Red Tape Nation

The quickest way to get America moving is to clear out the bureaucratic jungle that has grown over the past five decades. Here are three reasons why people should care:  

1. Red tape is ruinously expensive. Over 20 states now have more non-instructional personnel than teachers. Upwards of 30 percent of the healthcare dollar goes to administration — that's about $1 million per doctor. Here is a new Brookings report by Dr. David M. Cutler showing where that money goes.

2. Bureaucracy gets denser every year, like degenerative disease. In 2013, the school district of Charleston County in South Carolina had 30 administrators making over $100,000 per year. Last year it had 133 administrators earning more than $100,000. Here is a column by Education Next managing editor Ira Stoll exposing how school bureaucracy has grown, prompted by our call to reboot schools.    

3. Pushing paper makes people fail. Exhibit A is the early botched response to the coronavirus. Cognitive scientists have demonstrated that diverting human attention to compliance means that people are less able to accomplish the tasks before them. That's because compliance with detailed rules is non-intuitive, and tends to exhaust our conscious mental capacity. That’s why it contributes to the epidemic of burnout, especially in doctors, nurses, and teachers struggling to keep it all straight.   
 
Here's the challenge: Bureaucracy never fixes itself. All that bureaucracy is imbedded in legal concrete. If we want to fix what ails America, we must first liberate officials and citizens to take responsibility again. This requires not de-regulation, but re-regulation into simpler, goal-oriented frameworks. Responsibility, not red tape, is the key to good government, just as it is key to success in your own life.
 
But how do we make these changes? That's where you come in. We must build a powerful coalition demanding spring cleaning commissions to clear out the red tape. We need your commitment, your rolodex, and your financial support (we're a 501(c)(3) organization). We can make it easy — we have lots of content, and some of America's most credible citizens and experts have already signed on. Spend a few minutes on our campaign website. We're past the point of just talking. We need people to get involved.   
 
If you agree, please help. You can contact Matt Brown, our Executive Director, here.