and harder about how to instill a culture of responsiveness and responsibility to government and civil society.
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Everyone should read, or re-read, Michael Lewis’s splendid and infuriating book The Fifth Risk, which told the story of the violence done by the first Trump Administration to the government’s necessary experts in places you don’t think of, like the weather service. If there’s anything I’m really fearful about in Trump II—and there are a lot of things—it’s that the regulatory guardrails will be removed by Trump’s circle of oligarchs. But we should also recognize that the regulatory apparatus, and the civil service system, are badly in need of reform. Instead of Elon Musk, Trump’s Efficiency campaign should be led by Philip K. Howard, who has written a slew of books on the subject. You can start with The Death of Common Sense and move on from there.
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