Do you feel buffeted by crazy viewpoints on both sides? Stop the Steal. Anti-vaxxers. Cancel King Lear. America is evil. Mass idiocies are amplified by social media, but all this nonsense is enabled by something else: the progressive disempowerment, since the 1960s, of people in positions of responsibility.
Read MoreOverhauling government is needed to achieve public and private goals, most Americans agree. But overhaul is impossible without a new political movement. A “first mover” problem prevents any political leader from getting in the crosshairs of the powerful interest groups that defend the status quo.
Read MoreIn Sludge, Sunstein shines a light in the bureaucratic darkness, and, by calling for “sludge audits,” adds his moral authority to the growing demand to clear out the bureaucratic underbrush.
Read MorePhilip Howard joins Geoff Kabaservice to discuss how thousands of nonsensical laws hamper any good the government can do.
Read MorePublic frustration has boiled over in recent years in populist movements on all sides, including the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Channeling this anger into a coalition for change would provide common ground not only for environmentalists, but parents, caregivers, business leaders, police reformers and many others.
Read MoreHow does change happen in Washington? The list of needed changes is long — to address climate change, unmanageable schools, runaway healthcare costs, unaccountable police, obsolete laws, and more. Decades go by, and none of these problems get fixed. Even President Biden's ambitious infrastructure proposal (which incorporates Common Good's proposals for permitting reform) doesn't take on the core changes needed to address climate change.
Read MoreSince the 1960s, the main political dividing line in the United States has been over the scope of government. Democrats have called for more public services and more regulation to address current challenges. Republicans have called for de-regulation and fewer services, backed by ample evidence of public failures, inefficiencies, and overreach. But government keeps getting bigger and generally more inefficient, without dealing with past and present needs.
Read MoreExtremism is rattling the foundations of American society. Factual truth is under attack from the right. Core liberal values of free speech and tolerance are under attack from the left. Each side points to the other's extremism as justification for its own. Resolving these escalating culture wars is impossible as long as the battle is waged over abstractions such as reinterpreting history.
Read MoreWashington is overdue for a spring cleaning. Only Congress has the authority to do this. But neither party has a vision about how, or even whether, to fix broken government. Congressional leaders are so dug in arguing about the goals of government that they have no line of sight to how laws actually work.
Read MoreAmericans are increasingly disaffected with Washington. Nor does either party enjoy the support of a plurality of voters. There are more independents than Democrats or Republicans. What do Americans want? For starters, they want things to work. Practical solutions to running schools, delivering healthcare, cleaning up the environment, and modernizing infrastructure shouldn't be that hard.
Read MoreMost political leaders and reformers see government failures as a management problem. In reality, those failures result from something more like a philosophy problem. That problem does not concern the scope of government or the goals of public policy, but the belief that governing decisions should be guided by prescriptive rules, rather than by human judgment acting within proscriptive boundaries.
Read MoreThere’s a gaping hole in the pending infrastructure negotiations: How to build infrastructure without years of delay and ridiculous waste.
Read MoreNowThis has picked up our videos on the need to streamline infrastructure permitting in order to advance green energy. Click here to watch!
Read MoreThe Campaign for Common Good today praised the Biden administration for approving the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Gateway Rail Tunnel Project.
Read MoreThe Campaign for Common Good today hailed the bipartisan support for streamlining infrastructure permitting reflected in the unanimous vote (20-0) on the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act.
Read MoreThe defiance by Congresswoman Liz Cheney to Donald Trump and his “stolen election” narrative has now cost her a leadership position, and may prompt a schism within the Republican Party. This revolt could be good not only for principled conservatives, but for all Americans.
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."
Read MoreIn celebration of their 300th episode, the How Do We Fix It? podcast revisited interviews with six guests. The episode begins with their first guest, Philip Howard, on clearcutting bureaucratic kudzu.
Read MoreBeing a cop is hard, and even harder when all police are tarred with the brush of isolated cops who abuse public trust. But it’s hard to fix this problem when police chiefs lack the authority to hold bad cops accountable.
Read More
