Here’s the public failure of the week: Twenty-three schools in Baltimore have not one student who is "proficient" in math—i.e., performing at grade level. Another 20 schools have only one or two students who are proficient. In Chicago, Wirepoints discovered, 33 schools similarly have no student proficient in math, and another 22 schools have no student proficient in reading.
Read MoreThe headache of managing government under union strictures is not exactly a secret. But the managerial disempowerment of governors, mayors, and other elected executives seems to have caught people by surprise.
There may be ten million management books, but we can’t find one that talks about what happens when managers no longer have authority to manage—for example, to hold employees accountable, or to redeploy resources to meet new circumstances.
Read MoreThe ingredients of a bad public culture are hard to pinpoint with precision. But, in the case of the police squad that beat Tyre Nichols to death, the factors include inadequate training and police union collective bargaining agreements that allow experienced officers to avoid the street duty where experience is most needed.
Read MoreNot Accountable is now out, exposing the harms to democracy caused by public employee unions that should be unconstitutional. This week it received a number of thoughtful reviews.
Read MoreIt’s time to recognize that no overhaul vision will come from either party. Rocking the boat is too uncertain. Better to stick with the status quo. So nothing much will change, and voter frustration and cynicism will grow. A new governing vision is needed to fill the vacuum. With enough support, some candidates in 2024 might embrace it.
Read MoreWashington doesn’t work, as we know. But the harsher reality is that Washington can’t realistically make itself work. The governing structure is legal quicksand, allowing any naysayer to block almost anything. Perhaps worse, the political culture has settled into a downward spiral of failure, in which parties compete, not by getting things done, but by blaming the other side.
Read MoreAn uncomfortable truth underlies the frustration with democracy that drives people to extremism. That truth is this: Governing sensibly is basically impossible in a bureaucratic and legal jungle. Common sense disappears into the quicksand of thick rulebooks, lengthy processes, and claimed rights. Teachers can’t maintain order, officials can’t approve new transmission lines, and mayors can’t fire rogue cops.
Read MoreThis week, Senator Joe Manchin’s infrastructure permitting reform, aimed at energy projects and supported by The White House, was killed by a weird coalition of Republicans and far-left Democrats. The bill would have expedited the construction of high-speed transmission lines—a reform strongly supported by the editorial board of The Washington Post and other mainstream observers.
Read MorePaul Light at Brookings released a report last week which concluded that “public demand for ‘very major’ government reform is at a twenty-year high” and that “confidence in government to do the right thing is at a historic low.” Citing our work, the report calls for “large-scale repairs to aging systems and broken bureaucracy.”
Read MoreGoverning is not a process of perfection. Like other human activities, governing involves tradeoffs and trial and error. One of the most important tradeoffs involves timing. Delay in governing often means failure. Nowhere is this more true than with environmental reviews for infrastructure. Every year of delay for new power lines, modernized ports, congestion pricing for city traffic, and road bottlenecks means more pollution and inefficiency.
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There’s a lot going on in the world, with Ukraine, Canadian truckers, and more. So it was easy to miss the report of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, released on February 7. The Task Force, chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris, calls for expanding collective bargaining throughout society, including in government.
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The first anniversary of the January 6 mob at the Capitol has prompted lots of commentary about how polarized America is. But why is America polarized? The frustration and anger that drives people to extremes isn't made up.
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America needs a new public narrative, with new leaders. The key, we think, is to replace red tape with human responsibility. Nothing will get fixed until we re-empower Americans to roll up their sleeves and make things work again.
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The $1.2 trillion package is about $10,000 for every American household. Without implementation oversight, the money will gush out of Washington without any discipline over, for example, New York work rules that can make infrastructure projects five times as expensive as in other developed countries.
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Politics today seems dominated by loonies and fanatics: On the right, "Stop the steal" and anti-vaxxers; on the left, "woke" thought-police and spendthrift policies with no implementation plan. Extremists succeed mainly in driving us apart, not (so far) changing government. But do the leaders of either party offer a coherent governing vision?
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There are about 5 trillion reasons to worry about the massive Biden spending proposal, but at least $1 trillion of it is aimed at overdue infrastructure needs — roads, transmission lines, broadband, water, and other "hard" infrastructure that will improve America's competitiveness and environmental sustainability.
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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.
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Overhauling 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.
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How 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.
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Extremism 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.
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