Time to Reboot Washington
To fix broken government, we need a vision of how it could work better. To show how simpler frameworks can engage individual initiative and responsibility, we will present a 16-plank platform and host public forums to engage reactions and other proposals.
The first shift we propose is this: Focus on the operating system of government. Promises don’t mean much if government can’t deliver, and if it drives citizens to distraction with unnecessary red tape.
Political debate is over goals. Build the Wall! Medicare for All! There’s certainly ample ground for disagreement over public priorities. But the main failure of Washington, largely ignored in the debates, is how government works:
Public health officials waited weeks before Washington allowed them start testing for the COVID-19 virus. Red tape paralyzes public choices throughout society. Getting a permit to fix broken infrastructure takes longer than organizing the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Why can’t bad cops be fired? Accountability is nowhere in government. “Sorry, the rule doesn’t allow it.” No official has responsibility for results.
Healthcare red tape, much required by federal law, consumes over 30% of costs—making universal coverage hard to afford.
Public schools are a hornet’s nest of competing entitlements and red tape, causing an epidemic of teacher burnout. Twenty-one states have fewer teachers than school administrators and other non-instructional employees.
Congress is a soapbox, and has abdicated its responsibility to oversee a coherent legal framework for society. Instead of codes understandable to those expected to abide by them, the law of the land more closely resembles a giant legal junk pile. Programs are immortal. Obsolete subsidies from the New Deal consume billions of taxpayer dollars.
Public paralysis has now infected daily dealings. Simple daily choices are weighed down by legal fears: “Can I prove that what I’m about to say or do is legally correct?” The land of the free is a legal minefield. Communities have lost meaningful control of schools and social services. The US ranks 55th in World Bank rankings in ease of starting a business.
Why are Americans so alienated from government? Public anger towards Washington is not caused by policy disagreements over, say, closing down coal-burning power plants. It’s caused by Big Brother breathing down everyone’s necks and preventing sensible choices.
The core flaw is an operating philosophy that prevents anyone, officials and citizens alike, from using their common sense. Instead of giving people goals they can understand, and holding them accountable, Washington weighs down daily choices with thousand-page rulebooks and extensive legal proceedings. Every year it gets denser, and more sclerotic, like a degenerative disease.
Our Platform for Common Good revives founding principles, starting with individual responsibility to meet public goals, and applies these principles to fix the failed institutions of modern government.
We start with planks on the legal framework for COVID recovery and on restoring accountability to police and other public employees. The Platform is then divided into three parts:
Liberating American Initiative
Rebuilding Democracy
Applying Moral Values to Public Choices