Oct 23, 2023·edited Oct 23, 2023Liked by Noah Smith
Few thoughts:
1. Local bureaucracy is even more godawful than federal because local civil services are a) critically understaffed b) completely unable to find expertise and therefore are inept c) run by special interests d) run as patronage e) some combination of the above. This is one of the reasons I advocate municipal consolidation to allow for a larger pool of recruits.
2. An even scarier set of words is "there is no government and I'm here to kill you"
3. The USA is stuck in a vicious cycle of bad bureaucracy = people restrict bureaucrats and pay them less = bureaucrats do a bad job =...
4. The joke about nonprofits is "we aren't in the business of profit but we certainly aren't in the business of loss"
5. Many people who work at nonprofits are zealots/people with mental disorders that compel them to antisocial behavior (looking at you, SF Coalition on Homelessness/Fraudenbach). Building state capacity by hiring nonpartisan bureaucrats would allow cities to defund these organizations that do little but enrich themselves, pollute the discourse with their presence and commit antisocial acts. Driving their staff into unemployment might be bad for Xitter but it's good for almost everything else (also teach people that being an activist is bad mmkay).
6. The best model for bureaucracy is Singapore- bureaucrats are paid very well there to attract talent and there's a genuine sense of doing your time in the private sector and then giving back to the nation.
7. Some government agencies run on goddamn COBOL and FORTRAN. This is an utter disgrace and heads need to publicly roll.
8. The GOP's deregulatory crusade tends to be focused on removing the barriers to powerful incumbents committing abuse rather than improving economic efficiency.
9. Not quite bureaucrats but adjacent: government transit agencies like SEPTA or Metra are run by political appointees instead of bureaucrats. In the case of the MTA, politicians can force out competent leaders for disagreement.
I think this is a lot of wishful thinking. We all have stories about government. My college girlfriend when to work for the SEC in 2006 and they had a couch for naps in the ladies room, I worked on a building with USACE that was horribly mismanaged and led to millions of dollars in claims, and a friend walked in on a government manager masturbating and he refused to stop so he had to be given a private office. A friend was lit on fire at work and not only did the arsonist keep his job until after his conviction, the government workers union showed up to say that she deserved it. Another friend worked a second job at his government planning job and no one cared.
When people say that they want government to be managed like a business, they don't actually mean that... what they mean is that they want the barest approximation of responsibility from the public sector. Because right now there is none. Its the only place in the economy where you can refuse to do your job and not be fired, or not know how and escape any consequences.
If you refuse to engage with these issues... no increase in capacity will happen. But you will spend more money and cause more turbulence for the private sector as they expand their capacity to interfere.
A salient issue with local/state/federal governance is the coming competency crisis wherein additional layers of incompetent hires in government leads to the enshittification of the nation.
When I think of government bureaucracy, and perhaps specifically your example of the IRS, I think we need less manpower and more straightforward automation.
I don't mean fancy AI. I mean that simple things should just be automatic.
There is no reason for instance that most people shouldn't have no-file taxes in America.
But perhaps people from across the political compass would fight that .. efficiency.
Great post. But as a former bureaucrat and current consultant on infrastructure, I want to clarify that it’s even worse than you describe. NEPA and its offspring don’t just kick in when the NIMBYs get ready to sue. There is a s*** ton of paperwork required before even the most banal project (say, restoring an almost 100-year-old bridge to a state of good repair, or slightly extending a light-rail transit system) can begin. It’s very, very expensive madness.
I would like to take my experience in this realm and use it in a more edifying context, but I haven’t yet figured out what that is.
Great post. Reminded me about your post on innovation policy. The CDC apparently spent most of its time on “research,” intramural and thru grants to nonprofits like universities. So, I’m wondering whether, for lack of state capacity, the same critique applies to how the government supports innovation? We have universities, with their own agenda, focused primarily on publication prestige. Does the government have the capacity to monitor how universities are spending grant money? Patents are like an unfunded (negative) mandate, handled through an expensive and judicialized process.
LMAO, Noah is waaay funnier than Ghostbusters. .gov needs more worthless beureucrats?!? I thought they already cornered the market. He should go work at the post office or the dmv...
One important factor you missed was the political campaign fundraising incentives. Government contractors are now a huge source of campaign contributions. It’s going to be very hard for Congress and the executive branch to reverse the reliance on contractors when all the economic incentives in the political system favor the status quo.
The lack of state capacity has knock on effects for judicial capacity (which is a subset). We need more judges (and beat cops and detectives and jailers).
Then tell them to stop doing this kind of stuff. They are going after mom and pops who move overseas. Oftentimes they are US Veterans who move to places they fought (Vietnam is popular with this set) and at othet times people who left Eastern Europe during the cold war. Poland is filled with Americans on a US Pension.
Moore concerns the tax liability of Charles and Kathleen Moore who, inspired by their friend’s mission to empower subsistence farmers in India, made a modest investment nearly two decades ago in a small social enterprise in Bangalore in exchange for approximately 11% of the stock of an Indian corporation. According to the record, the Indian corporation reinvested its earnings, the Moores never received any distributions on their investment and the Moores (under pre-2017 law) never incurred any tax liability on their investment. As a result of Section 965, however, the Moores were deemed to have earned income from their investment and were taxed accordingly. For the Moores, that meant a $15,000 tax bill.
Not sure someone who has worked attempting to manage the bureaucracy in DC would suggest this.
And I am not talking about partisan true believers and activists coming into a place like the FTC or EPA or DOJ or SEC- that can be quite fun (for the activists). Fairly destructive for the country. I am talking about less activist areas like VA, Foggy Bottom, IRS, SSA. You literally cannot sack anyone and they need not work.
Few thoughts:
1. Local bureaucracy is even more godawful than federal because local civil services are a) critically understaffed b) completely unable to find expertise and therefore are inept c) run by special interests d) run as patronage e) some combination of the above. This is one of the reasons I advocate municipal consolidation to allow for a larger pool of recruits.
2. An even scarier set of words is "there is no government and I'm here to kill you"
3. The USA is stuck in a vicious cycle of bad bureaucracy = people restrict bureaucrats and pay them less = bureaucrats do a bad job =...
4. The joke about nonprofits is "we aren't in the business of profit but we certainly aren't in the business of loss"
5. Many people who work at nonprofits are zealots/people with mental disorders that compel them to antisocial behavior (looking at you, SF Coalition on Homelessness/Fraudenbach). Building state capacity by hiring nonpartisan bureaucrats would allow cities to defund these organizations that do little but enrich themselves, pollute the discourse with their presence and commit antisocial acts. Driving their staff into unemployment might be bad for Xitter but it's good for almost everything else (also teach people that being an activist is bad mmkay).
6. The best model for bureaucracy is Singapore- bureaucrats are paid very well there to attract talent and there's a genuine sense of doing your time in the private sector and then giving back to the nation.
7. Some government agencies run on goddamn COBOL and FORTRAN. This is an utter disgrace and heads need to publicly roll.
8. The GOP's deregulatory crusade tends to be focused on removing the barriers to powerful incumbents committing abuse rather than improving economic efficiency.
9. Not quite bureaucrats but adjacent: government transit agencies like SEPTA or Metra are run by political appointees instead of bureaucrats. In the case of the MTA, politicians can force out competent leaders for disagreement.
Noah, you really need to limit comments to paid subs if you don’t want to read nutjobs here. Slow Boring does it and it’s all the better for it.
I think this is a lot of wishful thinking. We all have stories about government. My college girlfriend when to work for the SEC in 2006 and they had a couch for naps in the ladies room, I worked on a building with USACE that was horribly mismanaged and led to millions of dollars in claims, and a friend walked in on a government manager masturbating and he refused to stop so he had to be given a private office. A friend was lit on fire at work and not only did the arsonist keep his job until after his conviction, the government workers union showed up to say that she deserved it. Another friend worked a second job at his government planning job and no one cared.
When people say that they want government to be managed like a business, they don't actually mean that... what they mean is that they want the barest approximation of responsibility from the public sector. Because right now there is none. Its the only place in the economy where you can refuse to do your job and not be fired, or not know how and escape any consequences.
If you refuse to engage with these issues... no increase in capacity will happen. But you will spend more money and cause more turbulence for the private sector as they expand their capacity to interfere.
It depends. I saw a lot of people wasting a lot of time on payroll when I worked in government
A salient issue with local/state/federal governance is the coming competency crisis wherein additional layers of incompetent hires in government leads to the enshittification of the nation.
The military. See https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-america-is-out-of-ammunition
The schools. See https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2023/10/oregon-again-says-students-dont-need-to-prove-mastery-of-reading-writing-or-math-to-graduate-citing-harm-to-students-of-color.html
Emergency response. See https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/video/2023/08/24/anger-grows-fema-workers-stay-luxury-hotels-amid-maui-wildfires-disaster/
The Democrats. Too many to cite. Open border, reckless spending, crime, regime corruption, anti-semitism, racism, decelerationists.
The GOP. Feckless, weak, rudderless, leaderless, paralyzed despite an imploding Democrat party infected by the woke mind virus.
When I think of government bureaucracy, and perhaps specifically your example of the IRS, I think we need less manpower and more straightforward automation.
I don't mean fancy AI. I mean that simple things should just be automatic.
There is no reason for instance that most people shouldn't have no-file taxes in America.
But perhaps people from across the political compass would fight that .. efficiency.
Great post. But as a former bureaucrat and current consultant on infrastructure, I want to clarify that it’s even worse than you describe. NEPA and its offspring don’t just kick in when the NIMBYs get ready to sue. There is a s*** ton of paperwork required before even the most banal project (say, restoring an almost 100-year-old bridge to a state of good repair, or slightly extending a light-rail transit system) can begin. It’s very, very expensive madness.
I would like to take my experience in this realm and use it in a more edifying context, but I haven’t yet figured out what that is.
Government employee here...the amount of money we pay contractors to do routine things is absolutely obscene.
Great post. Reminded me about your post on innovation policy. The CDC apparently spent most of its time on “research,” intramural and thru grants to nonprofits like universities. So, I’m wondering whether, for lack of state capacity, the same critique applies to how the government supports innovation? We have universities, with their own agenda, focused primarily on publication prestige. Does the government have the capacity to monitor how universities are spending grant money? Patents are like an unfunded (negative) mandate, handled through an expensive and judicialized process.
LMAO, Noah is waaay funnier than Ghostbusters. .gov needs more worthless beureucrats?!? I thought they already cornered the market. He should go work at the post office or the dmv...
One important factor you missed was the political campaign fundraising incentives. Government contractors are now a huge source of campaign contributions. It’s going to be very hard for Congress and the executive branch to reverse the reliance on contractors when all the economic incentives in the political system favor the status quo.
never thought i'd "like" a column saying make the bureaucracy bigger, but this was a great (albeit somewhat depressing) piece
The lack of state capacity has knock on effects for judicial capacity (which is a subset). We need more judges (and beat cops and detectives and jailers).
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/growing-backlog-of-court-cases-delays-justice-for-crime-victims-and-the-accused/
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/events/us-immigration-courts-crisis
https://www.permits.performance.gov/fpisc-content/permitting-council-announces-first-ever-critical-minerals-mining-project-gain-fast-41
Biden just bombed NEPA and Nimby for this Fast Track critical mine in my lovely Southern Arizona.
Enviro me approves.
Then tell them to stop doing this kind of stuff. They are going after mom and pops who move overseas. Oftentimes they are US Veterans who move to places they fought (Vietnam is popular with this set) and at othet times people who left Eastern Europe during the cold war. Poland is filled with Americans on a US Pension.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2022/12/11/the-irs-versus-the-clumsy-taxpayer/?sh=70b1ddb93d7a
https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/perspectives-events/blogs/2023/06/moore-money-moore-problems
Moore concerns the tax liability of Charles and Kathleen Moore who, inspired by their friend’s mission to empower subsistence farmers in India, made a modest investment nearly two decades ago in a small social enterprise in Bangalore in exchange for approximately 11% of the stock of an Indian corporation. According to the record, the Indian corporation reinvested its earnings, the Moores never received any distributions on their investment and the Moores (under pre-2017 law) never incurred any tax liability on their investment. As a result of Section 965, however, the Moores were deemed to have earned income from their investment and were taxed accordingly. For the Moores, that meant a $15,000 tax bill.
Not sure someone who has worked attempting to manage the bureaucracy in DC would suggest this.
And I am not talking about partisan true believers and activists coming into a place like the FTC or EPA or DOJ or SEC- that can be quite fun (for the activists). Fairly destructive for the country. I am talking about less activist areas like VA, Foggy Bottom, IRS, SSA. You literally cannot sack anyone and they need not work.