While they're at it...
The 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. Government will only be as good as the people in it. A new civil service system should be designed to attract good people, give them responsibility to do good things, and hold them accountable for results.
DOGE, or something like it, is critical to any effort to make government work. So far DOGE is focused on cutting WHAT government does, and firing people who do it. The far larger opportunity is to remake HOW government works, as Philip Howard discusses in this 12-minute interview with John Avlon on his Bulwark podcast.
Government needs a new operating framework. Washington today is legal quicksand. Common sense disappears as soon as it steps into the goo of 150 million words of federal law and regulation. As Philip argues in a forthcoming essay for the Manhattan Institute (February 6), the cure is not to clip here and there but to rebuild government around the authority of designated officials, accountable up a chain of political authority.
Most reform ideas on the table don't confront the structural failure of modern government. Washington needs a complete overhaul—a civil service system both empowered and manageable, and a simplified regulatory framework that is activated by the human judgment of responsible officials.
Everyday Freedom has been selected as one of six finalists for the Manhattan Institute’s 2025 Hayek Prize, which honors F.A. Hayek's vision of economic and individual liberty. The winner will be selected in March.