Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

The Know-Nothing Administration

Data tells us that education levels predict the major divisions among American voters. Educational differences are also playing out in Washington, as Trump assembles a know-nothing cabinet composed of cranks, toadies, various conspiracy theorists and general ignoramuses.

Primary among those ignoramuses is Elon Musk. Musk’s reputation as a “genius” rests almost entirely on Americans’ quixotic tendency to ascribe intelligence to the accumulation of wealth. Musk inherited a fortune, purchased rather than invented the Tesla, and pretty much tanked Twitter. We taxpayers provide much of his income through lucrative contracts with the federal government.

I may be underwhelmed by Musk’s purported brilliance (actually, he isn’t stupid, he’s ignorant, and that’s different) but–like Trump–he himself is anything but modest. He’s proclaimed an intent to use his promised new (illegitimate) “department” to produce savings and government “efficiency.”

Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy have promised to cut two trillion dollars out of the federal budget–a promise that displays incredible ignorance of what is in that budget, what is and isn’t discretionary, and what would be required to reduce it.

Vox recently explained that, even if Musk and Ramaswamy took an axe to the relatively small portion of the budget that is discretionary, that would save “only” $1.1 trillion. But those cuts would be incredibly painful–and would never make it through Congress:

Let’s suppose that Musk and Ramaswamy decide to really go for it. They’re going to cut non-defense discretionary spending in half, maybe by shutting down all scientific and health research and K–12 school aid. They’re slashing Medicare and Medicaid by a quarter, and they’re eliminating food stamps, ACA credits, and unemployment insurance entirely.

These, to be clear, are all cuts that would require congressional approval and that Musk, Ramaswamy, and Trump could not achieve through executive action alone. Furthermore, they’re cuts that seem politically impossible to push through. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose this is the package.

Doing the math, even this unbelievably ambitious package would amount to a little over $1.1 trillion annually. It’s barely halfway to Musk’s stated goal.

Robert Hubbell, among others, has noted that it isn’t mathematically possible (not to mention politically feasible) to achieve $2 trillion in cuts. A one trillion dollar cut would require “massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and subsidies for the Affordable Health Care premiums.” The majority of people hurt by those cuts would be the MAGA folks in Trump’s base, and they’d take effect right before the midterms.

What about Musk’s proposal to save money by firing thousands of federal workers? Again, he displays his ignorance. The federal workforce has remained essentially flat for decades; increases in the number of government workers have occured at the state and local level.

As Hubbell writes, 

The US economy is the largest in the world—by a large margin. Although Musk and Ramaswamy may not like it, the size of the US economy is due in part to the federal government, which creates stable marketplaces and economic conditions for growth.

If you demolish the federal regulatory framework by firing millions of federal employees, we devolve into a kleptocracy—like Russia, which has an economy smaller than that of Brazil. Indeed, Russia’s current GDP is smaller than that of the US before WWII. See World Bank Ranking of GDP 2023….

The myth that the US has a bloated federal bureaucracy is demonstrably false when compared to other developed economies. If Musk and Ramaswamy recommend cutting the US federal workforce by a million jobs, we will have a federal regulatory environment on the same scale as Haiti and El Salvador. That state of affairs might benefit robber barons and tech bros, but it won’t help working-class Americans.

Here’s the takeaway: We will hear an incredible amount of insufferable mansplaining and chest-thumping from Musk and Ramaswamy. But they will soon face the reality that government spending helps the American people (which is the point of having a government) and creates the conditions for a prosperous economy.

Musk and his ilk are just prominent examples of the uninformed population that thinks running a government is no different than running a business. As I explained yesterday, that belief rests on a profound misconception of what government is, and what it is for.

It isn’t just Musk and Ramaswamy. Trump’s entire cabinet is a collection of dunces and conspiracy theorists–from Soviet apologist Tulsi Gabbard to RFK, Jr. and his brain worm. His pick for Treasury Secretary is evidently pro-tariff, but as the New York Times has noted, will have a very uphill battle selling tariffs to a business community that actually understands how they work.

Some of these Trump-world clowns probably believe the earth is flat…..

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I Repeat Myself

A reader recently asked me to repeat a previous column explaining why calls to run government like a business misunderstand the nature of both. I found it–it was from late 2016–and I agree that in the era of Musk and his “government efficiency department,” it’s once-again timely. It was called “The Business of Government.”

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Americans like to believe that government should be run like a business. That belief–pernicious and naive– helped elect Donald Trump, and its persistence is evidence (as if any additional evidence is needed) of the public’s profound lack of civic literacy.

Should government be run in a businesslike fashion? Of course. Is managing a government agency “just like” managing a business? Not at all.

A former colleague recently shared an article addressing the differences between business and government. Addressing the myth that anyone who can run a successful business can manage government, the author noted

This is not a 21st-century — or even a 20th-century — phenomenon. In a classic 1887 article, Woodrow Wilson, then a professor at Princeton University, maintained that there was a “science of administration” — arguing, in effect, that there were principles of management that transcended the context in which they were applied. “The field of administration is a field of business,” wrote Wilson. “It is removed from the hurry and strife of politics.”

Later observers and scholars of public administration thoroughly discredited this notion. The pithiest statement on the topic came from Wallace Sayre of Columbia University, who argued in 1958 that “public and private management [were] fundamentally alike in all unimportant respects.” In 1979, Graham Allison, then dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, used Sayre’s comment as a launching point from which to examine similarities and differences. He noted that both private firms and governments must set objectives, develop plans to achieve those objectives, hire people and direct them toward the achievement of objectives, and manage external environments. But he observed that the way in which these things occur is often fundamentally different from one sector to another.

The article lists some of the important ways in which private enterprises differ from public ones.

Government is about this thing called the “public interest.” There is no such animal in the private sector. Private firms care about their stakeholders and customers; they do not generally care about people who do not invest in their businesses or buy things from them. Thus, accountability is by necessity much broader in government; it is much more difficult to ignore particular groups or people.

Private-sector performance is measured by profitability, while performance measurement in government focuses on the achievement of outcomes.

Compromise is fundamental to success in the public sector. No one owns a controlling share of the government…. The notion of a separation of powers can be anathema to effective private management. It is central to the design of government, at least in the United States.

Government must constantly confront competing values. The most efficient solution may disadvantage certain groups or trample on individual or constitutional rights. In the private sector, efficiency is value number one; in government, it is just one of many values.

Government has a shorter time horizon. In government, the long term may describe the period between now and the next election. Thus there is a strong incentive to show relatively immediate impact.

Government actions take place in public, with much scrutiny from the press and the public. There is no equivalent of C-SPAN showing how decisions are made in the corporate boardroom. Corporate leaders do not find it necessary to explain their every decision to reporters or even to employees.

When corporate executives are elected to run cities or states, they often expect to operate as they did in their companies, where they made the decisions and others obediently carried them out. But legislative bodies–even those dominated by the political party of the chief executive–are not “minions.” They too are elected officials, and they bristle (rightly) when a mayor or governor or president presumes to issue orders. Successful relations between the legislative and executive branch require negotiation, diplomacy and compromise–and those aren’t management skills generally found among corporate CEOs.

Trump and most of his cabinet nominees lack any government experience. Most also lack any education relevant to the missions or operations of the agencies they have been tapped to lead. They don’t know what they don’t know.

And it has become quite obvious that the concept of “the public interest” will be new to all of them….

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As we prepare for Trump II, nothing in those last two paragraphs has changed…..

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Bread And Circuses

“Bread and circuses” is a phrase referring back to the Roman Empire. Rome’s rulers distracted the public from corrupt and/or autocratic rule by giving the population free food and violent entertainments. They distributed grain to the poor, and provided entertaining distractions– chariot races, gladiatorial combat, and wild animal hunts, among others–to keep the masses from getting bored and restless, and to divert them from engaging in political activity. 
That time-honored tactic is still being employed.
In yesterday’s post, I shared my  observation that Americans no longer occupy a democratic system–that  gerrymandering, the Electoral College, Citizens United and various other elements of our electoral system have allowed the cult that is now the GOP to assume control of our government, and to rule without concern for the opinions of the citizenry. (Indeed, rather than a citizenry, we “voters” have more in common with subjects than with those who wield the power originally reposed in “We the People.”)
As the Trump administration takes shape, we can see that those who have secured the right to rule are the plutocrats. Assuming most of his proposed nominees are confirmed, America will be ruled (not governed) by billionaires pursuing further tax cuts and privileges–appointees ranging from obviously corrupt to ethically challenged and rife with conflicts of interests.
We have come to this sorry end of the American Experiment thanks to our current version of “bread and circuses.”
There have always been distractions and methods of promoting disinformation, but the Internet and the ubiquity of devices with screens that constantly occupy us have massively multiplied the diversions. Most readers of this blog are all too aware of the wealth of political propaganda promoted by Fox, et al, but that is a relatively minor aspect of the overall environment. Fox and its clones merely misrepresent the political world we occupy; it’s the growth of the entertainment world, the so-called “influencers,” the proliferation of celebrities who are famous for being famous (Kardashians, anyone?), that truly provides the “circus” that prevents most of us from recognizing the degradation of our own influence as citizens charged with choosing people to administer the powers of our governments.
Most observers of America’s political landscape recognize the decline of democratic decision-making. On this platform, I have repeatedly pointed out the very negative consequences of our structural deficits–especially gerrymandering, which allows legislators to choose their voters rather than the other way around. But it was only with the 2024 election of Donald Trump that I fully recognized what should have been obvious to me previously: American government is no longer even remotely democratic, and America’s economy is no longer an example of functioning market capitalism.
We are a plutocracy and a kakistocracy, and our economy is corporatist, not capitalist.
A kakistocracy is defined as rule by those least competent or suitable; corporatism–sometimes called “crony capitalism” –is control of the state by special interests. Honest observers have chronicled the country’s descent into those unfortunate categories for several years, only to be ignored by a population diverted by its own varieties of bread and circuses.
I will admit to being one of the people who didn’t sufficiently appreciate that descent. In my case, I focused far too much attention on the largely positive cultural changes that have allowed civic participation by previously marginalized folks–women, LGBTQ+ citizens and people of color–and far too little attention on the steady erosion of democratic citizenship.
The only salutary outcome of the 2024 election is the consequent inability of any sentient American to ignore the extent of that erosion.
Thanks in part to voters’ constant diet of “circuses,” Republicans were able to conduct a pivotal and monumentally successful gerrymander in 2010.–an actual, victorious, bloodless coup. The REDMAP program radically altered America’s electoral map, insulating the GOP and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. The book Ratf**ked “pulled back the curtain on that coup,”  explaining in detail how a group of Republican operatives hijacked democracy.
The question now, as always, is “what can be done?” Can We the People regain control of our government?
I will readily confess that I don’t know. Gerrymandering will continue to work so long as there are an adequate number of voters to be deployed who support the racism, misogyny and plutocracy championed by today’s GOP. The only “fix” I can envision is a significant reduction in their number.
It is possible that the pain likely to be caused by Trump’s administration will shake some folks loose. Meanwhile, it will behoove those of us who understand the problem to figure out how to break through the pervasive misinformation and distractions that keep too many voters content with being subjects rather than citizens.
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The Voice Of The People

We Americans talk a lot about democracy. Those conversations multiplied during this year’s election cycle, when it became obvious that democracy was under attack by a MAGA base that preferred Trump’s promised autocracy. That said, those conversations rarely focus on the Founders’ approach to democratic governance, and the constitutional mechanisms they employed as a result of their concerns.

It is a truism that the Founders weren’t fans of what they called “the passions of the majority.” In addition to limiting the right to vote to those they trusted with that power–White guys with property–they crafted a system that limited the operation of democratic decision-making; the Bill of Rights was a list of things that government was forbidden to do even when a majority of voters wanted government to do them. The limitations were founded on that libertarian premise I frequently cite, a belief that government action is legitimate when necessary to prevent citizen A from harming the person or property of citizen B, but not when government is trying to restrict an individual”s personal liberties, the choices that–in Jefferson’s famous words–neither pick a neighbor’s pocket nor break his leg.

The Founders’ decision to restrict the areas that were remitted to democratic decision-making is why many people who don’t really understand that basic framework often claim that America wasn’t intended to be a democracy, but a republic. To be accurate, our system is a democratic republic, in which we elect representatives who are supposed to respond to the democratic will of the people when legislating in the large number of policy areas where majority rule is appropriate.

Those of us who have been sounding the alarm over America’s retreat from democracy have pointed to the growing lack of proper representation–and the numerous systemic flaws that have separated government’s performance from the expressed will of its citizens. Thanks to pervasive gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the filibuster, and the composition of the U.S. Senate, among other undemocratic systemic mechanisms, elected officials have increasingly felt free to ignore even clear expressions of popular sentiment.

That retreat from representative democracy isn’t simply a federal phenomenon; it occurs with regularity at the state level. Two recent examples may illustrate the point.

Example one: In the wake of the Dobbs decision, several state legislatures imposed draconian bans on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. Polling clearly showed that–in most of those states–large majorities of voters opposed those bans, and subsequently, in states where the electorate had the opportunity to oppose the bans through referenda (a democratic mechanism not available in my state), they overturned them.

Example two: Right-wing ideologues have waged consistent war against public schools. In a number of states, legislatures  send tax dollars to private schools–predominantly religious schools–through voucher programs. I have posted numerous times about the negative effects of those programs: their failure to improve educational outcomes, their disproportionate use by upper-middle-class families, and the degree to which they deprive public schools of critically-needed resources.

When citizens of a state are able to vote on those programs, they lose.

In ballot initiatives, voters delivered a stunning rebuke to school vouchers, which siphon scarce and critical funding from public schools—which serve 90 percent of students—and redirect it to private institutions with no accountability.

Although the outcome of the 2024 election may test the resolve of the most committed and determined public education advocate, educators and their allies can find strength and inspiration in what happened in Nebraska, Colorado, and Kentucky. In those states, support for public schools was put on the ballot and won a resounding victory.

As the NEA President noted,

“Voters rejected diverting public school funding to unaccountable and discriminatory private schools, just like they have done every time vouchers have been on the ballot. The public knows vouchers harm students and does not want them in any form.”

Thanks to the distortions in our electoral systems, voters in the United States have been steadily losing the right to democratically direct their governments. The 2024 election was different only because the further threat to democratic decision-making was so transparent. The truth is that, thanks to the operation of the cited anti-democratic mechanisms (aided and abetted by low levels of civic literacy and engagement and funded by the plutocrats), the voice of the people has become more and more irrelevant.

The cranks and ideologues have used those poorly-understood mechanisms to attain and retain public office, and they  no longer feel constrained by the demonstrable wishes of even large majorities.

If and when the resistance manages to overcome MAGA, that will only be a beginning. We haven’t had majority rule–aka democracy– for quite some time.

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What Individuals Must Do

Almost everything I’ve read in the wake of the election has fallen into one of two categories: why did it happen? and what can we do? Articles in that first category vastly exceed those in the second, and that is unfortunate. Although it is always important to analyze the source of a problem, too many of the purported analyses have been smug, finger-pointing accusations by self-important know-it-alls–hardly helpful suggestions for action.

Also, many of us want an answer to the question: what can I do? I’m one of those people: tell me I can only solve problem X by climbing that mountain, and I’ll strap on my boots and start climbing. Tell me there’s really nothing I can do about problem X and I just feel helpless and depressed.

A newsletter from Democracy Docket (no link) recently summarized how we got here, and did so in an abbreviated (but reasonably accurate) few paragraphs:

The moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party did not happen overnight. It happened gradually — starting with Newt Gingrich’s attack on the government in the early 1990s. It continued with the Tea Party movement, the birther conspiracy and the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016.

It gained momentum when Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote. Once in office, it grew worse when his attacks on democratic institutions were met with acquiescence by most of his party.

The mistake many of us made was believing that the aftermath of the 2020 election marked an end to the GOP’s descent into moral collapse. We were wrong. Jan. 6 marked a further descent into the moral abyss.

By 2024, the few principled Republicans had already abandoned their party for the “Never Trump” movement. What was left were Trump dead-enders and those without any core principles at all. A party once built on the promise of Lincoln had become the morally bankrupt party of Trump.

So here we are. We have one party that has become, for all intents and purposes, a cult. It has turned its back on the project of governing in favor of a hysterical retreat into a past that never existed and an agenda of resentment and “othering.” That has left the remaining party the unenviable task of herding cats–representing voters who range from center-Right but too sane to stay in the GOP all the way to Bernie Sanders and AOC and even further Left. 

So that’s where we are. That rather obviously leaves us with the second question: what can we do? Are there promising steps that individuals can take that are likely to make a difference, or are our problems so massive that all we can do is marinate in our distress?

I’ve arrived at an answer that may or may not be correct, but works for me. (I encourage you all to rebut my suggestions and to offer better or additional ones).

As I indicated in a couple of recent posts, I think those of us who recognize that we are individually powerless to affect the dysfunctions and outrages of a national government headed by Trump have to turn to activism at the local level. Even rural occupants of Blue states can work through local government to protect citizens from the Trump assaults; in Red states, cities of over 500,000 are uniformly Blue, and activism is possible at the municipal level. (Rural folks in states like Indiana can at least join statewide organizations working to protect civil liberties or immigrants’ rights or the environment.)

In my case, given my interests and background, I will volunteer with local lawyers’ groups–certainly the ACLU, but perhaps  others as well– to determine the measures that are available in our federalist system, and work to use whatever tools we identify, including but not limited to lawsuits. While we no longer have a Supreme Court that we can rely upon to enforce the Constitution, there are numerous good judges at the local and appellate levels, and justice is famously slow. By the time any appeals reach the Supreme Court, we may be emerging from much of the current darkness. 

Others of you might work with local groups focused on immigrant rights, or on health, reproductive or environmental issues.

Most importantly, local activists need to work with educators and with recently established local media outlets, to educate and inform the voting population. If there was any systemic failure that led to our current disaster, it was widespread civic ignorance and misinformation. Citizens need to understand the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and they need to recognize the ways in which MAGA Republicanism rejects that foundational framework.

We have work to do.

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