Nothing is So Bad…That It Can’t Get Worse
Murphy's Law and Government Efficiency: We Should Buttress Our Federal Bureaucracy, Not Tear It Down
Some Americans have good reason to feel frustrated with their government, and to demand better and expect more from it. Especially if they pay taxes. As international development professionals know, paying taxes is an essential component of good government. It generates a justified expectation among taxpayers to receive concrete benefits from the government they’re paying their hard-earned cash to. Paying taxes creates a virtuous cycle of expectations on all sides: I pay, you provide the services; if the services fall short, I have the basis to complain and compel you to make changes to improve them, and so on. Not paying taxes breaks that cycle. As a diplomat, I served in several countries where tax collection rates were abysmally low and where government performance and service delivery (not coincidentally) reflected that dismal input; those who refused to pay taxes, in turn, often justified their refusal by pointing to government inefficiency, ineptitude, or corruption. Why pay to get nothing, or worse? Why throw your money away? There you go. A potentially virtuous cycle turns vicious, and so on. This is something to ponder when pondering the fact that some people don’t pay taxes, or don’t pay their fair share.
Most federal government workers themselves understand that government bureaucracy can be maddening. Things that should be easy, are not. Things that should take two seconds, take forever. Sometimes things don’t get done at all. This may be because the system is broken, or outdated, or inefficient. It may be because the government doesn’t have the latest technology or the right people, or the right mix of the two. It may even be that some government workers are lazy. The decision memo gets stuck on their desk and they couldn’t care less, poor morale spreading around them like octopus ink. Even then, it’s nearly impossible to fire them, to “facilitate their finding a job to which they may be better suited”—perhaps in the private sector. As a former federal government employee and manager myself, boy would I have appreciated the ability to hire the right people fast and to fire certain people (not too many, but still) even faster. But such dramatic decisions as hiring and firing should be based on clear criteria of potential and performance, not random factors like whether your social security number ends in an odd number or an arbitrary cut-throat target of 80%, which radiate brazen contempt.
This contempt, which to me is indefensible, probably explains why I feel so counterintuitively defensive about our maddeningly inefficient bureaucratic system. I know from experience that most people working in government are doing their best, often under difficult circumstances not of their making where individual efforts are unduly constrained or often not suitably rewarded. I myself personally know many superb professionals who are investing their energy, ideas, and talents to great public effect every day, week, month and year. The American people don’t always get to see this critical, behind-the-scenes work in action, and too often take for granted the consequential results, as though these were part of nature. Journalists like Michael Lewis have sought to shine a spotlight on some of this excellent work in books like The Fifth Risk and through his series in the Washington Post. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/michael-lewis-conclusion-who-is-government/.) The Partnership for Public Service’s annual Sammy Award bash celebrates the accomplishments of extraordinary federal government employees to similar ends. (https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-oscars-for-the-deep-state.) But in the current environment, such reporting is the exception. Instead of fanfare, federal government employees face contempt; instead of celebration, they get disdain and derision. They are tarred as part of the insidiously dug-in “deep state” supposedly bent on undermining this or that presumably popular political objective.
Which political objective are we talking about? Is it truly popular? Is it authentically public?
Motivated by the calling and intrinsic reward—let’s call it prestige—of public service rather than by financial remuneration, many capable federal government professionals see, as I do, a clear need to improve efficiency in the system. Moreover, they welcome good ideas to this end, especially if they’re workable. (The “good idea fairy” is a pernicious presence in many bureaucracies, bursting with ideas that seem promising but are often unworkable because the means to carry them out don’t exist). Even more importantly, they welcome constructive action. In fact, it’s almost a cliché that each presidential administration comes with its plans to reform, reinvigorate, or streamline government functioning. When I joined the foreign service in the early 90s it was Vice President Al Gore’s “Reinventing Government.” Closer to the end of my career, it was Secretary of State Tillerson’s proposed “Redesign” of the State Department. Sure, once you’ve gone through 2 or 3 of such efforts, you begin to feel a bit jaded. That’s natural; that’s also why we need a constant flow of fresh blood, new talent, (mostly younger) people for whom things are new, exciting, and worth jumping into as though it was the first time ever. At the same time, hope springs eternal, and there’s always a little part of you that believes, “this time it might be different.” Sometimes it is. For example, Secretary Colin Powell brought welcome bureaucratic change to the State Department, in particular the adoption of new technology and the integration of professional training into Department (particularly foreign service) careers. But Powell was motivated by a sincere ambition to improve the lives, conditions, and ability of State Department employees—he called us his troops (nothing like a military man and a martial metaphor to move things along in an American bureaucracy)—to do their jobs.
But one gets a somewhat different impression on reviewing the plans (such as they are) of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy for radical federal government cost-cutting under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (which doesn’t exist and may never, but never mind that for now.) Based on my own experience in the first Trump administration, a cursory reading of Project 2025, and the public statements of both Musk and Ramaswamy, I have the sense that improving government functioning, not to mention the lives and conditions of government employees, is not really the intention. With the once and future president apparently poised to over-interpret his mandate, one has cause to wonder: Are they seeking to improve the system or to destroy it? Are they seeking to make the federal government worthy of the taxes people pay to sustain it? Or is their real (ulterior) motive to further erode the peoples’ confidence in government to justify their private interest in paying even fewer taxes or none at all? On this question, there appears to be uncharacteristic overlap between MAGA stalwarts like Steve Bannon calling to dismantle the so-called “administrative state” and the Tech Bro libertarians wanting to “do what they will” without constraint, as those with unchecked power have always done. For the moment I won’t even mention the massive, in-your-face conflict of interest hiding in plain sight at the molten core of this discussion.
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My own perspective on this thorny question is that of a former foreign service officer with some understanding of how my government works and a bit of experience seeing how other governments (in East Asia, Latin America, and to some degree Western Europe) do—or don’t—work too. It is also that of a first-generation American whose parents came to the United States from Europe as adults. So no, I am not a technical expert; but yes, I am a generalist with a broad and somewhat varied experience and point of view. (For deeply informed technical assessments on these questions, I recommend the newsletters of professional analysts of government structures and bureaucratic systems like Don Moynihan (https://substack.com/profile/48029198-don-moynihan?utm_source=global-search) and Jennifer Pahlka https://substack.com/profile/2571861-jennifer-pahlka?utm_source=global-search). I also realize I will be tip-toeing into culturally sensitive terrain in making the argument I make, while trying to do so with as much intellectual honesty and care for this sensitivity as possible.
Let’s start with the glaringly obvious: as the debate about the merits and demerits of immigration continues to rage, I note that Elon Musk is an immigrant from South Africa. Not only that, he hails from the highest economic rungs of a social and political system that, whatever its progress as a democracy since the collapse of Apartheid in 1990, makes the United States seem like a socialist paradise by comparison. For his part, Vivek Ramaswamy is a first-generation American both of whose parents are highly educated Brahmins from India’s Tamil South. In the United States, the term Brahmin is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to the old WASP cultural and professional elite, mostly in New England. But even that usage has acquired a patina of the past and no longer accurately reflects current realities. (Ironically, different ethnic groups, notably South Asians in recent years, have surged into prominence in the new American elite.) In India, Brahmin refers to something concrete and current, the highest “priestly” class of the deplorable Hindu caste system. What does this have to do with the subject at hand?
Let me try to explain. Unlike the rise of other immigrant groups in America over the past century and a half (many of whom emerged from humble, working class origins), the political prominence of relatively recent arrivals with the profile of Musk and Ramaswamy reflects the further hardening of social and economic inequality in the United States. Americans may not fully grasp the danger of this hardening, blinded by an ideology of egalitarianism that is increasingly at odds with the reality of stratification. Here I am influenced by my diplomatic experience in societies with marked class divisions. In certain Latin American countries, for example, social and economic classes are sometimes referred to with designations such as A, B, C and on down the line. The attitudes evinced and the views expressed by Musk and Ramaswamy feel familiar to me for that reason. Why? They reflect a stark ruling class bias, the unconscious expectation of natural advantage, and a palpable sense of entitlement. Both hail from the A class, if not the A+. People in the lower-middle class base of the MAGA movement (and everyone else) should be wary about where they fit in this kind of fixed hierarchical structure. The internal debate over immigration—and which kind we want—is just the start.
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And how should I put it without sounding defensive, or without seeming like I want to protect a “good enough” government system? In fact, I could never stand the dismissive phrase “good enough for government”, and people who used it within earshot of me quickly wished they hadn’t. Let me repeat, the federal government has tens of thousands of dedicated people of a professional caliber that could compete with anyone anywhere anytime hands down. Thank god we have them, and I hope they can be convinced to stay. We all should be hoping and praying for the same. Not only that, we need many more such people, particularly young people. So let me ask this question: Why did Elon Musk come to the United States? Why did Vivek Ramaswamy’s parents come? Was it because they wanted to do us a favor? Was it because they wanted to help transform our values of silly sleepovers and lazy sunbathing into those of spelling bee and SAT math champs? (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/david-brooks-ramaswamy/681188/). Was it because they knew they could have made it just as big in South Africa or India or anywhere else? Or was it because the United States offers an institutional environment where good ideas and hard work (in some cases) are still rewarded? Particularly if you have the correct educational background, make the right connections, and get really lucky, they are rewarded more lavishly here than anywhere else that comes to mind. I sometimes think that, just as the United States is immeasurably indebted to its generations of immigrant strivers (where would we be without them?), those striving immigrants who make it big in the United States owe this country a special favor. (I know many such immigrants agree.) How to repay it? By paying their fair share of taxes, investing in and further strengthening the system, including the government? Or by seeking to starve and destroy it?
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I suddenly recall the hot water that former President Obama got himself into as a result of an uncharacteristically careless verbal construction during public remarks addressing the related topic of individual success in America. I’ll try not to repeat the same mistake here. The United States has always glorified the efforts of individuals and worshiped at the altar of Adam Smith’s invisible hand. From the perspective of our political ideology, the power of our capitalist system derives from the selfish striving of its entrepreneurs, business-people, managers, and workers. I’m not here to contradict this fact, far from it. I’m here to embrace it, to celebrate its cornerstone role in our political economy. But what gets left out of this equation is the critical importance of institutions: the norms, rules and bureaucratic structures that help channel selfish striving in a public direction, that ensure that the rewards for individual effort go where they should go and not somewhere else. This absence is blinding. The failure to highlight or even mention in passing the critical importance of the government and broader institutional framework in enabling individual success is like forgetting to include at least one leg of a three-legged stool. Because it is thanks to these impersonal (i.e., bureaucratic) structures that highly educated, innovative, hardworking individuals (like Musk and Ramaswamy) can expect a return on their investment—whether of time, ideas, sweat equity or actual money—and be confident they will get it. Yet now they are deriding these same structures as corrosive, destructive, and eminently worthy of destruction. What would they want to see in their stead? A patrimonial system? A network of family and friends? A system of informal winks and nudges like those in most other parts of the world (including where their families come from)? This looks a lot to me from the outside like privileged people who have taken energetic advantage of their privilege to climb the ladder to the roof of the world and now want to make sure nobody else will be able to use that ladder again. They reached the roof, so it’s time to kick the ladder away. They’ve got theirs, so fuck the rest of you!
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For all our real problems of institutional inefficiency and government dysfunction, in the course of three decades as an American diplomat working in or on 9 different countries (along with professional and personal experiences in many others), I never encountered a government system or bureaucratic environment that I would have preferred to our own. This includes four years working in a modern and highly functioning and developed country like Japan. I simply didn’t. (For the record, the Nordic countries and Singapore don’t count; the scale makes any comparison incompatible.) I would expect that successful immigrant strivers in the United States, who appreciate the comparative context as a matter of native experience, would share this view. For this reason, I would expect them to acknowledge the important role that our government system and institutions writ large have played in building the incredible dynamism of the US economy, not to mention their own stunning success and that of other new American Brahmin elites. Hearing even a hint of such an acknowledgment might allay my concern that they plan to throw the baby out with the bathwater in pursuing their disproportionately draconian plans to dismantle our government in the name of derugulation. And to what end? To make things better for whom? They themselves and others of their ilk surely don’t need any more help than they already get, do they?
As I contemplate the massive material wealth of our former and future president, of his motley crew of mostly billionaire cabinet picks, and of his dynamic duo of ultra high net worth individuals/government efficiency experts, I find myself wondering what problem they are trying to fix. Who are they trying to help? Let me suspend my cynicism for a moment to ask a sincere (if naive) question: Are they truly aiming to help the downtrodden MAGA masses? To shore up America’s severely eroded middle classes? To make all of America (not just a privileged sliver) great again? If so, how does this plan to slash the government fit into that larger one? America’s modern middle class was built—not only, but in large part—by the New Deal, the GI bill, and other such government programs. How will gutting the government help reverse the erosion? It turns out trickle down didn’t exactly trickle down before. Why will it now? How?
Then, confronted with actual evidence, my cynicism returns with a vengeance.
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I will end where I began, on the subject of taxes. The Biden administration made a serious investment in the IRS, to make it more efficient, more responsive to public inquiries, and better positioned to collect taxes from those who most owe them (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/republican-irs-resources-funding-taxes-80-billion). But it turns out this kind of efficiency is not the kind sought by the incoming administration, which wants to defang the agency and ensure owed taxes remain uncollected, particularly from those who owe most. All of this reminds me of the people we used to refer to (behind closed doors) in certain developing countries as the “morally repugnant elites” (or MREs). If not quite technical in nature, this term refers to the powerful groups who dominate the political and economic systems of deeply unequal societies while giving little or nothing in return. They suck the nectar dry, and leave nothing but the husk to their fellow citizens. Pointedly, they pay few or no taxes. No culture of charitable contributions, for good or ill, nor any trace of noblesse oblige exist to pick up the slack. The self-righteous justification for their stinginess is—you guessed it—government inefficiency, dysfunction and corruption. Why should they pay if it means throwing their “hard-earned” money away? Do I perceive a similar profile of MREs emerging right here in the United States? Or are they already nicely installed and now merely getting comfortable?
Maybe if Monsieurs Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy et al planned to deepen and build on the Biden administration’s investments in the IRS—to make paying taxes easy and free for starters—I would have more faith in the public-spirited nature of their intentions with respect to improving government efficiency more broadly. Meanwhile, as a show of further good faith, they might open their own books for a thoroughgoing public audit, so we fellow Americans could clearly see that they, too, are paying their share. We are all, after all, in the same boat. Alas, the fleeting hope in this connection feels far-fetched.
I sincerely hope they prove me wrong.