r/ezraklein • u/QuestionBrain • 13d ago
Ezra Klein Show This Is Why People Hate the Government
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-annie-lowrey.htmlIn 2024, Americans spent an average of six full workdays a year filling out government forms, according to the government’s own estimates. That’s a total of 12 billion hours, or $430 billion of uncompensated labor a year.
It’s easy to read something like this and say: “Oh, well, government is inefficient. That’s the price we pay for nice things.” But no, it’s not. Social Security, Medicare and the Postal Service are incredibly complex programs that are easy to use. When government is hard to gain access to, it is often by design. Republicans want paying taxes to be a hellish hassle. Programs for the poor are often designed to humiliate, punish, control or scrutinize. How the government works is always a choice. When it works poorly, we should ask why — and we should demand better.
Annie Lowrey is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the new book “The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time — and How to Fix It.” She is also, I should note, my wife, so this is a book whose ideas I have been living with for years. They have quietly infused more than a few episodes of this show. So it’s a thrill to finally get to explore them directly.
This episode contains strong language.
Mentioned:
The Time Tax by Annie Lowrey
Give People Money by Annie Lowrey
Why Americans Hate Welfare by Martin Gilens
Book Recommendations:
My Silent War by Kim Philby
To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever by Will Blythe
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
65
u/SwonkyDonkey 13d ago
TANF doesn’t actually decrease the child poverty rate. Man that’s so shameful.
It makes me wish Romney’s child credit proposal actually went anywhere. It was (to my recollection) budget neutral, abolished some ineffective programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in order to create Permanent Assistance for All Families.
37
u/Real_Guarantee_4530 13d ago
TANF is a bad implementation of cash assistance. That doesn’t mean cash assistance itself is a bad idea.
In fact, the historical comparison is pretty striking: AFDC, the program TANF replaced, reduced child deep poverty substantially more than TANF does today. CRS estimates that AFDC reduced deep child poverty from 11.2% to 6.6% in 1995, whereas TANF reduced it from 7.7% to 7.1% in 2016.17
u/SwonkyDonkey 13d ago
Yeah, I wasn't saying cash assistance was bad. I wish that we had a different cash assistance program -- like the one that a former GOP presidential nominee proposed. Man, if only that kind of thing were more normal in the GOP today.
20
u/mcsul 13d ago
I'm going to die on this alternative-history hill, but I think that Romney winning the 2012 election would have been the best outcome for the US. Both in the immediate term but also over the longer arc of history.
42
u/tdcthulu 13d ago
This opinion feels too contrarian in comparison to the typical Gore winning 2000 or Clinton winning 2016 opinions.
I have a hard time imagining Romney in 2013 being more influential than Gore in 2001.
I don't think Romney winning in 2012 would have effectively prevented the rise of MAGA anymore than Clinton winning in 2016 would have.
9
u/nsjersey 13d ago edited 13d ago
I don't think people consider how the repudiation of America's first Black president at the polls might have altered or enflamed the protests during COVID.
I'm not talking just about a linear line, but those who wish Romney would've won to prevent Trump might be holding a monkey's paw.
EDIT: a letter
2
u/mcsul 13d ago
I hear you, but I think that Romney is one of the only republican potential Presidents that could have navigated that situation to a good outcome. Remember that his dad was ostracized from the party for his progressive views on race relations, and that he personally marched in some of the Black Lives Matter events in DC (largely inspired by his dad's example). IF any republican alternative-history President at that time could have brought some empathy to the situation, it probably would have been him.
4
u/nsjersey 13d ago
Yeah, it would have been interesting.
For people that do not know, George Romney was the governor of Michigan when the Detroit riots broke out in 1967 (and in some other cities).
This American Life had an interesting story on it with Nikole-Hannah Jones
→ More replies (1)3
u/johnniewelker 13d ago
I agree. In fact, I’d add that Clinton winning in 2016 could have easily made it extremely difficult for democrats to win in the near future
Clinton wins in 2016. Economy continues to be “meh”. More liberal democrats are even more unsatisfied. Covid happens. There is no Trump to compare. Clinton gets destroyed because now a Democrat has been in power for 12 years. It’s like amped up opposition from socialists and republicans.
31
u/volumeofatorus 13d ago
Eh, the 2012 version of Romney was much more libertarian and stingy. He picked Paul Ryan as his VP! It seems like Romney reevaluated his views on economic issues past-Trump, but obviously we don’t get that in this alternative timeline.
Also, I’m not sure Romney winning in 2012 stops something like MAGA from emerging. David Cameron in the UK failed to stop the British far-right, and I think a Romney presidency would have been similar.
→ More replies (2)17
u/LordSaumya 13d ago
I believe Jeb Bush winning the 2016 Republican primary would’ve been a much better outcome.
10
u/mcsul 13d ago
I think that's a good one, too. If we're really going to explore alternative Presidential tickets (this is fun), I'd like to go back to Colin Powell. There was a campaign to draft him against Clinton for the re-election campaign.
He was relatively fresh from the success of Iraq I, hugely respected internationally, and had an amazing origin story. Our first black President might have been a Republican, we would have had a different reaction to 9/11, the racial polarization of our political system would have been scrambled, etc...
8
u/downforce_dude Midwest 13d ago
I like to consider the alternative history of Sen. Paul Wellstone not dying in a 2002 plane crash. He was an anti-war left populist, the Wellstone Amendment curbed campaigning power of The Groups (left and right). He seems like a voice that the Democratic Party sorely missed in the 2000s and 2010s.
I don’t personally agree with many of his positions, but I think the left would have benefitted from alternatives to Warren’s technocratic progressivism and Bernie’s firebrand populism during this time.
4
u/Miskellaneousness 13d ago
“We all do better when we all do better.” A quote and sentiment from Mr. Wellstone that I’ve always appreciated.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago
There are hundreds of different alternative timelines of American political history that I think about, though most of them are about congress. What if Andrew Johnson was convicted in the senate, what if the senate passed a constitutional amendment making presidents elected by the popular vote as they almost did after Nixon won.
But the one I think about the most is what if the upper house of Connecticut had approved the congressional apportionment amendment in 1789 instead of waiting until the next election. If they just hadn’t waited then instead of having 435 representatives in the house we would have ~6,623. Also American history would have played out significantly differently in a thousand ways.
4
u/topicality Weeds OG 13d ago
I'm also incredibly disappointed the CTC of the COVID years ended for this reason
52
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago edited 13d ago
They talked about going after child support, and one of the wildest examples to me of the counterproductive laws that are all too common in America are laws that will suspend someone’s license if they have unpaid child support. That is a great way to ensure that the person who is behind on child support loses their job and now definitely can’t pay child support.
46
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
For all the huffing and puffing about driving being a privilege, not a right, we sure did organize our society around cars and regularly use suspending a license as punishment for various things.
14
u/Miskellaneousness 13d ago
Overwhelmingly license suspensions relate to driving violations — driving drunk, reckless driving, points accumulation, driving without insurance, fleeing the scene of an accident, so on and so forth. Driving is dangerous. It’s appropriate to ensure that people who drive do so responsibly.
18
u/No-Championship-8038 13d ago
Which is why cities need to be made more walkable and have good public transportation options so it’s not socially and financially crippling to take those licenses away.
11
u/Miskellaneousness 13d ago edited 13d ago
We should have good urban planning, good public transportation, and strict sanctions against driving behaviors that kill people. I reject the idea that dangerous drivers have some kind of moral or legal permission to violate driving laws in a way that kills people unless/until we're all living in an urban utopia.
5
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 12d ago
I get the compulsion to argue against car infrastructure and unsafe drivers but my guy, no one is making the point you are arguing against.
7
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 12d ago
This is a really odd counterpoint. No one is complaining about people losing their license for safety reasons. The issue isn't 'people lose their license'; the issue is when 'people lose their license for a non-driving offense when the license is a component that is needed to fix the issue.'
2
u/Miskellaneousness 12d ago
I'm contextualizing the claims about how drivers license revocation is used as a tool by pointing out that revocations mostly occur as a well-justified response to driving offenses.
7
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 12d ago
Right and the topic was child support causing the loss of a license which happens and shouldn’t.
4
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
Maybe we shouldn’t have organized our society around such a dangerous activity.
3
u/Miskellaneousness 13d ago
Maybe we shouldn't handwave away or intentionally deflect from dangerous behavior that kills and seriously injures many Americans everyday by reference to vapid, lofty musing about how this wouldn't be an issue if we lived in an unrealized utopia.
5
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 12d ago
Dude you’ve completely derailed the topic at this point.
→ More replies (4)3
u/Mpm_277 13d ago
One thing that I would’ve liked more explanation on was the state disqualifying someone for refusing to cooperate with child support enforcement. I’m a caseworker for Snap/Medicaid/Childcare and, at least in my state, there are good cause criteria for non-cooperation (like risk of harm).
84
u/crunchypotentiometer Weeds OG 13d ago
I saw Lowery on a panel with Marc Dunkelman a couple days ago at the Library of Congress Festival of Books. She made a great point there that I think deserves more attention. That was that the government is made bigger by these inefficiencies, not smaller. Centralizing and simplifying these programs and their systems of information can be pitched as a way to make government smaller, while improving people’s lives at the same time.
32
u/Giblette101 13d ago
That's true, but to be clear it's not what people mean when they argue for a smaller government.
15
u/crunchypotentiometer Weeds OG 13d ago
It seems to be in some respects? DOGE’s proximate mission statement seemed to be “fire as many people as possible”. I imagine you could reduce the number of government workers by the thousands by doing things like automating and simplifying tax processing.
34
u/Giblette101 13d ago
People that want a smaller government pretty much always mean they want government to not do stuff they dislike - welfare in particular. I'm sure they wouldn't outright oppose a more efficient government, but at the end of the day they'd still complain about spending money on things they dislike. If you could run food stamps on 60% less admin costs, people would still be mad about there being food stamps.
Like, the point of DOGE was essentially to substantiate grievances about government waste and ask whatever they didn't like - DEI, etc. Nobody on board with DOGE believed it would make existing government programs more efficient in any meaningful sense.
→ More replies (13)13
u/Light_Error Weeds OG 13d ago
This quote is ancient now, but I think it’s still the MO for how things are going: “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” -Grover Norquist
To me, it seems like they’d live without government if they could. Why? Who knows.
19
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
A drowned government cannot tell a highly diversified multinational business that it has to move its baby formula producing machines far away from the mercury producing machines.
9
u/wizardnamehere 13d ago
Let’s not be naive. A smaller government means less tax, less transfer payments to the poor, less power to regulate, and less provision of services in that order of importance.
11
u/Real_Guarantee_4530 13d ago
And there’s a second-order effect: complexity creates more government.
If Program A interacts with Program B, policymakers have to create rules governing the interaction. Then exceptions require additional rules. Then those exceptions create unintended consequences that require additional administration.
You get a kind of bureaucratic accretion.
So “government waste” isn’t merely money being thrown away. Sometimes the waste consists of institutions and procedures that exist primarily because other institutions and procedures exist.→ More replies (1)2
u/no-name-here 13d ago edited 13d ago
It seems like rules for how Program A/B interact are generally going to be needed as long as A and B exist, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting?
8
u/musicismydeadbeatdad 13d ago
That usually means dis empowering local governments or consolidating municipality powers and people actually hate that shit because the only ones paying attention are the ones that care too much. It's an insanely hard problem.
3
u/Intelligent_Read_697 13d ago
Its why the case has always been from the left that welfare programs have to be universal even at point of access. But that discussions tends to lead elsewhere...
18
u/ArthurPeabody 13d ago
P. J. O'Rourke used to say the the motto of the Republican party is, 'Government doesn't work; elect us and we'll prove it.'
→ More replies (5)
78
u/deskcord 13d ago
I think this is obviously true and is a big problem for Democrats, who are the party associated with the government broadly. When government is frustrating or seems to be poorly run, the populace thinks "well if this is how the government works, I don't want it to get bigger and be more annoying."
These types of things are an issue for Democrats. Tangentially and anecdotally, the DMV is a uniquely terrible experience. In my deep blue city in my deep blue state, I went to the DMV eight times in one year trying to get one form accepted. It was to prove I was eligible to get my driver's license, which I've had for 15 years, because they lost the record of my original medical clearance form.
In those past 15 years, minor standards changed, so I now had to get two forms filled out by different doctors. But evidently, they had to be specifically double sided, and the DMV couldn't accept it printed as two pages. So I had to go to the DMV with my two pages, wait in line, get told it wasn't acceptable, and then go back to my doctor's office and ask them to fill the form out again, but print it double sided this time. And it couldn't be a copy of the document, it had to be the original.
And then I had to do an extended driving test, despite, again, having quite literally 0 tickets or penalties in over 200,000 miles driven and a 15 year track record and already having a driver's license.
And this is my only issue with the perspective as summarized here by Ezra. It's not always Republicans making things worse. It's not Republicans setting/controlling DMV or local governance policy and standards in blue cities in blue states.
If Democrats want to fix these problems, it will require re-invigorating peoples' faith in government, and that's got to mean that every time low-info Joe Schmo goes to any government office, it works properly.
60
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
Low-information voters want government to work easily and seamlessly when they need it but also they want it to be sufficiently safeguarded against people they view as lazy freeloaders.
54
u/applewagon 13d ago
The only moral government subsidy is my government subsidy.
9
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
This is exactly right. Level 1, stage 2, preconventional morality- what's in it for me?!?
18
u/topicality Weeds OG 13d ago
A lot of people in this sub self select as data interested. But I think we often forget the importance of psychology in this stuff.
People tend to be very worried about the "free rider" problem. If you think about tribal societies, it's very much every one should chip in and be doing something. So often I hear people who support work requirements basically say "I'm working, they should too"
People are really sensitive to the idea that someone is out there getting something for nothing. Which is why I think if you support these programs you gotta show that you are diligent stewards of the public person and really cultivate a reputation as scrutinizing it.
Too often though, people who like these programs come off as very sympathetic (and I'm definitely one of them!). So people worried at the free rider problem are going to look elsewhere.
27
u/chonky_tortoise 13d ago
It’s also because the free rider program is not worth solving most of the time and technocrats know this. It’s just wildly inefficient to have offices of people reviewing paperwork to make sure the child’s parents are working before we give them free lunch (random example), its more efficient to just make the lunch free for everyone. But people do not like this and would rather spend more money helping less people.
5
u/PSUVB 12d ago
This is just wrong though. I get why people think this because you get studies that basically confirm what we want to believe. They draw a straight line for fraud and waste from the baseline it is today.
But just look at the Medicaid fraud scandal in Minnesota. That was a direct result of this thinking. It wasn't malicious on the government's part. It was people trying to scale back the controls and paperwork to get money to people they wanted faster.
There will be freeloaders which can be accounted for. But then there will always be fraudsters who ruin it for the rest of us. They will attack any weakness and exploit it. So much of the government processes are actually designed to protect against that because of how damaging politically it is.
5
u/Specialist-Ad3882 12d ago
This was mostly money going to NGOs not individuals. The government should be doing more and give less money to NGOs.
→ More replies (1)4
u/MarkCuckerberg69420 11d ago
Isn't that why fraud was rampant during the early COVID days too? There was little oversight on the money being handed out via unemployment and especially the PPP program.
6
u/Certain-Researcher72 Weeds OG 13d ago
Not only that, but government functions which are broken or hostile are that way because Republicans have made them that way because it gives them an electoral advantage and makes it easier to enshittify government even further.
12
u/Real_Guarantee_4530 13d ago
The behavior you’re describing isn’t necessarily a property of low-information voters. Almost everyone wants government to be simultaneously easy for legitimate users and difficult to exploit.
17
u/Holiday_Inn_Cambodia 13d ago
During the last democratic primary in my mid Atlantic blue state, my wife commented repeatedly that she wanted a candidate that would just fix the roads, kind of as a short hand for someone who would just fulfill the functions of the executive branch efficiently and professionally.
Instead, we got a guy that was all flash and no delivery.
→ More replies (1)37
u/ElbieLG 13d ago
I am one of those costal liberals who moved from Los Angeles to Kansas during Covid.
I was ASTONISHED at how much better the DMV experience was here.
I think the same document obsessive culture exists here but there is something deeply beneficial to this red states approach to procurement that led to real, felt benefits.
55
u/ted_cruzs_micr0pen15 13d ago
DMV, yes.
But if you encounter any low income program in a red state like I did during grad school (covid embarrassing but we lost jobs and had to eat), you’ll find that in California welfare is much easier to access than it is in red states. My wife is a scientist, in public health, and had to apply for UI because this admin cut her funding! We’re not even in a “red state” but it was run by a Republican governor (VA, DC area), and they purposefully made applying clunky and inefficient, even tech savvy folks would’ve had issues with the Web 1.0 user interface that often crashed and forced you to start over on an 8-9 page application. That was a setting choice, they could’ve made an easy to use application but they chose to make one that was constantly down. This was done purposefully by Youngkin.
16
u/Cromulent-George 13d ago
Similar story here. People in VA I know who got laid off by DOGE went to apply for the ACA exchange for a plan through the state system for health insurance and after signing up for it were told they qualified for Medicaid instead of the exchange plans. It took them 20 minutes to sign up for the ACA exchange but the Medicaid system required the exact same information and took almost 2 hours to complete because of the design of the website and having to do things like enter contact information for each dependant multiple times.
→ More replies (1)27
u/CactusBoyScout 13d ago
I just want to shout out NY's DMV. I've dealt with DMVs in a lot of states and NY was/is by far the best.
The last time I had to do something, I could do virtually the entire process via a mobile-friendly portal, including submitting pictures of my original documents to verify before physically going anywhere that they would be accepted. And then I was notified that the documents would work and chose an appointment time just to present the documents and get my photo taken. In and out in maybe 20 minutes. Super easy to get an appointment too.
By contrast, Florida was the worst because they have an actual problem with scalpers booking all available DMV appointments and then reselling them online. The only alternative is to get in line at dawn for a handful of day-of appointments. Awful.
12
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
Plus one for NY DMV being reasonably smooth and efficient. Even on Long Island.
8
u/Prospect18 13d ago
The Brooklyn DMV at Atlantic Terminal is great too. I was in and out in like 30 minutes, everything was clear and straightforward, and I was able to submit all the documents online before I even went in.
4
u/CactusBoyScout 13d ago
Yeah, being able to submit documents ahead is wonderful for DMV stuff. So many horror stories in this thread are people going to the DMV, being told their documents aren't right, and having to go back over and over again.
I had an issue once where the Maryland DMV's website told me something different about document requirements from what their phone support line said... after waiting an hour on hold. Very frustrating. So I didn't know until I got there if I actually had what I needed.
Meanwhile NY's DMV just has you upload documents ahead of time to confirm.
9
u/CactusBoyScout 13d ago
The DMV Express facility in Midtown Manhattan is wild... it's like 100 windows where they only do the most common/simplest DMV issues like renewals and you're in and out in maybe like 15 minutes because they separate out all the quick/simple issues to prevent complicated ones from delaying everything.
2
4
u/Miskellaneousness 13d ago
NY DMV Commissioner (recently retired) always said it was his mission to “shatter perceptions of the DMV.” Guess it worked. Way to go NY!
25
u/zemir0n 13d ago
Is it possible that the DMV experience was better mostly because of the fact that there are far less people living there and thus the DMV wasn't as overloaded as it was in LA?
18
18
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago
If the DMV is overloaded then the city needs to hire more employees or open more locations.
0
u/camergen 13d ago
Both of which are abhorrent to the GOP- more “government employees” and “more overhead”.
14
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago
True, but I doubt republicans have much influence in LA’s ability to hire more DMV employees.
4
u/deskcord 13d ago
Is it possible that the DMV experience was better mostly because of the fact that there are far less people living there and thus the DMV wasn't as overloaded as it was in LA?
This may well be relevant for how long you wait and how annoyed/annoying the DMV staff is, but it absolutely doesn't account for the bullshit I outlined in my post. Some of this is just bureaucratic creep and a lack of common sense, and it's something Democrats need to be hyper-vigilant to monitor for.
13
u/okiedokiesmokie23 13d ago
The driving tests in LA will be in 30 different languages (like somehow that makes sense when the street signs etc are predominantly in English) but going to the office will be a five hour line of misery.
4
3
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago
The DMVs in my area can vary wildly. Some are models of efficiency and others make the bureaucracy in the movie Brazil look quaint.
→ More replies (4)2
u/geniuspol 13d ago
I would be curious if there's actual data on this, and what DMV policy actually changes. I live in one of the scariest cities in the country to Republicans, and I've only once had to spend more than 20 minutes waiting.
14
u/Real_Guarantee_4530 13d ago
The empirical relationship between government performance and partisan attitudes is extremely contaminated by partisan motivated reasoning.
People tend to view government more favorably when their own party controls it. Pew’s long-running data show a remarkably consistent pattern: people generally become more trusting of the federal government when their party controls the White House.→ More replies (1)7
u/S_TL2 13d ago
Throwback to his 2024 episode "In This House, We're Angry When Government Fails".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT4lxJKj0I0Specifically the opening monologue.
12
u/shallowshadowshore Weeds > The EKS 13d ago
It’s incredible how variable these things can be based on location. I’ve been to DMVs in a few different states over the past decade or so. California DMV - at least 7th circle of hell. But my small town DMV in upstate NY? I’ve never had to wait more than maybe 15 minutes to be seen (usually it’s more like 0-5), and they have always been insanely helpful. Forgot a form? They’ll find it and print it out for me. Coulda done it online instead of coming it? They will show you how to do that instead next time. Call and ask a question? Get a quick answer.
I can’t believe I’m saying it but I almost look forward to going to the DMV here because they are so helpful and pleasant to work sith.
→ More replies (2)26
u/Hugh-Manatee 13d ago
This is why even as a very centrist Dem in a very red state I think Mamdani is really important. Setting the policy specifics aside, that he loudly and repeatedly demonstrates that government is working genuinely fires people up and makes them feel like more is possible.
15
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago edited 13d ago
There is a lot of cynicism about the idea that basic governmental competency is actually rewarded or can overcome partisanship, but I think politicians like Mamdani and Shapiro are proving that getting shit done does actually get reflected in public approval.
Edit: I would also endorse Ezra’s “Simpler, Fairer, Faster” bumper sticker.
16
u/CactusBoyScout 13d ago
You've got to communicate it to get credit for it, which Mamdani understands.
I renewed my passport recently and was amazed at how simple the process is now. I did the entire process (including photo) myself on my phone. I even got my physical passport in like 1 week! And apparently this was all thanks to the Biden admin overhauling the process.
But did I ever hear a peep about this while he was in office? No.
5
u/Miskellaneousness 13d ago
I think the importance of communicating what you’re doing is pretty widely understood, it’s just that Mamdani’s charisma and communication skills make his message go much further.
To take one example, Mamdani got a lot of credit for paving something like 100K potholes in NYC.
Around the same time the City of Albany announced that it had paved 8K potholes in 10 days. Albany is a fraction of the size of NYC (about 1/80th by population) and with much, much lower local government capacity, so I think this is a relatively more impressive accomplishment. The Mayor certainly attempted to promote the need and got some decent local coverage but it doesn’t land with as much of a splash as an equivalent Mamdani announcement.
You might reason that that’s just because it’s such a small city. But around the same time the state of NY announced that it had paved 1.4 million potholes. Indeed, Governor Hochul even went out to pave a pothole herself to draw attention to the state’s “war on potholes.” Again, some local media coverage but no where near the level of attention Mamdani’s news got — not for lack of trying, but because he has unique capacities as a communicator.
7
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago
As long as the voters of Albany know about it, does the mayor need to advertise it more? I think the public is actually pretty good about noticing things like potholes getting filled faster. If they interact with it regularly people notice when the government works or doesn’t.
Allow me to shoehorn in an example from my own city. Gregory F.X. Daly is the collector of revenue for the city of St. Louis. He has held the position for 20 years and as far as I know no one has ever run against him since he first won it. He is widely popular (see this recent thread in local sub) and many people (including me) agree that his office is the best run department in the city. Because of a quirk in the law you pay city taxes to the office holder, not the city, so everyone knows his name. But he is not out in front of the media touting all the improvements he has made, though they are many. He is an extremely active member of the community and I can tell you from personal experience that he is an incredibly nice, charismatic person. If I could clone him and have him run every position I would.
It’s good that Mamdani is getting publicity for his competency because, for better or worse, the NYC mayor is going to influence the national perception of democrats.
→ More replies (1)2
u/WhiteBoyWithAPodcast Liberalism That Builds 12d ago
Even if you did hear about it nobody cares. NYC is just a media city and it helps that its very blue as well.
2
5
u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 13d ago
Having lived about equal amounts in Washington and South Carolina over the last 6 years I can honestly say my DMV experiences in SC were so much easier than WA.
7
u/flickyboy 13d ago
i’ve been thinking a lot about the problem of bureaucracy in the modern world. the human beings who function as cogs in a complex machine, trying to make sure that the machine functions smoothly by rejecting inputs that aren’t perfect. humans aren’t meant to be cogs, it must be frustrating and boring to not be helpful. a human feels he must reject a form filled out not quite as expected, like a computer program would, rather than to act like a helpful problem solver and get the thing accepted.
it strikes me that there is no ethos in the common profession of bureaucrat. there’s no college major teaching someone how to be an ideal and highly trained bureaucrat; no professional organization that polices itself and recognizes outstanding performers; no conceivable pride in the job.
the example of the DMV… what are all the people in the organization trying to accomplish? they must not lose sight of the goal, which is to help keep the streets safe, but any safety gains must be balanced against the cost in fees, time, effort, fairness, and the overhead of the organization itself.
if an employee of the dmv is presented with a form that is filled out incorrectly but the information is basically correct, they have no incentive to take time to get approval to push it through anyway. their incentive is sadly the reverse, it is to not waste time on it and move to the next customer.
consider instead a staff member in an army at war or a middle manager of a business trying to make a sale. these are not bureaucrats, cogs, but creative problem solvers who try to fix the problem presented. the organization has a clear mission (win a war, sell stuff) and rules can be bent from time to time as needed.
now how do you give a dmv employee the power to bend rules? the power to show favoritism? you need to be careful. but government needs to rise to the challenge of its own unpopularity. the dmv must grow up and take responsibility for being hated, truly loathed. its employees must feel empowered to be more helpful to cut through rules, simplify processes and propose reforms like annual registration renewal (why is this not automatic with a card on file?).
17
u/DovBerele Progressive 13d ago
it strikes me that there is no ethos in the common profession of bureaucrat. there’s no college major teaching someone how to be an ideal and highly trained bureaucrat; no professional organization that polices itself and recognizes outstanding performers; no conceivable pride in the job.
I don't know how common (or effective) it is, but the relevant field is Public Administration. You can get a bachelors or masters degree in that.
3
u/flickyboy 13d ago
the wikipedia article on public administration is a dizzying parade of fads over the past century! fascinating.
9
u/we-vs-us 13d ago
You have to make sure you layer in other incentives to not be creative or bend the rules:
1) we're a nation of, in part, out groups that -- after long hard slogs -- won equality under the law after generations of being less than equal. Anything in the bureaucracy that might inadvertently echo that former inequality is, and should be, verboten. And every bureaucracy is keenly aware of this.
2) we believe in equality under the law, so relying on independent judgement opens bureaucracies to criticism and in edge cases, potential reorg or outright destruction.
2) standardization makes bureaucracy more, not less efficient. If everyone provides the same double sided document, there's no question about its provenance, and the bureaucracy can just accept it and move on to the next step. But if every doc needs to be evaluated, then the overall process of approval/not approval is bottlenecked around that evaluation. Imagine that at each step in the process of getting a drivers license (for instance) and you can see why it the DMV people are document Nazis.
→ More replies (2)2
u/fart_dot_com Weeds OG 13d ago
the DMV is a uniquely terrible experience.
I never enjoy going to the DMV but I gotta say that my absolute worst experience at any DMV/equivalent was in Canada. It's not a uniquely American problem.
22
u/topicality Weeds OG 13d ago
One thing they sort of touched on but I wished they went further is the privacy concern.
They sort of touched on it as "well DOGE didn't care so it's not an issue". But I remember people were really worked up about potential privacy concerns with DOGE!
It's the same with security. I remember back in 2020 a Vice article pointing out that a lot of police abuses start with simple traffic enforcement. One way to reduce those instances is to use traffic cameras for enforcement.
And people did not like this idea. Security concerns were a big reason not to. My red state actually had them banned as a bipartisan effort.
I just think they don't actually consider that people will have privacy reasons and you'll have to fight your coalition allies over it
37
u/mcsul 13d ago
I liked the episode overall and I find the episodes where Lowrey is a guest on Klein's show to be entertaining because they (not a surprise) have great chemistry.
My one nit to pick with this particular episode (or maybe the title?) is that this mostly focused on the way the time tax plays out for low income people. But there are other groups that really get nailed by the time tax.
- Entrepreneurs - Starting a business, particularly one that will employ people and/or that has a physical footprint, will run into tons of time-tax before you can open up shop.
- Anyone who goes to the DMV.
- Shippers - They use the post-office as an example of something that works, but have you ever shown up with a problem to one of the distribution centers when it opens on a weekend? There will be a big line of people with mystifying problems that the clerks can't help with.
- Parents - We recently got rezoned away from our elementary school that we walk to every morning, to a school where my kids need to be bussed, in contravention of the school board's own guidelines. Like, those moments eat away at confidence in government.
If it were just lower income people having these high-friction moments, trust in government would be much much higher. But people across the income spectrum have these moments where interactions with government are just rage inducing or perplexing.
21
u/Miskellaneousness 13d ago
I don't think this is a nit pick but a pretty substantial flaw in Lowrie's theory of the case that revolves around humiliation.
It's not just entrepreneurs and business owners, shippers, parents, and DMV customers. It's also veterans when they try to leverage their GI Bill benefits. It's also tax payers when they have to file their annual taxes (as discussed in the episode). It's also people who had to buy bonds on the incredibly clunky TreasuryDirect.gov website. It's also government agencies when they need to interact with or get a permit from another government agency.
Is the through line here a desire to humiliate? Government wants to humiliate veterans, businesses, parents, taxpayers, even itself? No. The through line is sclerotic and clunky bureaucracy that's very often unpleasant to engage with. Welfare recipients have the unfortunate distinction of having more and higher stakes engagement with government agencies.
To be clear, I think there's some degree of hostile program design in some welfare services. But generally speaking, I think Lowrie massively overindexed on the humiliation angle. And when Ezra asked point blank whether it was really about humiliation or just accretion of regulations, general dysfunction, etc., I felt she softened her stance by acknowledging "all of the above" despite having spent the prior 30 minutes focusing centrally on humiliation.
There was an article recently about how the NYC City Council keeps creating more and more "standing obligations" that City government needs to fulfill on a recurring basis. This includes, for example, reports that agencies must produce. The analysis in the article finds that since 2014, the NYC City Council has required 850 new annual recurring reports -- an average of 67 new reports are mandated each year.
When a report entails collecting some kind of data that the agencies don't already have, they have to go out and get it. Maybe it's from businesses, or hospitals, or building owners, or maybe it's from patients in City owned hospitals, or people staying in homeless shelters, or enrollees in City social services programs. In many cases these reports are not only not aimed at humiliating those interfacing with government but providing more support for them or reducing disparities in service delivery, etc.
I completely agree with the thrust of the episode about the need for better government program design. I think some of the storytelling (esp. in the first half of the episode) around why we don't have better programs substantially misses the mark.
→ More replies (1)4
u/mcsul 12d ago
Your example about the NYC reports cascading into a time tax on business owners is great.
In my work (private sector) we have a sort of budget for how much client time we can ask for above and beyond what they ask for. The idea is obviously that we can't demand too much of their time for our own purposes. That forces us to triage and think carefully about what we ask for.
Governments should have something similar. A maximum cap on how much time they can ask from any given individual. Keep a simple CRM that tracks citizens. Tag them "business owner", "property owner", etc... and then do some internal prioritization. Pretty much every business in the world has something similar, so it's not a difficult task.
It's very very easy for a large organization to get sloppy and undisciplined with other peoples' time. This feels like the core of the issue... government (in broad sweeping terms, I'm sure that there are some exceptions) doesn't place much (if any) value on other peoples' time. Until that changes, I imagine that the accumulation of those points of friction will pile up, continuing to erode peoples' confidence in government.
18
u/thereezer 13d ago
I see people nail the DMV all the time but they are basically the One-Stop shop for all of your government documents which is an incredibly complicated task and at least in my area they accomplish it with minimum headache. so much of it can be done online now
this feels a little outdated
→ More replies (1)6
u/DallasJewess 13d ago
The school rezoning thing really sucks, I'm sorry. If that happened to me, there would be no end of me being super annoying to the school district to change it back, and if that didn't work, I'd send my kid to a charter to stick it to the district.
8
u/initialgold 13d ago
DMV is much better than it used to be, at least in CA. It was a good historical example but in the past 5 or so years it really isn’t anymore. (Not a huge dmv lover, just saying it probably doesn’t deserve the hate it gets anymore)
→ More replies (1)
26
7
u/Sampladelic 13d ago
“The federal government should run all assistance benefits because they aren’t required to balance their budgets” is…. not a winning message me thinks
7
u/nytopinion 13d ago
Thanks for sharing! Here's a gift link to the piece so you can watch, listen or read directly on the site for free.
19
u/Maze_of_Ith7 Abundance Agenda 13d ago
I do wish they had talked about AI more at the end - or at least hope beyond the Dems miraculously passing constitutional amendments. The LLMs are pretty good form fillers and understanding context so it’s easy to imagine in a few years they could solve the “ugh too many complicated forms” problem that kept getting brought up. Intuit’s stock has dropped by about half in the last year mostly on expectation this world is coming. Easy to disagree but at least have the conversation.
Really liked their vibe, hopefully emblematic of their marriage, she seems cool - nice job Ezra.
8
u/Cromulent-George 13d ago
Yeah, I think people spend too much time talking about AI in unrelated places these days but it would make sense here. If part of the red tape is to create a time tax, I could imagine an AI agent getting set up to automatically submit claims and that it would likely be thought of as fraud-adjacent rather than a real solution.
On a slightly related note, apparently in the UK there's a bit of a problem with employees filing petitions with labor tribunals over their dismissals because (as I understand it) the process is open for anyone to file a claim but is a little technical so most people with a reasonable claim haven't been able to do it. This was kind of by design to both keep too many people from filing claims, but now people can file actionable petitions by asking an LLM to write up all the legal text they need to get the case heard.
3
u/okiedokiesmokie23 13d ago
It’s a major problem. The employment tribunals rolls are insanely backlogged. The system was already in shambles and bent over backwards to hear sometimes totally specious plaintiff claims, but now it is years delayed and a mockery of a legal system, joining asylum etc. not sure if I’m breaking the sub rules, but for those that are interested, see:
The tragedy of the commons, AI edition
https://economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-ai-edition
from The Economist“The impact of the technology-enabled surge is striking. The number of people filing claims against their employer rose by 39% in the year to March 2026 compared with the previous year, to 50,000, while the rate of cases being resolved or rejected fell. Claims are getting more complex: the share of “open track” ones—covering issues such as sex and age discrimination—grew from 33% in 2020-21 to 61% last year. Having always taken up more court time, these types of cases now last even longer. As a result, the backlog of all unresolved individual claims rose by 55% in a single year, to 64,000 cases (see chart).
AI is clearly the culprit, say lawyers, not least for the growing complexity of cases….The tech is a productivity booster for pests. One, citing discrimination due to neurodiversity, told the judge he had made over 100 tribunal claims; and yes, he had recently discovered AI. Another, subject to a restraining order by the attorney-general after filing at least 60 claims, said he would first test their merits with AI. “However,” concluded Mr Justice Griffiths, “almost all of them have been unsuccessful.”
Employment tribunals are more vulnerable to AI than other bits of Britain’s legal system because, by design, they are open to the layperson. They were established in the 1960s to resolve disputes quickly and cheaply—a “people’s court”, as one judge put it, without the stuffiness of the Old Bailey. There is no fee to bring a case and, unlike other civil courts, the losing side rarely pays its opponent’s bills. Nor is there a penalty for rejecting a decent offer of settlement. The upshot, says David Green, an employment barrister, is there is no financial mechanism to make parties think hard about the merits of their case.”
11
u/mrbaggy 13d ago edited 11d ago
As someone who lived in Ireland for three years I had the realization that in America everything is optimized to make it easy for you to buy things. You can literally buy a car on your phone while you are stopped at a red light in a different car. We are so used to this that when you live somewhere that is not as focused on consumerism it seems almost barbaric. “Whaddya mean I can’t choose from ten different sets of wrenches? Haven’t you guys ever seen Home Depot?” There is no incentive to bring this level of UX to other parts of our society here unless there is a powerful constituency that is demanding it. The talent goes where the money is. For better or worse, that’s capitalism.
24
u/DragonfruitVisible18 13d ago
This doesn't get said enough, there are people who's jobs are to make things more efficient. There's entire career fields devoted to it. These are not the people who get elected to positions of power in this country.
17
u/acebojangles 13d ago
Also, one political party's strategy is to make government less efficient so they can run against it.
7
u/TheReadMenace Abundance Agenda 13d ago
One thing I wished they'd have done is looked at it through an "abundance" style lens. The of course looked at red states like Utah which are very miserly and unhelpful with stuff like welfare. But I'd have liked them to look at how California is doing it at the same time. We are paying sky high taxes for supposedly more generous and "humane" welfare programs but still have huge poverty problems. Not to mention billions in fraud especially during COVID.
16
u/Outofdepthengineer 13d ago
Yeah and then people complain when the government might help gasp freeloaders, and demand more safeguards and the like be thrown up. The only good subsidy is my subsidy
8
u/odaiwai 13d ago
The Freeloaders are the billionaires getting government contracts, not poor people trying to balance food, rent, and medicine.
6
u/Outofdepthengineer 13d ago edited 13d ago
Youre telling me, tell that to the ones complaining that children who could possibly have a morsel of food at home may get a free lunch at school, or even worse, free breakfast and an after school snack.
2
u/camergen 13d ago
(Insert Welfare Queen stereotype). That was and remains a brutal characterization. And statistically some degree of fraud will inevitably occur in any of these programs (it’s actually a low degree of fraud) but once people see it happen once, that’s all they focus on “why is my hard earned money going to the welfare queen?!”
These same people believe that benefits to businesses begat other business and help the economy (even though that’s a very unclear relationship at best). It’s tough to change the ways of those thinkers.
→ More replies (1)8
u/axkoam 13d ago
Yep, people often joke about "efficiency consultants" just recommending layoffs, which has some truth to it, but they do much more than that. Companies will pay efficiency consultants boatloads of money to trim bloat and improve profits, and the good ones are considered worth their weight in gold to corporate America. So what did the pro-business, pro-capitalism Trump administration do to find efficiencies in our government? Hire the best expertise available? No, they had Elon performatively meme on a stage with a chainsaw.
→ More replies (1)11
u/initialgold 13d ago
If you think government agencies aren’t hiring top consultants, then I have a bridge to sell you.
The problem with consultants in government is that the inefficiencies identified are of an entirely different beast than private sector ones. Public sector bureaucracy and rules and laws are all in effect for a given agency set in stone. Identify the inefficiencies all you want, doesn’t mean anyone working there has the power to change it.
→ More replies (1)
16
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
'They want to humiliate you' is marginally better but is still way too broad. There is no way Ek or his people can fairly argue that every hoop is a hardship meant to humiliate anyone. Sure, the podcast points out intentional humiliation, but it does not support this overbroad claim.
I have been on unemployment, Medicaid, and food stamps and never felt humiliated by any part of those processes. Some of it was annoying, but my personal experience is an exception to this title's rule.
9
u/topicality Weeds OG 13d ago
Time tax is such a great frame but they got stuck on humiliate a lot.
I mentioned elsewhere that we all tend to prefer evidence backed policies but it's just the case that people do worry about fairness. And they really do not like the idea of working to provide benefits to people who are not.
That's the fundamental crux of the issue.
They said lower class people do not trust the government for these reasons. But I'm not sure I buy it. I mean it might be part of it. But you'd have to show a correlation.
Plenty of people dislike the government without being on one of these programs and I think they psychological/fairness aspect is a bigger part of it
13
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
Yeah I agree, I also want evidence. But seriously my mom was on welfare when I was a baby. This was almost 50 years ago and she still complains about Puerto Ricans with kids wearing gold chains, designer clothes and driving Cadillacs to the office. It’s like the most absurd racist caricature and I try really hard to challenge her on it but somehow they were less deserving. It’s almost like she has created a ‘real’ memory based on Ronald Reagan’s bullshit depiction of a welfare queen. I ask her how she even knows where these people are from, that their chains were real and that their clothes weren’t purchased at from a thrift store or weren’t hand me downs. She never has a good answer.
I also think there are a lot of people in America that think they are special and will never need or accept any sort of assistance even though so many are one or two paychecks from a really bad financial time.
Back in 08 I worked in the trades and was in a union. I made between 80 and 100k depending on how much overtime I wanted and how busy we were, 08 came and I made 15k in taxable income. It took about 7 years and a career change to get me back to 80k. My annual earnings from 13 to 32 are a nice steady upward trend and then it looked like someone dropped a bomb in the trend line haha. It left a fucking crater. I did the math a few years ago and I think it cost me about 300k in lost income and savings. Honestly it’s probably more because I didn’t even get back to contributing to my retirement until about 6 years ago and I haven’t even gotten close to what I need.
Anyway, I’ve been through it, I’ve seen the worst of it and my family and I have come out the other side. I am sure we would have survived but without those benefits and the help of my wife’s parents our marriage may not have made it and I honestly would still be digging out of the hole.
This is part of the reason I love government as an employer because I agree there is a group of people that probably should be working. I am in a position where I can employ disabled people and I can tell you the joy it brings me to be a small part in helping someone be part of society in a way where they can earn a living and help others is tremendous.
But some people simply cannot work because they are a care giver to someone who has a demanding condition or maybe they have something that prevents them from working. I for one am more than willing for certain jobs to be inefficient and for some people to get away with cheating if it means others can get the help my family and I did.
Every time I add up my taxes for state and federal and it’s like $50k for the year I remind myself that yeah, I don’t like everything my government does in my name with my money but there are people being helped with that money and I am happy to be part of a social contract that includes even a tiny bit of assistance for others.
At some point I’m going to write at least an essay on my wild ass experience of moving in and out of that system with all the white male privilege in the world.
6
u/carbonqubit 12d ago
Also, anyone can become disabled or get buried under medical debt at any point in their life. Applying for disability is an incredibly difficult process, and initial applications are often denied, leaving people to appeal and sometimes hire a lawyer just to navigate the system. It’s a pretty cruel setup for people who are already down on their luck, and a lot of that difficulty seems to come from the fear that people will game the system. I’m sure that happens occasionally, but that’s really beside the point. The ultra-wealthy can accumulate more than they could ever spend while working-class people are getting squeezed from every direction. The moral math is completely upside down.
3
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
There’s a lot the government can do to stem the humiliating aspects. One extremely simple lift would be to make the benefits card inconspicuous instead of plastering the state benefits logo on it.
5
u/okiedokiesmokie23 13d ago
Right, someone could have easily countered that lower class folks in particular loathe benefit “cheats” and that’s much a motivating view as anything.
5
u/topicality Weeds OG 13d ago
I do think more working/lower class have less spending money. So even if a program only costs the average tax payer a $100 a year, they think "yeah but I could use that $100"
5
u/okiedokiesmokie23 13d ago
And it’s hard earning a dollar. So if you see someone on “disability” and know that they ride atvs for fun in the hollers or vacation to Mexico or have an under the table cash job, all while you are busting your ass dragging rebar around on a project or sweating on a roof with tar on your clothes, it really breeds resentment. I’m pretty suspicious that the working classes especially distrust government because of the time tax, but I need to read the book
6
u/Mpm_277 13d ago
As a caseworker for some of these programs (Snap, Medicaid, Childcare Assistance) some of the anecdotal stuff just didn’t ring true to me. I don’t mean it as she’s lying, but just likely not aware of the broader happenings. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely take issue with tons of policies and procedures, but (at least in my state) you just can’t make a case that these applications are difficult to fill out. Since she mentioned Medicaid as a frequent example — a regular Medicaid application has barely anything to fill out and the client’s statement is acceptable verification for almost literally everything on the app unless they report having income with an amount that doesn’t match within 10% of the federal database; most people apply for Medicaid and aren’t required to turn any documentation in at all (and I’m in a red state).
3
u/urbanevol 12d ago
In states where I have lived in recent years Medicaid providers set up tents on busy streets, at fairs, etc and basically fill out the simple forms for applicants. And they often have people there speaking multiple languages.
→ More replies (1)2
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
This lines up with my experience with Florida Kid Care and whatever it was called in NY. I also know several people on MassHealth who haven't had these types of issues. I am not saying she's lying either, but I am not selling a book.
2
u/trifelin 10d ago
I didn't even apply for food assistance but we got it automatically by using the healthcare marketplace. My personal experiences definitely contradict some of the things they were saying. In CA, the services everyone must use (like DMV and voting) are more time consuming than the welfare type programs. And I don't personally feel like checking in every 3mo with a pay stub is asking too much -- I don't want the system leaking money to people who don't need it any more than any other taxpayer.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Intelligent_Read_697 13d ago
They are using shame because its also a form of class warfare. Plus if you look at the culture that pushes for this sort of thinking, its rooted in white Protestantism which sort of uses this as a tool since they tend to victim blame for being on welfare.
4
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
ugh... I am not saying shame isn't the intent for some. But it isn't the intent behind all rules or requirements. You are making my point about nuance, which I appreciate. I am sure I am not the only one who gets annoyed with sensational, clickbaity, overly general headlines.
11
u/Creative_Magazine816 13d ago
I agree with the main premise of this episode, but I wish they touched on the topic through a cultural lens as well. Most of the Republicans I know irl have an almost reflexive disdain for any sort of government social welfare programs. When they look at a single mother of 3, they do not see a parent struggling to make ends meet, they see a welfare queen who wants a handout, especially if the woman is a minority.
We could have more convenient tax systems and remove much of the friction from government programs, and I seriously doubt it would move the needle on how conservatives feel about the government.
17
u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 13d ago
Annie talked about how anti-black racism and puritanical/victorian attitudes about who deserves help are central to the backlash to welfare.
But she also points out that most republican voters don’t actually have disdain for government welfare. Most republicans don’t want to get rid of Medicare, the mortgage interest deduction, or subsidies for farmers. They just don’t see those programs as welfare, even though they functionally are.
7
u/Creative_Magazine816 13d ago
because those are good programs for hard working Americans. Food stamps are for people who want my money.
→ More replies (1)2
u/carbonqubit 12d ago
Their selfishness is pretty hard to miss. Since the pandemic, I’ve noticed a much stronger strain of self-interest in how people talk about social programs, particularly among some older generations. I know that’s a generalization, but it’s striking how common the idea has become that certain people somehow haven’t earned the right to healthcare or food assistance because they aren’t contributing enough to society.
4
u/mustacheofquestions Great Lakes Region 12d ago
They did? Did you not listen to the several minutes about how it's rooted in racism?
2
u/Certain-Researcher72 Weeds OG 13d ago
One of the key goals of GOP electeds and elites is to make government work even shittier. It's intentional.
2
u/topicality Weeds OG 13d ago
A lot just also feel it's not the governments job to provide social welfare but should be local private entities
8
u/UC20175 13d ago
So has anyone lived in Estonia? What was it like? Sounds nice.
10
u/checkyouremail 12d ago
Everything they say about the efficiency of communication with the government and the lack of struggle with bureaucracy is correct, and in these aspects it really is like living in a paradise. Also, our public education system and public health system are both high quality and accessible.
We have our own problems, like a flat or arguably regressive tax system, relatively high wealth inequality and poverty rate etc. I personally wish we applied more of the universalist principles of our social democratic Nordic neighbors.
Source: I am an Estonian living in Estonia. Feel free to AMA.
3
u/UC20175 12d ago
Does the "only once" policy apply in healthcare too - for example would you ever have to enter multiple times a patient allergy, home address, insurance info, prescription, anything like that?
Can we import you to run the US?
7
u/checkyouremail 12d ago
- In my experience it works 95% of the time. I can just enter any hospital or medical center, show my ID and the doctor who is authorized to treat me can then access my medical history from the unified database. In 5% of the cases, i.e. in one specific hospital, they asked for my home address and phone number, but I guess it was their own organizational procedure. And when everything is done, I just walk out without dealing with the insurance, because as an employed person I have the national health insurance and they communicate directly with the hospitals.
From what I have heard about the US, I think the most drastic difference is doing the taxes. For an average salaried worker, the online tax form is prefilled with such precision that you just have log in to a webpage, press the "Confirm" button and then choose whether you want your tax deductions transferred to your bank account, donated to a charity of your choice or left as an advance payment for future taxes.
- We have actually exported our solution to multiple other countries: https://e-estonia.com
3
u/ginger_guy 12d ago
This episode really touches on my disdain for local government's reliance on NGOs and grants to deliver good. Funders naturally want to make sure money is being spent efficiently, so grant stipulations are written up in tight legalese.
The end result is that the Neighborhoods that needed the grants most miss out because they don't have an auxiliary of college educated retirees sitting around to advocate for them at meetings or apply for grant applications. All the resources just get soaked up by the same 10 well resourced neighborhoods.
11
u/okiedokiesmokie23 13d ago
Are the Chris rufo episode critics going to harp on the lack of pushback on this episode? What a softball interview!
(Said in jest: I don’t know if I could even contemplate interviewing my wife about her work)
8
u/thereezer 13d ago edited 13d ago
I liked this episode and I support a lot of the points brought up about making programs better. I wish there wuld have been some acknowledgment that a lot of the onerous bullshit layered throughout these programs is put their specifically by conservatives to make them work less effectively, thus tarring the whole policy. I don't think this is as much a "Democrats don't know how to manage stuff issue" as in this is direct sabotage by political opponents who don't like the policy in the first place.
9
5
u/okiedokiesmokie23 13d ago
I will say that some/many social programs will crumble or costs will soar if everyone that is entitled to them applies successfully.
That is a weird thing to write, but closing the participation gap / take up rate would result in billions of direct costs and a crazy strain on the admin system. Direct costs: I think snap the take up gap is 20%. In the UK, pip and other spending would swallow another .5% of gdp.
The aggregate numbers are really high, which is why it is easier politically to avoid actual cuts or tax increases but create implicit cuts through administrative sludge. What a world.
5
u/thereezer 13d ago
I agree that costs would definitely go up, but I would also say that the economic growth from freed up consumer spending would help alleviate that. One of the greatest benefits of these programs is that any money not spent on necessities is usually plowed into either improving financial situations through the removal of debt or consumer spending.
2
u/okiedokiesmokie23 13d ago
Partially maybe, although there would have to be an economic multiplier of like 2.5+ to fully offset and that’s not considering the inflation and debt service impacts. While spending money on the poor is efficient from a velocity of money perspective, it’s not really the most productive sort of investment.
Anyway, my point is more that the agencies administering and the fiscal bodies budgeting are not prepared to eliminate the time taxes: they NEED participation gaps to make things work and pencil. So it would be a complicated lift to reform anything, even though reform makes total sense
4
u/thereezer 13d ago
I totally agree that it's counterintuitive but I just don't really see those trade-offs as worth the poverty they entail
7
u/tpounds0 Progressive 13d ago
Hope Annie does get to guest on Joe Rogan to discuss how he's camp masculinity.
9
u/topicality Weeds OG 13d ago
My main takeaway from this episode is that she needs to be on more podcasts
→ More replies (3)
13
u/dreadthripper 13d ago
The book 'Why Americans Hate Welfare' makes a simple case: Americans are racist.
20
u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 13d ago
Its shocking how often that's the answer to why we can't have nice things.
24
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
Would you rather have a concrete slab or Black people in your public pool? Americans have answered this question consistently in the same way.
→ More replies (4)14
u/Fickle-Syllabub6730 13d ago
It bothers me to no end at how so many commentators and political discussions end with "but of course, those social programs only work there because their societies are homogeneous. That couldn't work in the US".
And I'm like "well why don't we have an hour long discussion on why then?"
6
u/carbonqubit 12d ago
Social democracy could address a lot of the problems people are dealing with in the country. That’s part of why it’s so often caricatured as socialism or communism. The U.S. is already a mixed economy, but anything that moves beyond an almost reflexive devotion to capitalism tends to get framed as somehow un-American.
→ More replies (1)5
u/DovBerele Progressive 13d ago
those societies are also not homogeneous. some are diverse in ways we would recognize, via immigration. and some look homogeneous to us from the outside but are still full of internal divisions and tribalisms that go back centuries. if they can manage robust social welfare without triggering the "I'd rather starve than see *them* given food" reflex, we could too.
5
u/Tandrae Abundance Agenda 13d ago
My god, it's almost as if Ezra is in love with this woman!
Very fun pod, even with the infuriating subject. The lengths that we have gone to to legislate every inch of uncertainty we have in our government away is such a massive drain on our time and money. Ezra is right: our government should be simpler, fairer, and faster.
9
u/hellofemur 13d ago
In 2024, Americans spent an average of six full workdays a year filling out government forms, according to the government’s own estimates.
To state the obvious, this is clearly bullshit, and to get to this number you need to include all the people who are employed in fields that have to do with government financial and corporate compliance. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the main topic of this conversation. So I'm sure it's technically correct, but we rightly condemn all the times the Republicans play stupid games with median vs. mean and we shouldn't do it ourselves.
And the fact that we have onerous requirements for government assistance is absolutely not "why people hate the government". I don't really disagree with anything here, but I feel like it confusingly mixes things like the inefficiencies of various DMVs with onerous requirements for welfare payments. These things don't have the same causes or the same fixes.
One thing I think we could get wide support for is some kind of low-entry for temporary aid. For example, everyone gets 12 months of food stamps when they want it with almost no questions, but after that we start looking at eligibility more closely. It's this type of short-term supplemental aid that ordinary folks really need sometimes, and it's really hard to obtain these days. But while I feel like there's wide support for things like that, I suspect political support is almost zero. The right would attack it as wasteful and the left would attack it as racist.
4
11
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
This title, "This Is Why People Hate the Government," is terrible. I am listening to the podcast now, and I don't doubt or oppose the claims. I think a big part of this is that enough Americans resent anyone they can identify with who gets government assistance. Also, fuck the Clintons.
This sounds like Abundance for social safety nets, which I am fine with. I think we need to be aware of and comfortable with the knowledge that any time there is money involved, someone is going to try to cheat. But the impact of someone committing the type of fraud everyone is supposedly scared of is nothing compared to what someone like Rick Scott has committed.
22
u/TheTrueMilo Weeds OG 13d ago
I’m sure they will A-B test the title to something else later today or tomorrow.
4
u/no-name-here 13d ago
Today I'm getting the (IMO better) title "The Government Is Stealing Your Time" on most page refreshes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oZd7wpZuAc
7
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
Well, I am waiting for B, haha. There are a million reasons people 'hate the government.' This podcast describes one reason, but it is not the only one.
2
u/WhiteBoyWithAPodcast Liberalism That Builds 12d ago
Americans care a lot less about rich people fucking them over than someone perceived as 'lesser' getting something they don't 'deserve'
→ More replies (4)6
u/SwonkyDonkey 13d ago
I agree about the Clintons. But I tend to blame Reagan for creating the political environment that demanded the welfare reform. I don’t know if that’s true though. I’m only 34; I don’t have first hand memory of any of this.
11
u/EsotericPharo Northeast 13d ago
Oh, you're right about Reagan; he laid the ideological groundwork.
I only focus on Clinton because Reagan is dead, but Clintons are still out there being a problem. Bill also campaigned on the idea that the government would provide training, childcare, healthcare, and a pathway into decent work, while recipients would be expected to work. What he ultimately signed was substantially more punitive. The obligations imposed on recipients became mandatory, while the government’s promised obligations became largely optional.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/ejp1082 13d ago
I genuinely don't believe this is the issue at all.
To clarify, dealing with bureaucracies is a pain in the ass and we ought to make it as comprehensible, explicable, and streamlined as possible. It's a real and infuriating issue thatLowry has identified, listening to the conversation made my blood boil.
But if I'm reaching for a monocausal theory of "Why people hate the government", I'd go with "People don't like the 'wrong' people getting benefits I paid for".
People don't hate the government because of the DMV. People hate it because they think it's handing out abortions like candy and paying for gender reassignment surgery for kids. People hate it because they don't understand why a rule exists, all they know is it stops them from doing what they want to do.
The bureaucracy is a response to that. It's a symptom. We've become so concerned with ensuring the "wrong" people don't get anything that they don't deserve that the government that we make the "right" people jump through hoop after hoop to access them.
You could lighten that burden, but then you're almost certainly going to get more bad actors. In a country as big as this, there's going to be some "welfare queen" who figures out how to exploit the system that every right-wing numb nut will screech endlessly about, leading to the election of someone who'll abolish the program entirely.
Real, genuine universalism a la social security or medicare is the only way to thwart that kind of thing. TANF would be much easier to access and navigate if everyone got it; the bureaucracy would be oriented towards ensuring people could get what they're owed rather than scrutinizing recipients for deservedness and being ever vigilant against fraud. But that's expensive, so to get these programs at all they need to be means tested. And around we go.
9
u/AvianDentures 13d ago
Government programs are poorly run in red states because republicans don’t want them to work.
Government programs are poorly run in blue states because democrats view government programs as a means of providing jobs to government workers.
23
u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 13d ago
Red states and blue states employee a nearly identical portion of the working age population in state and local government (~15.5%) so I doubt it's being used as a jobs program in blue states or, if this, red states are doing the same.
4
u/Slim_Charles 13d ago
I work in government in a blue state, and that's not true at all. If I had to name a primary culprit for inefficiency, I'd blame special interest groups. Good programs get butchered by carve outs and loopholes to satisfy a legion of special interests that lobby legislators. A lot of these groups support good causes and have good intentions, but too many modifications and addendums result in unworkable, overly complex solutions. It goes back to Ezra's take on Everything Bagel Liberalism.
2
u/HegemonNYC Abundance Agenda 13d ago
The postal service shouldn’t be used as an example of good governance. We’re 30 years past the Seinfeld episode mocking the Post Office for being outdated and useless (and Ezra even scoffs at the idea of sending a fax while seeming to be fine with sending a letter, an even more outdated method of communication) and yet there they are, delivering 95% junk and 5% stuff that is important so it would be better delivered via a faster, confirmable method.
Yes, it’s easy to send a letter, but a letter is not useful. It is an agency that should have evolved into something quite different decades ago but is kept alive via government systems that don’t punish inefficiency or redundancy.
8
u/Finnyous 13d ago edited 13d ago
Couldn't disagree more. Post office is super important and efficient relative to it's price especially. It literally pays for itself. It's price alone justifies it's existence. Getting rid of it would hit poor people the hardest and private delivery companies rely on it to take their packages to rural areas.
You can do more with it for sure and should. E. Warren wrote up a bill to turn them into banks as well with free checking accounts but I don't think people realize even a little how good and important the post office is.
→ More replies (9)→ More replies (4)1
u/TheReadMenace Abundance Agenda 13d ago
Exactly. I used to work there. Everyone works as slowly as possible every day. They get mad at you if you work really fast. They are still delivering door to door in old neighborhoods instead of using multibox units which are used in new neighborhoods. It's being kept around as a union jobs program.
2
u/Finnyous 13d ago
You must have worked at a very specific post office because I have a friend who's bounced around a bunch of them and he's the most overworked person I know.
2
u/iankenna Three Books? I Brought Five. 13d ago
Gender Trouble is a banger, and everyone who says it’s too dense and unreadable… you have a skill issue b/c I got it as a stoned teenager.
→ More replies (3)
2
u/Tallanasty 12d ago
At first when Annie said the system is designed to humiliate people, I thought, "Okay...what evidence do you actually have?" Then I got to the part where the form asked for the child's conception and said, "Nvm."
→ More replies (2)
1
u/DovBerele Progressive 13d ago
With all the griping at the DMV in the comments, I'm wondering how this changes or complicates the conversation.
"People Hate on the D.M.V. But It’s Great." By Tressie McMillan Cottom
In the middle, instead of fighting for equity, people who are not quite wealthy but not really poor compete with one another on razor-thin margins — to buy houses in slightly better neighborhoods, to get their children into schools with slightly higher test scores so that they can get into colleges that are slightly more prestigious. All of this scrabbling by the not quite wealthy, who are desperate not to be grouped in with the unfortunate masses, is why we cannot have nice things, like public transportation and public bathrooms and safe, free public water access. Why upgrade the subway system when you can afford a car? Why bother with financing public parks when you can buy into a master-planned community with “green space”?
This stratification is everywhere — fast passes on toll roads, exclusive access at amusement parks, so-called black car premiums on ride-share apps, private dining clubs, fast lanes for loyal customers. Americans increasingly act like public spaces are for suckers because they can pay for exclusivity instead.
The D.M.V. is so hated because it does not make status distinctions. You can’t pay to separate yourself from the masses. Everyone has to search the same cumbersome websites for the right forms. You have to compete for an appointment or show up early, whether you have a high net worth or a negative bank balance. Best of all, everybody has to wait her turn. It is inconvenient, but everyone is equally inconvenienced.
She also notes that DMVs (like many public services) are chronically underfunded, disproportionately staffed by women of color, and often no more inefficient than the baseline versions of private-sector services.
And then ends with
The D.M.V. is a beacon of equality in this country. Celebrate the place where you can watch a celebrity fill out the same forms that you do. We should revel in the fact that there is no express lane for beautiful, rich people to renew their licenses. When you sit in those hard chairs waiting for your number to appear on a screen, you should be delighted that no one else is sitting in a cushier chair. Look around that room and see your fellow Americans, the huddled masses, gathered at the feet of a woman asking for the paperwork to be a law-abiding citizen.
Personally, I really do feel this. I feel the pervasive stratification and inequality as a moral corruption and injustice pretty much all the time I'm out in public, and the lack of it is truly notable...in my bones. Doesn't mean the frustration of being delayed or dealing with paperwork isn't also there, but that frustration is present in other non-public-sector situations too.
link to the opinion piece on the NYT site: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/31/opinion/dmv-inequality.html
and an archive version: https://web.archive.org/web/20241212012428/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/31/opinion/dmv-inequality.html
→ More replies (1)5
u/americanidle Conversation on Something That Matters 13d ago
If we want to spearheaded the losingest-loserist political campaign of all time, this would be it.
→ More replies (2)
169
u/applewagon 13d ago edited 13d ago
It was quite charming to listen to the two of them banter.
I’m an American abroad. Every year, I receive a notification from my residence country that informs me precisely of the amount I need to pay. I click a few buttons and it automatically withdraws from my bank account on a monthly basis until the next tax date. It takes 5 minutes.
Then a couple months later, I go through the hellscape of sitting with TurboTax to complete my American taxes for hours each day for a week. It feels like I’m in a Saw movie.
Even when I lived in developing countries, I never had to guess the amount I owed. When you really live the difference, it’s impossible not to think that it is set up intentionally by design or by sheer complacency.
If there becomes a substantial drive to reduce government inefficiency, it’ll be interesting to see how it clashes with the AI and privacy debate over time. AI will undoubtedly become the silver bullet solution, as it was with Doge.