Making Government Work From Within

In praise of "bureaucracy hacking."

As we think about what a new reconstruction may look like, one of the major points of tension will be the rules and regulations that bind the actions of the government machinery. On the one hand, the rules cause friction in the gears that get things done. Procurement is slow. Hiring is slow. Policy changes are slow. It will be immensely frustrating to those coming in to fix the government to be told to be patient after so much damage has been done.

However, those rules are there for good reason. After all, hiring your buddy in a no-bid contract is how you get a reflecting pool full of algae. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) is there to make sure the bidding process is fair and that the government doesn’t get swindled. The Authority to Operate (ATO) is there to make sure the government doesn’t get hacked or leak sensitive data. The rules around hiring are meant to ensure that government hiring is fair and that only qualified people get hired. For every rule that’s out there, there is likely a story where something bad happened and the government corrected for it.

Throwing these rules into the wood chipper like DOGE has done causes harm while an effort to modernize these rules would take legislation and feels too slow. We have to strike a balance between moving carefully and fixing things.

The key role for this will be bureaucracy hackers. …

Continue reading this article by Christopher Whitaker, “Making Government Work From Within,” here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/making-government-work-from-within/