Trump and Harris sharply disagree on matters of policy, including immigration, taxes, and foreign policy. They also present different profiles of leadership.
 
But neither candidate offers a coherent vision to fix the tangled bureaucracy that paralyzes our society—no vision to fix broken schools, deal with homelessness, modernize infrastructure, cut health care red tape, streamline defense procurement, or make government manageable.
 
Instead both candidates offer symbolic reforms. Trump would fire senior civil servants at will, but says nothing about restoring their authority to actually manage their departments. The Biden-Harris vision of reform is to prune the red tape jungle, not replace it. This week, for example, the White House announced a plan for affordable housing by giving grants to “improve housing strategies.” How about culling gold-plated building codes and suffocating paperwork?
 
Governing sensibly is impossible in a red tape jungle. Instead of the constitutional framework of allocated powers envisioned by the Framers (set forth in 7,500 words), governing choices have sunk into bureaucratic quicksand (150 million words of federal law and regulation).
 
The solution is not to get rid of government—Americans want clean water and Medicare. The solution is to make government work again. Bureaucratic micromanagement should be replaced by simpler frameworks activated by people taking responsibility—like the Constitution.
 
Too much law causes failure and frustration. This is the important message of a new book by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze: Over Ruled, The Human Toll of Too Much Law. Drawing in part from our work, Over Ruled makes clear that this system cannot be repaired with tweaks here and there. Here is Philip Howard's column about Over Ruled in Newsweek.
 
Important voices are starting to sound this critical theme: American law is overdue for a spring cleaning.

• Philip Howard was interviewed about Everyday Freedom by American Law Institute President David F. Levi on ALI’s Reasonably Speaking podcast. Joining the discussion were Judge Edith Jones and Professor Nicholas Bagley.

• Philip discussed system failure in Washington with John Ellis and Joe Klein on their Night Owls podcast.

• Our work on unions was discussed by the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman. The C. Boyden Gray Center commissioned this white paper where Philip argues that government unions have created a “new spoils system.”

• Our work on red tape was discussed by Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar. In this column for John Ellis’s New Items, Philip lists the reforms needed to build infrastructure.

• Syndicated columnist Michael Barone reviewed Everyday Freedom.