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Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Institutional Knowledge
The Big Picture
Here’s the deal: We can’t just get rid of everyone when the administration changes. We need at least one person who knows where to find the bathroom and the supply closet. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have any Sharpies for President Trump or the box full of Cross Century IIs for the next president.
The same goes for other places, not just the White House. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has all the makings for a fine Secretary of State, but he will need a lot of experience at Foggy Bottom to run the ship effectively. While it’s possible to pick up a language in a year, deep expertise in foreign countries takes time to develop. These subject matter experts take time to mint, and they shouldn’t be cast aside without serious consideration of the long-term effects on American foreign policy.
Now that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been confirmed as the Secretary for Health and Human Services, he’s going to need all the career civil servants he can find, especially doctors and scientists, since he is neither. The FDA and CDC have deep rosters, to borrow from sports, of experts on incredibly niche topics. It’s impossible to become an expert on Ebola quickly or how to deal with epidemics generally.
Zooming In
The federal government does a lot. It has roughly 3 million employees, and those 3 million people do everything from special warfare to human resources to managing federal forests and monitoring for disease outbreaks. In short, the federal bureaucracy is larger than any private enterprise in the United States.
A leaner and more efficient federal government is undoubtedly a worthy and helpful goal. Perhaps DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) will remove the frivolous and spare the essential. The haphazard memo freezing federal aid was overly broad and is now being contested in court.
The subsequent battle over USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has also exasperated both goodwill for the United States abroad and has had very real effects on individual people. Numerous medical trials were abruptly stopped. U.S. assistance to counter the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria, in addition to technical assistance was halted, though now there are some limited waivers.
It is unclear how things will change at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) with RFK Jr. taking the helm at HHS. At this point, it remains uncertain how much change he will implement in the various advisory bodies for vaccines at the FDA and CDC, given that RFK Jr. is a well-known vaccine skeptic. He also questions the validity and safety of fluoridated water, which may influence other public health advisory bodies.
CDC certainly needs modernization after its weaknesses were exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) convened a task force and issued an opinion on how to build the CDC we need. DOGE and Trump do not appear to want to take the surgical approach to trim fat from the government. Instead, Elon Musk’s team at DOGE seems to be more comfortable with a meat cleaver.
An unusual partnership between the government and the private sector that is worth highlighting and could serve as a model for the future is the bromance between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the southern culinary titan, Waffle House. FEMA uses the Waffle House Index to gauge quickly how destructive a storm will be. If Waffle House is open and serving the full menu, the storm may have been bad, but the local infrastructure survived and is not notably impacted. If Waffle House serves its limited menu, it was a bad storm that has impacted power and transportation networks. If Waffle House is closed, a full FEMA response is necessary because the WaHo rarely ever closes its restaurants.
The Dynamo that is the Waffle House/FEMA relationship should be a model for federal agencies to not only build capacity in-house but also partner with outside entities that have deep experience that the Government can learn from. As noted in the CSIS report about CDC, hiring practices need to be adjusted. Specifically, in the case of CDC, promotability and retention should look less like academia and more like a prioritization of innovation, speed, and agility to respond to novel circumstances.
DOGE and Trump do not appear to want to take the surgical approach to trim fat from the government. Instead, Elon Musk’s team at DOGE appears to be more comfortable with a meat cleaver.
Independent Lens
Our polling shows that independents don’t have a favorable opinion of DOGE, with only an 11% approval. That same poll shows that DOGE has a lot of room for growth, with 28% neutral, 12% unsure, and a massive 28% who have never heard of it. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is underwater with independents, with a net favorability of -17.
Why does this matter to independents? It is relatively simple. They don’t want chaos; they want bipartisanship. 40% of independents disapprove of the republican party, 39% disapprove of the Democratic Party, and only 12% view a politician who works with both sides as unfavorable. Finally, when asked, “Would you like to see Republicans in Congress succeed or fail at working across the aisle to pass bipartisan policies?” 59% wanted success.
“Which policies do you think would be most successful at reforming our government to be more focused and fit for purpose?” A resounding 61% chose the path of moderation.
Independents are cheering for bipartisan wins. Government reform and modernization should be a bipartisan win for everyone. The IRS is still stuck in the 1970’s. Without modernization, Social Security and Medicare will be cutting benefits in the next decade.
The government shouldn’t be run like your average “move fast and break things” tech start-up. Because when the government breaks, bad things can happen. Does the Air Traffic Control system need to be modernized? To quote Sarah Palin, “You betcha.” But should it be done in a more intentional way so that we get the Air Traffic Control system of the 21st century instead of the 19th? Definitely.
