How to Prove Democracy Still Works

President Biden's speech to the nation presented a bold agenda – to rebuild infrastructure, expand education and healthcare, tackle climate change, provide jobs and childcare, and even "end cancer as we know it." President Biden called upon government "to prove democracy still works."

Nowhere in the speech, however, did the President address the bureaucratic accretion that prevents officials and citizens from accomplishing public goals – to build infrastructure, to manage police and run good schools, to contain healthcare costs, and to unleash human initiative at all levels of society.

Ambitious public goals are not sufficient to get America back on track. We must also reboot public operating systems so that government can deliver on these goals.

This week, the bipartisan "Problem Solvers Caucus" in Congress released a detailed plan to rebuild America's infrastructure, and to fund it largely through increases in fuel costs and other user charges. A key pillar of the plan is to streamline permitting, including to cut through inter-agency disputes and limit the period for legal challenges – echoing Common Good's proposals. Common Good has worked with a number of members of the Caucus, including Co-Chair Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), and Congressmen Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Peter Meijer (R-MI). Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), a pivotal vote in the Senate, participated in the public rollout of the plan.

Also this week, in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Sandeep Jauhar published a powerful argument for rebooting the "counterproductive regulatory complexity" in healthcare. Dr. Jauhar cites the human as well as financial costs of runaway bureaucracy, causing frustration, burnout, and doctors leaving medicine. Dr. Jauhar, a regular Common Good collaborator, writes that "regulations should focus on goals and results, not micromanagement and mindless compliance. The opportunity costs of that compliance, in terms of time and money, should receive the same scrutiny that we give to the delivery of healthcare itself."

No one designed the legacy bureaucracies that stall new infrastructure, drive up healthcare costs, and make police forces unmanageable. These structures no longer serve the public interest. To show the world that democracy still works, America must reboot these operating systems so that responsible officials, doctors, and others can roll up their sleeves and get things done.

  • Engineered Systems magazine highlighted Common Good's proposal for a National Infrastructure Board.

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