We only hear about government administration when things go wrong.
So here's something positive you haven't heard about: the Biden admin is working to reduce the administrative burdens that government imposes on the public.

New from me:
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-biden-ad…
You can't find a single speech where Biden talks about administrative burdens. But its embedded in a series of policy documents: his equity executive order, internal OMB guidance to agencies, a public OMB report to the President, and the new President's Management Agenda.
There are lots of wonks in specific policy domains doing this work. So what's the value of articulating an overall administrative philosophy to reduce burdens?
It helps to increase salience, legibility and knowledge dissemination of the topic. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-biden-ad…
This is the sort of piece that I jumped on substack to write: unapologetically in the weeds, but I hope it gives people a glimpse of how government works. This includes how good ideas sometime become part of the machinery of government. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-biden-ad…

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More from @donmoyn

19 Nov
This piece lays out the roadmap for how Republicans in Wisconsin continue to move further toward competitive authoritarianism. Increasingly likely that even if Democrats win the most votes, the gerrymandered legislature will overturn the outcome. 1/ nytimes.com/2021/11/19/us/…
I say "move further toward competitive authoritarianism" because Wisconsin Republicans have already moved away from a reasonably fair democracy. Most of it occurred very quickly, in the last decade. No punishment for this slide, no reason to think it will stop. 2/ Image
Starting in 2010, you have perhaps the most efficient gerrymander in the country, one that essentially guarantees that Republicans cannot lose the legislature, regardless of their action. SCOTUS could have intervened, but Kennedy punted. Green light for more of this. 3/ ImageImage
Read 10 tweets
18 Nov
Two observations:
1) I worked at UW-Madison in social sciences for 13 years and never heard reference to CRT once
2) You could teach an entire course about CRT just using the career of Robin Vos. Let me explain. 1/
We know that lead in water hurts kids brain development. In WI, the kids most at risk from lead are Black kids living in in Milwaukee. Robin Vos has been the biggest opponent of helping those kids. 2/ jsonline.com/story/news/pol…
Vos and colleagues have turned efforts to honor Black leaders during Black history month into an annual troll fest.
Read 5 tweets
18 Nov
New President's Management Agenda released from Biden via @OMBPress. Emphasis on rebuilding federal workforce, excellent & equitable federal customer service, and capacity improvements to enable the BBB agenda.
performance.gov/pma/
The Presidential management agenda lays out what the President says are their top nuts-and-bolts plan for fixing the types of problems that don't get much attention. Not surprising there is an emphasis on reinvesting in the federal workforce, but there are longstanding problems.
The second priority area is the one most interesting to me, since it relates to administrative burden. It marries the idea of customer service and reducing burdens, and includes language about access: assets.performance.gov/PMA/Biden-Harr…
Read 5 tweets
18 Nov
New from me: Efforts to ban books are up by 60%, reflecting a new censoriousness and a culture of fear in schools.
The people who say they want patriotic education seem indifferent to American values like free speech and due process.
Plz share & subscribe.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-book-ban…
It's not just that efforts to ban books are on the increase, they are targeting books related to race, gender, and sexuality identity. From @DanikaEllis's analysis of the 850 books a Texas legislator targeted. bookriot.com/texas-book-ban… 2/
It's no secret that progressives are in a reactive stance when it comes to talking about education right now. But I see reason for optimism that reveal how progressives can talk about this topic. Protestors are rightly calling book bans unAmerican. 3/ donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-book-ban…
Read 8 tweets
12 Nov
New Washington Post column. Derrick Bell and Kimberlé Crenshaw went back in time and started Nazism.
This would be hilarious if there were not real consequences. Speech is being suppressed, books are being banned, school officials are being fired and threatened.
The clear goal here is to suggest that critical race theory is so radical - it has killed millions of people! genocide! - that extreme measures are needed to suppress it.
Will write about this at some point, but I dub this the Flight 93 Mentality (after the Michael Anton's essay comparing Hilary to 9/11 hijackers, justifying Trumpism): any disagreement has to be elevated to an existential threat to justify radical response
Read 4 tweets
11 Nov
There is a serious point here about branding. Right now "CRT" is a winning brand for the GOP, and every discussion of it seems to play into their hand. Some thoughts about what to do. 1/
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/bullshit-bra…
The anti-CRT movement has real consequences.
Reframing the discussion in terms of the red scare atmosphere, the McCarthyite witchhunts will make clearer to people the costs of this approach. 2/
The anti-CRT movement, which banned particular texts like the 1619 project, is leading to broader book bans and even talks of book burning. "Book banners" is a negative frame that again points to the cultural intolerance inherent in this movement. 3/
Read 4 tweets

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