Speaker 1: When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to
Speaker 1: know we're ready for you. Here are just a few
Speaker 1: of the people at Metro to tell you how we're
Speaker 1: doing our part to keep riders safe. We're cleaning like
Speaker 1: nevill before, build greatly. You've found hassant, no mask, no
Speaker 1: Metro need one. We have a few extras at Metro.
Speaker 1: We're doing our part to keep the DC area moving.
Speaker 1: Find out more at well mata dot com slash doing
Speaker 1: our part so their guests we have on the show
Speaker 1: on a regular basis where we think we need to
Speaker 1: talk to this person for longer. There's not enough time here. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the chance with one of our favorite guests. It's
Speaker 1: extra large because four hours simply enough. This is Armstrong
Speaker 1: and Getty extra large. Man. I don't know who that is,
Speaker 1: but that guy's got good pipes. Pipes Listen, all who
Speaker 1: have ears, friends, romans, countrymen. Finally a chance for an
Speaker 1: extended chat with Lani j Chen, the David and Diane
Speaker 1: Stiffy research fellow with the Hoover and Such, also the
Speaker 1: director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecture in the Public
Speaker 1: Policy Program at Stanford University. So we've been wanting to
Speaker 1: talk to you for a long time about government and
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff and your knowledge base and uh,
Speaker 1: and not particularly about at the time we're recording this
Speaker 1: the biggest crisis of my lifetime, the coronavirus and everything else,
Speaker 1: but some of it fits together. We've been wanting to
Speaker 1: talk about bureaucracy, disease and a government this size and
Speaker 1: whether it can react. And I don't know if you
Speaker 1: saw the breakdown in the Wall Street Journal the other day,
Speaker 1: in all the different ways the c d C and
Speaker 1: the f d A and all different organizations have not
Speaker 1: reacted to this very well. Too many regulations, too many layers,
Speaker 1: too many rules. Um, is there anything that can be
Speaker 1: done about that? Well, we get better at that, ever,
Speaker 1: or is that just the product of a growing and
Speaker 1: growing government. Well, we can get better at it. It's
Speaker 1: going to require us to take a careful look at
Speaker 1: what needs to be there and what doesn't. So you
Speaker 1: guys have already hinted it. A few of the challenges
Speaker 1: we have. One is you just look at healthcare as
Speaker 1: an example. We've got so many different types of bureaucracy
Speaker 1: that are involved. We've got so many different agencies and
Speaker 1: make no mistake about it. There are functions that those
Speaker 1: agencies serve which are important, so we don't want to
Speaker 1: denigrate the functions that they play, but we we do
Speaker 1: want to think about who actually has authority to do
Speaker 1: things when something happens. And that's the challenge you have
Speaker 1: when you have overlapping responsibilities. You have in healthcare, for example,
Speaker 1: an agency that's designed to approve new drugs and new
Speaker 1: therapeutics as the FDA. You have an agency that's designed
Speaker 1: to be there to deal with the spread of disease
Speaker 1: and control the spread of disease, that's the CDC. Then
Speaker 1: you've got the Department of Health and Human Services, which
Speaker 1: is theoretically over all of them, yet those agencies are
Speaker 1: expected to operate somewhat independently. And then you have you know,
Speaker 1: various other small agencies I'm forgetting about as well. So
Speaker 1: we've got to figure out how to streamline all of this,
Speaker 1: and it's going to take a sort of holistic approach,
Speaker 1: and someone needs to come along and say, hey, let's
Speaker 1: stop and let's do this, because what always happens in
Speaker 1: government is the urgent crowds out the importance. So a
Speaker 1: lot of steps we need to take and most certainly
Speaker 1: a lot of changes that can be made. I have
Speaker 1: a feeling there are some really fundamental forces at work here.
Speaker 1: Our friend Tim Sandiford likes to talk about how in
Speaker 1: general and government success is punished. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: accomplish your goal having used only your budget, you have
Speaker 1: budget taken away um and and failure is rewarded. You
Speaker 1: get a bigger budget, you get more people. And there's
Speaker 1: the question of defending turf every every Well, many bureaucrats
Speaker 1: want nothing more than budget and people and turf, and
Speaker 1: and if if that's their strongest impulse, then it's going
Speaker 1: to be really hard to tear it down and rebuild it.
Speaker 1: You're right so that that mind set is absolutely prevalent
Speaker 1: in lots of parts of the federal government and state government,
Speaker 1: and probably even city and local government. But the challenges
Speaker 1: that how these bureaucrats measure success oftentimes is by how
Speaker 1: much budget they get to your point, how many people
Speaker 1: they have on their team, how big of a bureaucracy
Speaker 1: they can create, what kind of process they can create
Speaker 1: around that bureaucracy. And instead of measuring outcomes, we need
Speaker 1: to be better about measuring outcomes. Our system of government
Speaker 1: has to determine what is the effective best outcome we
Speaker 1: want to get to, and then let's optimize for that
Speaker 1: instead of saying what we really want is a bigger bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: We really wanted a new government agency. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think back to how much people like Elizabeth Warren celebrated
Speaker 1: the creation of a government agency during the financial crisis,
Speaker 1: and are there important things that that agency could be doing? Sure,
Speaker 1: protecting consumers, that's an important thing, But did they ever
Speaker 1: stop to ask for a minute, are there ways to
Speaker 1: get there in the existing structure by making it leaner
Speaker 1: and more efficient, versus, hey, let's just graft a whole
Speaker 1: new federal agency onto other federal agencies that already exists.
Speaker 1: So this kind of thinking, unfortunately, is prevalent in Washington.
Speaker 1: And it's not just Democrats and progressives who think that way.
Speaker 1: By the way, we got a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are so called conservatives who are up there trying to
Speaker 1: do many of the same things to create more and
Speaker 1: more government. Because you get captured, you get captured by
Speaker 1: Washington and the thinking of that place, and you end
Speaker 1: up buying into the same kind of logic about what
Speaker 1: it's going to take to get something done. I'm so
Speaker 1: pessimistic that that will ever happen, though. Can you give
Speaker 1: me an example of it ever happening in world history
Speaker 1: where a giant bureaucracy actually uh shrinks and becomes leaner
Speaker 1: and meaner and more effective unless it's forced to buy
Speaker 1: a devastating war or maybe a virus. Well, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what it is, right. There has to be some external
Speaker 1: you know, that's the fancy political science word is exogenous.
Speaker 1: There's got to be some kind of external shock or
Speaker 1: external factor that changes how people do business or changes
Speaker 1: creates the predicate for people to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: this isn't working so well. And I would bet there's been.
Speaker 1: I mean even now right people are saying we need
Speaker 1: to create some kind of commission to go study you
Speaker 1: know why it is that we didn't have tests or
Speaker 1: coronavirus early on. And my thing is, you know, why
Speaker 1: not take some organ that's already in the government. We
Speaker 1: have something called the Inspector General's office in each agency.
Speaker 1: Why not have an existing office whose responsibility is to
Speaker 1: study where things go wrong. Let's have them study it
Speaker 1: and say, really, what about this agency worked and what
Speaker 1: didn't and not be afraid to put out there. You
Speaker 1: know what they are parts of this agency that have
Speaker 1: to get cut. There's certain people that have to get cut,
Speaker 1: and yeah, maybe there's certain other parts of the agency
Speaker 1: where we need more people and more funding. So you're
Speaker 1: suggesting a department of f ups. I could I could
Speaker 1: run that. I've got a fair and fair amount of experience.
Speaker 1: That would be I was gonna say that be every
Speaker 1: agency of the federal government. I mean, if you went
Speaker 1: if you went through and looked at all of the
Speaker 1: ways in which part of the federal government have or
Speaker 1: have not worked, you would see you would be shocked.
Speaker 1: If we actually studied it and looked at it, you
Speaker 1: would be shocked. But we need to be doing that, right.
Speaker 1: We need to be assessing what's working and what's not,
Speaker 1: but doing it on a regular basis, not just when
Speaker 1: we have a once in a lifetime global pandemic. Now
Speaker 1: I'm to answer Jack's question. I know several of the
Speaker 1: Nordic states that a lot of people look to as
Speaker 1: socialist paradisees have actually scaled way back on government spending
Speaker 1: since their experiments of the sixties and seventies. That might
Speaker 1: be an example, but the problem anytime you look at
Speaker 1: those states, is that they are small, they are homogeneous,
Speaker 1: and and you know it's a limited number of families.
Speaker 1: They all know each other. I mean the countries are
Speaker 1: almost that small. Yeah, And and they have significant limits
Speaker 1: on who can come into the country. They have significantly
Speaker 1: I mean we we talk about having you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, oh, we need a more open
Speaker 1: immigration system. I'm all foreign immigration system that tries to
Speaker 1: get the best and the brightest here to to help
Speaker 1: our economy and do all that sort of stuff. But
Speaker 1: you talked about these Nordic countries. Neither are not an
Speaker 1: immigrants paradise, right. They are extremely closed societies. They have
Speaker 1: a a very strong they're guided by a strong sense
Speaker 1: of cultural and national identity. Uh so it's relatively easy
Speaker 1: for them to do the kinds of things that they do.
Speaker 1: America is I mean, we are a diverse, messy, beautiful
Speaker 1: country in that way, and and so it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot harder for us to do what they do,
Speaker 1: nor do we want to do what they do. What
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize is the level of
Speaker 1: control that has to be exercised by the government, The
Speaker 1: level of control that has to be exercised by society.
Speaker 1: It is significant, and culturally in these countries it is
Speaker 1: more well accepted. A lot of people, for example, use
Speaker 1: Singapore as an example of a country. They have great
Speaker 1: policy outcomes, a very efficient bureaucracy. They are extremely data
Speaker 1: and results driven, but they are essentially living in a
Speaker 1: quasi dictatorship, and people there are okay with it because
Speaker 1: it's a benign dictatorship. Right. That structure would never work
Speaker 1: in America. We have way too many people and we're
Speaker 1: way too independent minded. And that's a good thing. It
Speaker 1: would help if anybody was ever held to account for
Speaker 1: any you know, mistakes, whether they were it was incompetence
Speaker 1: or um, you know, they did it for bad reasons.
Speaker 1: For instance, the c d C clearly misled everybody on
Speaker 1: whether or not they had the ability to test for
Speaker 1: this thing. I mean, the articles out there about this.
Speaker 1: I'll bet anybody money nobody loses their job, somebody might
Speaker 1: get reassigned to a different division. Nobody's ever held to
Speaker 1: account for any screw ups. Well, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: there's a political overlay here too, right, because it's easy
Speaker 1: enough to get rid of the person at the top
Speaker 1: whoever runs the agency political appointee, get rid of them.
Speaker 1: But when you start to dig into the bureaucracy, there
Speaker 1: surely are people within the bureaucracy who, to your point,
Speaker 1: did not did not act either appropriately or well enough
Speaker 1: or efficiently in this situation. But the minute you start
Speaker 1: to dig in there, and the minute you start to
Speaker 1: think about it, you get accused of wanting to attack
Speaker 1: science or wanting to attack the civil service, when the
Speaker 1: reality is, we have to be absolutely clear about why
Speaker 1: mistakes happen, and we cannot be afraid to fix them.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, the politics have become so toxic
Speaker 1: and so part of it in our country that any
Speaker 1: effort to do that is seen, Oh, well, you're you're
Speaker 1: just You're just a trumper. You're just somebody out there
Speaker 1: who you know, wants to try and advance a conservative
Speaker 1: policy agenda. Look, I'm just trying to say, let's figure
Speaker 1: out what went wrong and let's fix it. I don't
Speaker 1: care who's responsible for it. Let's get to the to
Speaker 1: the core of responsibility and let's fix the problem. But
Speaker 1: it's hard to have that conversation given the politics of
Speaker 1: where we are right now. Well, I agree with you,
Speaker 1: completely that there are plenty of Republicans who want to
Speaker 1: grow the government, just different parts of the government. Um,
Speaker 1: But it seems to me it is mostly voters on
Speaker 1: the left who seem to have this knee jerk defense
Speaker 1: of government and government programs and and maybe it's because
Speaker 1: of the lefty voters affection for unions or something like that.
Speaker 1: But it boggles the mind of a lot of us
Speaker 1: that so many people have as much faith as they
Speaker 1: do in government bureaucracies and don't see the the waste
Speaker 1: and the abuse, and the transigence and and and the
Speaker 1: rest of it. I have you ever done a study
Speaker 1: of that, I mean, really gone into people's worldview why
Speaker 1: some are so charitable towards government, you know, misfunction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't studied it myself. Health, but I will say
Speaker 1: that that people who look at this generally conclude a
Speaker 1: couple of things. So the first is that the belief
Speaker 1: in government is born out of a mistrust of the
Speaker 1: private sector or a belief that civil society, nonprofit institutions, churches,
Speaker 1: charitable institutions UH in addition to the private sector, are
Speaker 1: incapable or fundamentally have their UH incentives misaligned In a way,
Speaker 1: and so government is in a much better place to
Speaker 1: do it. I mean. A perfect example of this are
Speaker 1: all of the people on the left who have embraced
Speaker 1: single payer health care, who have embraced Medicare for all,
Speaker 1: And what do you always hear them saying? You get
Speaker 1: them saying we cannot trust the insurance companies. We cannot
Speaker 1: trust private sector entities to deal with our health care system.
Speaker 1: We cannot trust doctors who are who are out there
Speaker 1: for their own profit, in their own gain. We have
Speaker 1: to socialize all of this because government knows better. It
Speaker 1: is just a It goes to a misunderstanding of what
Speaker 1: has made America great. Not I mean not to get
Speaker 1: this political. I don't. I don't mean to put it
Speaker 1: in the Trump fame, but literally, what has made America
Speaker 1: great over these years has been the existence of a
Speaker 1: system that has lifted more people out of poverty and
Speaker 1: more people out of a lack of opportunity than any
Speaker 1: other economics, a system in the history of mankind, and
Speaker 1: sort of saying we don't want that system. Instead, we
Speaker 1: want to go to a system where government controls the
Speaker 1: means of production, government controls how resources are allocated. And
Speaker 1: I think it's born out of a genuine belief guys,
Speaker 1: that that works better than the private sector. And that's
Speaker 1: why I think a lot of people on the left
Speaker 1: do have a instinctive answer for everything, which is, well,
Speaker 1: if only the government would get involved, and only the
Speaker 1: government would be in charge, if only you bureaucrats and
Speaker 1: people who are quote dispassionate arbiters would be involved. I've
Speaker 1: heard this over and over again, but but it just
Speaker 1: blies a understanding of of really what is made America prosperous,
Speaker 1: the end of human nature. I don't know what their
Speaker 1: world experiences that has led them to believe this, because
Speaker 1: my world experience has led me a different direction. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the it's the world experience that leads people like
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders to say we need a Cuban style education system, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a It is either a misapprehension
Speaker 1: of history or a wilful, deliberate effort to subvert an
Speaker 1: understanding of history in favor of of of a particular agenda.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the only thing that can explain it.
Speaker 1: Either you just don't don't know the history, don't understand it,
Speaker 1: or don't want to. Oh yeah, it's wishful thinking. It's
Speaker 1: a no, I'm sure we can get it right this time.
Speaker 1: I'm sure this will work. That I think is just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if it's this fundamental. A lot of
Speaker 1: these questions comes down to the difference between people who
Speaker 1: believe there should be equality of outcome versus those of
Speaker 1: us who believe there should be equality of opportunity, and
Speaker 1: and and if you know, because you're never going to
Speaker 1: get equality of outcome out of the private sector, out
Speaker 1: or out of any natural function of life. But why
Speaker 1: why is that? Just as simple as you have you
Speaker 1: been to the post office? Have you been to FedEx?
Speaker 1: Have you noticed how they bust their acid fed x
Speaker 1: to make sure you're a happy customer because you're a
Speaker 1: happy paying customer. Have you noticed how at the post
Speaker 1: office you regularly run into place They don't care if
Speaker 1: you never come back. It doesn't make any difference to them.
Speaker 1: In fact, they prefer you did leave. That means eloquent.
Speaker 1: Is Lincoln's Gettysburg address and shorter? We only experience you need,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah? Well right, And so this is also
Speaker 1: like the d m V, the perfect example of that. Right,
Speaker 1: Why do people pay for triple A, ton't have to
Speaker 1: wait in the line of the d m V. Right,
Speaker 1: and and not that not that the triple A is
Speaker 1: a is a paragon of efficiency and effectiveness, but compared
Speaker 1: to the d m V and en sure does look
Speaker 1: like it, right, I mean so so so it's a
Speaker 1: great point, which is, if we believe in a society
Speaker 1: where resources have to be distributed equally, if we believe
Speaker 1: in equality of outcome, the folks who are in favor
Speaker 1: of socialism or in favor of a communist system, you know,
Speaker 1: they've got it right. That probably is the only way
Speaker 1: to ensure the exact equivalent distribution of goods. And it
Speaker 1: seems to me that there are some on the left
Speaker 1: now who are more openly embracing that point of view,
Speaker 1: who are saying, look, actually, yeah, we we we we
Speaker 1: do need equality of outcome as opposed Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: whereas if you look at if you look at at
Speaker 1: the history of our country, and you look at what
Speaker 1: the founders and what great political theorists over the years
Speaker 1: have talked about, what you see is is a is
Speaker 1: a coherence around wanting to have to ensure that people
Speaker 1: have the same shot at success which is why you
Speaker 1: put in place rules. Right, the only reason we have
Speaker 1: laws and regulate that the only reason, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest reasons you have laws and regulation is to make
Speaker 1: sure that people are playing by the same rules. And
Speaker 1: are we angry when people don't play by those rules? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Are we angry when there's croniasm, Yes, and we should be.
Speaker 1: But but the answer has always been, let's give people
Speaker 1: a fair shot to compete and then let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: And that, by necessity, is going to mean that we're
Speaker 1: going to have differences in outcome and and and is
Speaker 1: it sad that there are differences in outcome? I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's sad. I think it's reality. I think
Speaker 1: it's the reality of the system we have, and I
Speaker 1: think it's the best economic system that mankind has ever seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, I have two kids. If
Speaker 1: one of them ends up making twice as much money
Speaker 1: as the other one, I don't I'm not going to
Speaker 1: feel like that's sad for the one who makes less.
Speaker 1: It's just that the direction they went with the talents
Speaker 1: they had in life decisions, right, Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: you know that that that you know should when should
Speaker 1: government act? Right, And the answer is, there are times
Speaker 1: when government has to act because the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: because the rules aren't fair. Okay, sure, government should act
Speaker 1: to change the rules to make sure they're fair. Uh.
Speaker 1: In times when the system gets overburdened by some things
Speaker 1: that we haven't expected, and we expect our government to
Speaker 1: step in. Why with the coronavirus situation, government steps in
Speaker 1: and says, Okay, we're gonna put in place some regulations
Speaker 1: to help keep people safe. That makes sense. But the
Speaker 1: notion that in the everyday functioning, what we really need
Speaker 1: is more government, I just fundamentally disagree with that notion.
Speaker 1: And I just think history suggests that that will not
Speaker 1: lead and not lead us to a great place. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get back to the question of bureaucracy and dysfunction
Speaker 1: and bloat in transigence and all that. There obviously need
Speaker 1: to be a new There needs to be a new
Speaker 1: set of incentives and disincentives laid over government or sprayed
Speaker 1: into the buildings or something some sort of fumigation. Um.
Speaker 1: What just on a basic level, if you were you know,
Speaker 1: president or advisor to a president and and that president decided,
Speaker 1: and my god, I'd vote for him for a third term.
Speaker 1: If they did this, they said, listen, my main mission
Speaker 1: is going to make is to make the federal government lean.
Speaker 1: And mean, what sort of incentives and disincentives would you suggest?
Speaker 1: What would that look like? Yeah, you know, I always
Speaker 1: think it's great to go back to first principles. So
Speaker 1: you start with the basic question, which is what do
Speaker 1: we want government to do and where we where do
Speaker 1: we want it to act? And set out a set
Speaker 1: of priorities and goals and figure out how to assess
Speaker 1: success against those goals, figure out how you need to
Speaker 1: staff a team to reach those goals. And then take
Speaker 1: a look at the reality and see what you have
Speaker 1: and compare X with Y, and I guarantee you they'll
Speaker 1: look nothing alike when you're talking about the US government. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they they're not. You know, you're not going to see
Speaker 1: a similarity between what's needed and what actually exists. And
Speaker 1: then go out there and actually begin to make those changes.
Speaker 1: And now part of the challenges, you know, we got
Speaker 1: all sorts of rules in place about civil service protections
Speaker 1: and who can and can't be fired. And I understand
Speaker 1: we got all of that, and that part of it
Speaker 1: might be we need to take a serious look at
Speaker 1: civil service rules. Yes they are we really promoting the
Speaker 1: best in the bright Yeah, that's that That's probably an
Speaker 1: easy question. An I'm with FDR on that question. That's
Speaker 1: one of the few questions i'm with him on. He
Speaker 1: believed it was an athema to efficient. When you're ready
Speaker 1: to ride Metro, we want you to know we're ready
Speaker 1: for you. Here are just a few of the people
Speaker 1: at Metro to tell you how we're doing our part
Speaker 1: to keep riders safe. We're cleaning like Nevil before half
Speaker 1: builded greatly. You're a found han sanitizing, no mask, no
Speaker 1: Metro need one. We have a few extras at Metro.
Speaker 1: We're doing our part to keep the DC area moving.
Speaker 1: Find out more at well mata dot com slash doing
Speaker 1: our part for all your foodies out there. I'm unwrapping
Speaker 1: a McDonald steak, egg and cheese bagel. Look at this
Speaker 1: steak and the juice running down the side. Get a
Speaker 1: little bit on a wrapper here, m and then the
Speaker 1: fluffy egg and real cheese folded over the side, looking
Speaker 1: just so good. Mmm mmm, griled onions and about a
Speaker 1: bagel too. Thumbs up. A McDonald steak, egg and cheese
Speaker 1: bagel for breakfast. Love it m more bump up. I
Speaker 1: participate in McDonald's government governance. But anyway, and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you another challenge we have, which is beyond the civil
Speaker 1: service rules, we have public sector employee unions in the
Speaker 1: United States, which to me, uh, you know, I think
Speaker 1: you talk. We can have a conversation about unions and
Speaker 1: and the good that they've done in our society. And
Speaker 1: surely there was a point at which they were being
Speaker 1: very productive and important. And I think in the private sector,
Speaker 1: I can understand the desire to represent a set of
Speaker 1: workers and have that relationship be governed by a set
Speaker 1: of rules. But why is it that we have such
Speaker 1: a huge role for public sector unions. We are essentially
Speaker 1: saying that we have developed a system so that the
Speaker 1: people who are working for the government can bargain against
Speaker 1: the government. You've got people who are in there essentially
Speaker 1: represented with interests that are that are adverse to the
Speaker 1: taxpayer interests. That to me makes no sense at all.
Speaker 1: The power and the scope and the reach of public
Speaker 1: sector unions is has reached a point of the US.
Speaker 1: But we've got to address it well, particularly because in California,
Speaker 1: is a great example of this that the diffuse interests
Speaker 1: of the voters are are are not nearly as powerful
Speaker 1: in the actual hearing rooms as the union representatives. And
Speaker 1: so you have the best and brightest and smartest there
Speaker 1: in the hearing room arguing like crazy for one point
Speaker 1: of view, and then there's just this vague no you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that the voters really want to get their
Speaker 1: pocketbooks protected, and there's just an imbalance. And then as
Speaker 1: it gets even worse in California, you have union lawyers
Speaker 1: supported by the government unions, the public employee unions, winning
Speaker 1: the offices and then negotiating with the people they replaced
Speaker 1: for the public employee union deals. It's just it's it's
Speaker 1: mobbed up. Yeah, well that's I mean, this is exactly
Speaker 1: the challenge you you've identified it, which is that you
Speaker 1: get this incestuous system that comes into place and it's
Speaker 1: not clear who's actually representing the interests of the representative right,
Speaker 1: because you have public officials who get captured by interests
Speaker 1: like like the public sector unions. So if public sector
Speaker 1: unions are a huge donor to Democrats in California for
Speaker 1: state wide office, what do you end up with you
Speaker 1: end up with statewide office holders who are remarkably uh
Speaker 1: responsive the union bosses, but not particularly responsive to the taxpayer.
Speaker 1: And that to me is a huge problem, right when
Speaker 1: you're talking about people who are supposed to When you
Speaker 1: ask who is supposed to protect the interests of taxpayers,
Speaker 1: the answer is the people who are the people who
Speaker 1: are elected by taxpayers, but they're not doing their job.
Speaker 1: We have a big problem here. We have a system
Speaker 1: that essentially is perpetuating itself. And to get back to
Speaker 1: the original issue, you guys raise around bureaucratic bloat and
Speaker 1: around why it is that our bureaucracy doesn't function better.
Speaker 1: The answer is because no one's holding them to account,
Speaker 1: certainly no one that's supposed to be holding them to account.
Speaker 1: We send the same old people in California, for example,
Speaker 1: back to Sacramento. But you can go to any state capital,
Speaker 1: or you can even go to Congress and see this.
Speaker 1: We send the same people back over and over again,
Speaker 1: and they are insistent on preserving the status quo, which
Speaker 1: clearly is not working. I got a question out of nowhere, um,
Speaker 1: and we have this opportunity with the podcast to ask
Speaker 1: you this. I like asking smart people this question because
Speaker 1: I like to read, but I want to read the
Speaker 1: right stuff. What are a couple of your favorite, like
Speaker 1: all time books? Um, to make a person smarter about
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff, government, society, culture or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know. It's funny my my kids make fun of
Speaker 1: me because they say I don't read that much, because
Speaker 1: they don't want to see me reading books, because I'm
Speaker 1: always reading, you know, news or stuff that comes up online.
Speaker 1: I'm always have to tell my son, I'm staring at
Speaker 1: my phone. I'm reading a book. I just want you
Speaker 1: to know that because you know, because I grew up.
Speaker 1: You know, you see your parents reading books, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna maybe become a reader. They see me staring at
Speaker 1: my phone. I could be on Facebook, I could be
Speaker 1: playing candy, but I'm I'm I'm reading. But anyway, back
Speaker 1: to your book. Yeah, I you know, um, there are
Speaker 1: pieces of fiction over the years that have been very
Speaker 1: influential in my life. And I'll tell you I don't
Speaker 1: want to freak anyone out, but my favorite book growing
Speaker 1: up was a book called four by George Orwell, which
Speaker 1: everybody you know, hopefully everybody's read, right, And the reason
Speaker 1: why it's so important to have read that book is
Speaker 1: because it gives you a sense of just how overwhelming
Speaker 1: government can be. And I, by the way, people will
Speaker 1: will I often get the question, how did you become
Speaker 1: a conservative or how did you decide that you were
Speaker 1: conservatively disposed? And a lot of it has to come
Speaker 1: with reading that book and reading more and more about
Speaker 1: societies where where government does play a big rule. And
Speaker 1: uh so that book was actually quite influential. So four
Speaker 1: is one. It's not it's not a particularly tough read,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a really important read. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh and it's one that's been influential well. And it's
Speaker 1: fairly depressing too, So if you're feeling overly cheery that
Speaker 1: it's a good one. Yes, yes, no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: I completely agree. Um. I've also recent I'll just say recently,
Speaker 1: I've gotten quite a to a theologian named Dallas Willard, who, uh,
Speaker 1: you guys may or may not be familiar with him,
Speaker 1: but he's somebody who you know is a is a
Speaker 1: theologian who has been very influential in uh in a
Speaker 1: certain line of a Protestant thinking, in particular now Presbyterian thinking.
Speaker 1: Uh And and he has had a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: really interesting books over the years. Some of them are
Speaker 1: quite dense. He's quite a dense writer. But one that
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed recently is called Life Without Lack, which
Speaker 1: talks about, uh, you know, essentially, how to lead life
Speaker 1: fully and how to feel full when we can oftentimes
Speaker 1: look around us and think, gosh, I'm missing that, or
Speaker 1: I don't have this, I don't have that or the other.
Speaker 1: Uh and and and and so that one in particular
Speaker 1: has has stuck out recently. But and you know, he
Speaker 1: got my attention with that one because I'm in that
Speaker 1: world a lot, and I don't know that name, so
Speaker 1: I'll check that out. Yeah, we appreciate the recommendation. Hey,
Speaker 1: if I can just circle back to orwell real quickly.
Speaker 1: Um And in comment that, I was probably twelve when
Speaker 1: I read Animal Farms somehow or other, I think I
Speaker 1: came across it. There was a neat illustration of a
Speaker 1: pig on the front, and so I thought a story
Speaker 1: about pigs, but talking pigs. Um. It was like a
Speaker 1: religious awakening for me. I mean it just I still
Speaker 1: can feel the electricity, um that ran through my veins
Speaker 1: as I read this thing. And I wondered if you
Speaker 1: read a Brave New World. Of course, Yeah, I had
Speaker 1: a feeling you had I think about you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a classic question who got it more right
Speaker 1: or Well or Huxley. I think China is a pretty
Speaker 1: good example of a regime taking just enough from more
Speaker 1: Well and just enough from Huxley. You know, the point
Speaker 1: of Brave New World is that people weren't really oppressed
Speaker 1: so much as they were drugged and amused into apathy
Speaker 1: and cooperation. Um that there's you know, it takes both
Speaker 1: to oppress a society unless you're going to go full on,
Speaker 1: you know, oppressive regime. Yeah, that is a that is
Speaker 1: an amazing observation. Actually, and let me tell you why
Speaker 1: China is a great, great example of what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: The the thing that is most noticeable to me about
Speaker 1: where China is now. And you know, we'll put coronavirus
Speaker 1: aside for a minute, because I think coronavirus was was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a blip in terms of where
Speaker 1: China is going were broadly, but the story that they've
Speaker 1: told people, and I think this is a story that
Speaker 1: people genuinely believe that economic prosperity and the listing of
Speaker 1: people out of poverty in China is enough to justify
Speaker 1: the oppression the government has put in place. In other words,
Speaker 1: the deal that the Chinese government has with people is
Speaker 1: this deal. You can be a little bit more prosperous,
Speaker 1: and you can have food on your table, and you
Speaker 1: can have a society that looks modern and has all
Speaker 1: the comforts of modern society. But the only way you
Speaker 1: can have that is if you're willing to deal with
Speaker 1: what the government has put in place in terms of
Speaker 1: rules and regulations and requirements. And in China, those rules
Speaker 1: include things like constant monitoring. They include things like, um,
Speaker 1: the government being able to see and know what you're
Speaker 1: doing all the time. They include things like not being
Speaker 1: able to access a lot of the internet right And
Speaker 1: people have been willing to take that deal, and they
Speaker 1: feel like, well, you know, my government is taken care
Speaker 1: of me. I'm doing a little bit better now, and
Speaker 1: so maybe they're right. The only way that I can
Speaker 1: be this way is if they have complete control over
Speaker 1: over every part of my life. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a really good observation that it's it is a it
Speaker 1: is a mix in some ways between the four World
Speaker 1: and the Brave New World world, because it because it's
Speaker 1: this deal that that and these government is put in place.
Speaker 1: One question on the news of the day that I
Speaker 1: hope doesn't age poorly. I don't think it will when
Speaker 1: people hear this in the future. We're right in the
Speaker 1: midst of the biggest stimulus bill in the history of
Speaker 1: the world. I don't know what's gonna end up being
Speaker 1: somewhere close to two trillion dollars. Should we be horrified
Speaker 1: that people are stuffing in all kinds of of things
Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with coronavirus and business, or
Speaker 1: should we just accept it as just part of the
Speaker 1: way the system works. I don't think we should accept it.
Speaker 1: I think we should be willing to call it out.
Speaker 1: I think we should be willing to say that this
Speaker 1: is not an opportunity to jam in there your pet project.
Speaker 1: This is not an opportunity to say, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe we should put restrictions on what kinds of people
Speaker 1: can be named to the board of directors of companies.
Speaker 1: I've seen that that's something you know that Elizabeth Lawn wants.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not an opportunity to get every
Speaker 1: straight cat and dog in this is an opportunity to
Speaker 1: make sure it goes back to the original conversation we're having, guys,
Speaker 1: which is what's our goal. What are we trying to
Speaker 1: do here? Who are we trying to help? Let's help
Speaker 1: those people, and then let's get out. Let's stop talking
Speaker 1: about the rest of this stuff, because this is what
Speaker 1: always ends up happening. And then you've got people on
Speaker 1: the outside who are self proclaimed fiscal conservatives saying, hey,
Speaker 1: three trillion, four trillion, we need more stimulus. Now, it
Speaker 1: just does not make any sense to me that you
Speaker 1: would that you would have a UM. People never want
Speaker 1: to waste the crisis. I guess as rama Manuel has said,
Speaker 1: and that's precisely what you're seeing here. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: make it right. Well, I thought there were crisis is
Speaker 1: big enough that you wouldn't have time to think about that.
Speaker 1: But maybe I was wrong. Yeah, you underestimated people. Uh. Hey,
Speaker 1: I believe it or not, these things are not scripted.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask jack Um, do you have more
Speaker 1: on that you want to talk about or can I
Speaker 1: ask on here a little bit about his his gig
Speaker 1: at Stanford. Um the uh, it's a truism at this
Speaker 1: point that American universities lean way way left. And you
Speaker 1: see a lot of attitudes among college kids that I
Speaker 1: find at uh you given what you believe? Are you
Speaker 1: just a pariah at Stanford? Do you have to run
Speaker 1: from doorway to doorway and and fend off blows? Or
Speaker 1: how how are the youngsters these days? Are they open
Speaker 1: to uh hearing opposing viewpoints? What's what's a snapshot of
Speaker 1: the college experience for you these days? Yeah? You know,
Speaker 1: for me at least, it's pretty um, it's always a
Speaker 1: pretty good set of experiences, because what I find is that, well,
Speaker 1: let's start with the students. I mean, the students clearly
Speaker 1: are very left and they have some very out there
Speaker 1: points of view. But if they're going to come and
Speaker 1: take a class of mind, they understand that they're probably
Speaker 1: going to be introduced to some concepts that other members
Speaker 1: of the faculty won't introduce them to, and some come
Speaker 1: seeking that out. So I end up with with some
Speaker 1: students in my classes who are deliberately looking for that
Speaker 1: alternative point of view. I have some who are looking
Speaker 1: for a good argument, which I'm always happy to have.
Speaker 1: I have some who just come because they're curious in
Speaker 1: the subject matter, but aren't particularly politically inclined one way
Speaker 1: or the other. And and so I end up with
Speaker 1: a pretty good diversity of students that I end up
Speaker 1: with pretty good conversation in my classes. In particular. More broadly,
Speaker 1: I will say the challenge I have that I see
Speaker 1: on campus is not so much with the students. It's
Speaker 1: with the other faculty, and that there are a number
Speaker 1: of folks around the university who are an important positions,
Speaker 1: who you know, who deal with students all the time,
Speaker 1: who have a very strong point of view and don't
Speaker 1: believe that any alternative point of view holds any any merit. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not speaking about everybody there. Lord, how can you
Speaker 1: get to a to a position of education at that
Speaker 1: level and have that attitude. Well, they're they're they're so
Speaker 1: deeply steeped and they're so good at what they do
Speaker 1: that they don't necessarily believe that there's any alternate possibility
Speaker 1: an explanation right there. That they've been in what they're
Speaker 1: doing for so long that they just subscribe to that
Speaker 1: point of view, and they automatically. I mean, what bothers
Speaker 1: me is not so much people have strongly held believes
Speaker 1: I'm all for that. What bothers me is when they
Speaker 1: when they say, look, you feel differently from me, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to ascribe bad intentions to you that essentially,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, the reason that you disagree with
Speaker 1: me is because you don't believe in science, or you're
Speaker 1: a bad person just in general or right correct, or
Speaker 1: you're heartless, or yeah, you're a racist. Sure, I mean
Speaker 1: what which which I always find humorous when when you know,
Speaker 1: when when I hear that, but I you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's where it's a little bit tougher for me. And
Speaker 1: I feel like that is something I see I'm seeing
Speaker 1: more and more of on campus, which is people who
Speaker 1: are so deeply set in their views that they're unwilling
Speaker 1: to consider that there might be an alternative. Sorry, no, no,
Speaker 1: I as to say, I've I've I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of colleagues who are are quite left and as I said,
Speaker 1: we're willing to entertain the alternative, and we have great conversations.
Speaker 1: But it's the ones who are so set in their
Speaker 1: views that those are the one that I find more difficult.
Speaker 1: I read a contemporary wise person say the other day,
Speaker 1: and I have a feeling this wisdom goes back to
Speaker 1: the ancient Greeks or beyond that. When you lose your
Speaker 1: capacity to say, but I might be wrong, you've lost
Speaker 1: an incredibly important part of your humanity, and that's those
Speaker 1: people scare me. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the
Speaker 1: problem with with with American colleges and universities more broadly,
Speaker 1: is that you do have a lot of people. I
Speaker 1: mean just look at Twitter, right that back and forth
Speaker 1: you see over Twitter on on on things, and you've
Speaker 1: got people who are absolutely a hundred percent convinced that
Speaker 1: they are right and and and they will never be wrong. Now,
Speaker 1: in some areas, if they're talking about something they've researched
Speaker 1: for their whole life, I believe that they're probably right.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to questions around uh, you know
Speaker 1: what the best way is for society to move forward,
Speaker 1: or questions about where we are politically, those get a
Speaker 1: little grayer for me. And I'm more been happy to
Speaker 1: admit that I may not know the right answer. If
Speaker 1: I can a lot of situations, I probably don't know
Speaker 1: the right answer, and I'm doing my best to guess.
Speaker 1: But I always try to tell people that, and I
Speaker 1: always try to say, look, I believe very well. I
Speaker 1: could could be right, could be wrong, and you're right.
Speaker 1: I think when we lose our capacity to do that,
Speaker 1: it's a sad thing. It's a very sad day. You
Speaker 1: know the problem with smug contemptuousness is that it's kind
Speaker 1: of fun, all right, it's a good time, and if
Speaker 1: you're surrounded by other people who agree with you, can
Speaker 1: they can feel really good? Oh yeah, it can snowball
Speaker 1: too until you can't stop yourself. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe someday we can talk about the future of college education,
Speaker 1: because that is a really interesting topic to all of us,
Speaker 1: particularly as I pay for my third kid to get
Speaker 1: through that process. And this is not the classic sitcom
Speaker 1: level humor about you know, writing checks. It's the idea
Speaker 1: that the dissemination of knowledge costs, you know, thirty to
Speaker 1: sixty dollars per year and you have to go to
Speaker 1: a big place with brick buildings seem is fairly ridiculous
Speaker 1: to me at this point in history. Not that there
Speaker 1: is no role for you know, a socratic seminar type thing,
Speaker 1: and intellectual leadership by a learned human and directing learning.
Speaker 1: I think that's all incredibly important, But I just it's
Speaker 1: become something ridiculous, partly because of the flood of government money.
Speaker 1: But again, maybe that's a for another time. And we
Speaker 1: didn't even touch on the presidential campaign, which seems to
Speaker 1: be completely on hold, at least at the time we're
Speaker 1: recording this in the middle of the comic virus thing
Speaker 1: going on. But uh, Joe Biden, it's it's gotta be
Speaker 1: good news for Joe Biden, right that he gets to
Speaker 1: hunker down and not have to talk very much. I
Speaker 1: think it's good news, but it's not going to be
Speaker 1: good news, uh once we once a couple of weeks passes,
Speaker 1: because people are going to forget about it, right, And
Speaker 1: I think staying out of the public light, being able
Speaker 1: to kind of prepare a message or you know, rest
Speaker 1: or do whatever he wants to do. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think those are positives. But I think you're seeing
Speaker 1: a little bit of consternation from his camp that he
Speaker 1: can't get more involved in this coronavirus conversation. Right. He's
Speaker 1: trying to get out there, and we've seen as a
Speaker 1: little bit as we record this, where he's trying to
Speaker 1: get out and and and appear almost like the shadow
Speaker 1: president who's got his own ideas and got his own thoughts.
Speaker 1: It just it's just not been effective. He just has
Speaker 1: not been able to put himself into the conversation. And
Speaker 1: I suspect that while it's nice to be able to
Speaker 1: lay low for a little bit, once this continues to
Speaker 1: go on, as we drag into April and May, he's
Speaker 1: going to want to figure out ways to get into
Speaker 1: the limelight. And I think that's going to be something
Speaker 1: he's gonna want to do because it's easy to forget
Speaker 1: we've got a presidential campaign what we do. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: funny how the universe it seems cycle after cycle says no,
Speaker 1: the election is going to be about this, and it's
Speaker 1: almost like you're on some sort of game show. What
Speaker 1: was that cooking show where they told you the last
Speaker 1: second the secret ingredient you had to Yeah, it's very
Speaker 1: much like the Iron Chef. McCain and Obama were set
Speaker 1: up to be an argument about the Iraq War, than
Speaker 1: the crisis happens and it's got nothing to do with
Speaker 1: it anymore. Yeah. Yeah, it seems to happen every time
Speaker 1: a lot he it's always stimulating. We don't want to
Speaker 1: steal too much of your time. But I hope we
Speaker 1: can do it again. Absolutely thankful guys, our pleasure. A
Speaker 1: little too smart for my taste, Yeah, oh yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: ask him to dumb it down next time. Well, we
Speaker 1: covered so much ground. I have a feeling he could
Speaker 1: go deep quite a few of the I'm sure, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when I asked him a question. But uh, stop it. Um,
Speaker 1: I would love to. I could maintain, I think, a
Speaker 1: lifelong interest in the question of how do you rearrange
Speaker 1: incentives and disincentives to make government perform more efficiently? I
Speaker 1: couldn't because I'm too pessimistic about it. I just I
Speaker 1: just can't imagine. Well, I would die better, No, no
Speaker 1: question about that. I just just from being in in
Speaker 1: private bureaucracies, big companies and seeing the government. It just
Speaker 1: I've never seen it go the other way. It just
Speaker 1: it grows and grows and gets more centralized and gets
Speaker 1: thicker and slower, less responsive. Yeah. I'm thinking about the
Speaker 1: trends in media with a lot of consolidation and and
Speaker 1: and thinning the workforce and the rest of it. But
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's that's not the model we're looking for.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's starvation, not stuff about increasing efficiency, reforming
Speaker 1: the rules of civil service. If you don't start there,
Speaker 1: then that I'm walking out of the room, because if
Speaker 1: that's not on the table, it'll never happened until people
Speaker 1: can lose their jobs. Well, and serious reform of public
Speaker 1: employee union rules too. Yeah, if we don't have those two,
Speaker 1: we have nothing nothing. You're right, it's an excellent point,
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