It is a separate problem that you cannot retain and motivate an expert workforce in government (career staffers) if the influential and exciting jobs go to people who come (back) from the private sector and also saved up enough so they don’t mind the lower pay for a cycle or two.
Substance aside, the electoral argument that rural working class swing voters like it when Democrats do things that “code as moderate” whether it’s hunting and coaching football or being friendly to big business is nonsense.
This sleight of hand works only for pundits characterizing candidates in the most abstract terms. (Joe Manchin is popular in WV because he brings home the bacon for his state and because he has a culturally moderate persona. Not because he takes fiscally stingy and business-friendly stances on national issues. He’s popular despite his appeal to “moderates” like Jamie Dimon, not because of it.)
When policy is in the national conversation, it’s progressive-coded policies like universal free school meals that have broad appeal. Whereas means testing is the “moderate” Democrat’s approach to the welfare state that’s resented by the middle class.
I think this articles connects with Matt's other piece on progressives's neglect, or perhaps aversion, to enforcement. Rules are easy to propose. There are all sorts of proposed "ban", "prohibit", etc. But they are meaningless without the appropriate checks and enforcement for adherence. That's where business people tend to be more mindful as rules for rules sake is well understood to be meaningless and something only the compliance department does to project conformance to regulators.
a great explanatory model for most of what democrats and the american left do and care about is industry capture by lawyers. people often confuse this as industry capture by solely *plaintiffs* lawyers. sure, there’s a lot of that. but ask yourself who benefits from lina khan getting aggressive w enforcement at the ftc: antitrust lawyers! in a world where antitrust enforcement is a mere rubberstamp, they are useless and can’t justify their fees. but if the government is zealously enforcing antitrust laws, now they’re an indispensable part of the merger and acquisitions industrial complex. who benefits most from the existence of the cfpb? white collar defense lawyers! in fact who benefits the most from democrat appointee judges tilting the field in favor of plaintiffs? well, clearly plaintiff lawyers but who benefits the second most? defense lawyers! because they generate that much more work defending american companies from the dastardly plaintiff lawyers. there’s a reason why elite lawyers (especially litigators) are basically all democrats
There is a saying in a lot of organizations: Those who can't do, teach.
I think it is the full on exclusion of business interests that lead people to believe that the Democrat party is full of eggheads who know nothing about how to run a real world business operation. You don't want ONLY business types to be running the henhouse, but to exclude them altogether leads to a lot of dumb ideas.
Lots of No True Scotsman here. "Admin figure X is a business person, but that doesn't count because they are aligned with the left"
The underlying point, not made explicit here, is that the breakdown of neoliberalism has led to reassessments of the role of business in a range of ares, not just trade policy. Financial deregulation, the Chicago counter-revolution in anti-trust, hands-off attitudes to tech are all being questioned across the board. JD Vance might be a phony, but he represents a real shift away from the kind of market liberalism that defined the Repubs for decades. And Trump embodies the kind of crony capitalism which undermines market liberalism.
Note Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, is a former venture capitalist. Yes, she was most recently governor of Rhode Island, but seems to fit Matt's definition of a business person going in to government.
Last century there were big farm organizations whose members would staff the policy positions in USDA: Farm Bureau for Republicans, National Farmers Union for Democrats, etc. and the USDA agencies would administer the programs. This century it seems that NGO's are providing the staff for Democratic administrations. It also seems programs have changed, or added, so more dollars route through NGO's.
I think the core issue is that the executive branch focuses too much on legislation instead of execution. Traditionally, the media and DC insiders have placed legislative victories on a pedestal and Presidents are incentivized to pass giant bills to cement their legacy. Voters place a premium on execution and outcomes so hiring experts with bookish knowledge doesn't help in that regard. The idea that Biden should be rewarded/praised for passing bills that allocate billions for remote broadband and EV chargers with deliverable timelines beyond his Presidency is laughable for those who've spent most of their careers in the private sector.
My take it is better for people to go from private sector to government than from the government to private sector. Potential corruption from the former seems easy-ish to stop with reasonable conflict of interest rules. The latter is more pernicious (aka FDA heads regulating their future employers is very prone to bad incentives and seems hard to fix).
Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the Biden presidency, but it was INCREDIBLY disappointing to watch him crush as the only moderate in the primary only to move leftward as soon as he had the nomination. This is the opposite of how politicians usually work. It would be incredibly ironic if Harris actually governed in a way that was more moderate after running to Bidens left in 2020. Call me skeptical.
I've always disliked the way that Democrats attack business at every turn, biting the hand that feeds them. I also dislike the way Republicans act like CEOs are this persecuted group that needs special favors. Can't we have an administration that sees both business and labor not as friends to give away goodies to, but as business partners that respond to incentives?
I feel like one of the lessons I've learned over the last 10 years is if there is anyone you need to keep out of government, it's the people from the nonprofits. The groups have done more damage to the Biden administration than any corporate wall street treasury sec has ever done. How do we get the Democratic party in general to treat people from the groups with as much suspicion as they would treat someone from the private sector?
Regarding student debt relief, I think my position is in the minority:
Substantively, a one-time debt jubilee wasn't a good solution to the problem of college costs. Also, by the time the Biden Administration first announced its plan, we didn't really need the extra stimulus. Might have been better to just shelve it.
Legally, the plan was almost certainly permissible under a plain text reading of the relevant statutory authorization, and it was bad for the judiciary to stretch standing doctrine and the Major Questions Doctrine (which is just a barely-disguised modern non-delegation doctrine) to stop it.
This is even more true for the recent SAVE plan changes, which are already facing sloppy, overbroad injunctions.
We resolve far, far too many political questions through the courts.
But the language of the HEROES Act does not actually draw that line — which is my point.
The act applies to borrowers affected by a national emergency. It did not say it could only be used *during* the emergency. That wouldn't make sense. If a group of borrowers was affected by a hurricane, would the act no longer be available once the storm passed? Or even after the cleanup? The injury still occurred and demands to be redressed.
The statute was written more expansively than the SCOTUS majority would have liked, so they applied the newly-invented MQD to narrow it. And they had to make wild logical leaps about Missouri's standing in order to do so!
In the present atmosphere post SCOTUS’s overturning the Chevron decision (thereby greatly increasing industries’ leeway to judicially challenge regulations they consider unfavorable), won’t the executive be strongly incentivized to hire on staff from industry to “soften” regulation to avoid such challenge?
You do mention the issue of competence in staffers; granted industry types will have this in spades, but might not those academic hires be not quite as pliant to industry threats of suit? Or should we just admit the “way it is” and largely abandon regulation to industry interest?
This was so good. I learned a ton, thank you!
It is a separate problem that you cannot retain and motivate an expert workforce in government (career staffers) if the influential and exciting jobs go to people who come (back) from the private sector and also saved up enough so they don’t mind the lower pay for a cycle or two.
Substance aside, the electoral argument that rural working class swing voters like it when Democrats do things that “code as moderate” whether it’s hunting and coaching football or being friendly to big business is nonsense.
This sleight of hand works only for pundits characterizing candidates in the most abstract terms. (Joe Manchin is popular in WV because he brings home the bacon for his state and because he has a culturally moderate persona. Not because he takes fiscally stingy and business-friendly stances on national issues. He’s popular despite his appeal to “moderates” like Jamie Dimon, not because of it.)
When policy is in the national conversation, it’s progressive-coded policies like universal free school meals that have broad appeal. Whereas means testing is the “moderate” Democrat’s approach to the welfare state that’s resented by the middle class.
I think this articles connects with Matt's other piece on progressives's neglect, or perhaps aversion, to enforcement. Rules are easy to propose. There are all sorts of proposed "ban", "prohibit", etc. But they are meaningless without the appropriate checks and enforcement for adherence. That's where business people tend to be more mindful as rules for rules sake is well understood to be meaningless and something only the compliance department does to project conformance to regulators.
a great explanatory model for most of what democrats and the american left do and care about is industry capture by lawyers. people often confuse this as industry capture by solely *plaintiffs* lawyers. sure, there’s a lot of that. but ask yourself who benefits from lina khan getting aggressive w enforcement at the ftc: antitrust lawyers! in a world where antitrust enforcement is a mere rubberstamp, they are useless and can’t justify their fees. but if the government is zealously enforcing antitrust laws, now they’re an indispensable part of the merger and acquisitions industrial complex. who benefits most from the existence of the cfpb? white collar defense lawyers! in fact who benefits the most from democrat appointee judges tilting the field in favor of plaintiffs? well, clearly plaintiff lawyers but who benefits the second most? defense lawyers! because they generate that much more work defending american companies from the dastardly plaintiff lawyers. there’s a reason why elite lawyers (especially litigators) are basically all democrats
I think this is the post that will make me end my years'-long subscription. It's been fun while it lasted
Ironically, someone below said it was the post that made them decide to subscribe.
Why?
There is a saying in a lot of organizations: Those who can't do, teach.
I think it is the full on exclusion of business interests that lead people to believe that the Democrat party is full of eggheads who know nothing about how to run a real world business operation. You don't want ONLY business types to be running the henhouse, but to exclude them altogether leads to a lot of dumb ideas.
Lots of No True Scotsman here. "Admin figure X is a business person, but that doesn't count because they are aligned with the left"
The underlying point, not made explicit here, is that the breakdown of neoliberalism has led to reassessments of the role of business in a range of ares, not just trade policy. Financial deregulation, the Chicago counter-revolution in anti-trust, hands-off attitudes to tech are all being questioned across the board. JD Vance might be a phony, but he represents a real shift away from the kind of market liberalism that defined the Repubs for decades. And Trump embodies the kind of crony capitalism which undermines market liberalism.
Note Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, is a former venture capitalist. Yes, she was most recently governor of Rhode Island, but seems to fit Matt's definition of a business person going in to government.
Last century there were big farm organizations whose members would staff the policy positions in USDA: Farm Bureau for Republicans, National Farmers Union for Democrats, etc. and the USDA agencies would administer the programs. This century it seems that NGO's are providing the staff for Democratic administrations. It also seems programs have changed, or added, so more dollars route through NGO's.
I think the core issue is that the executive branch focuses too much on legislation instead of execution. Traditionally, the media and DC insiders have placed legislative victories on a pedestal and Presidents are incentivized to pass giant bills to cement their legacy. Voters place a premium on execution and outcomes so hiring experts with bookish knowledge doesn't help in that regard. The idea that Biden should be rewarded/praised for passing bills that allocate billions for remote broadband and EV chargers with deliverable timelines beyond his Presidency is laughable for those who've spent most of their careers in the private sector.
My take it is better for people to go from private sector to government than from the government to private sector. Potential corruption from the former seems easy-ish to stop with reasonable conflict of interest rules. The latter is more pernicious (aka FDA heads regulating their future employers is very prone to bad incentives and seems hard to fix).
Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the Biden presidency, but it was INCREDIBLY disappointing to watch him crush as the only moderate in the primary only to move leftward as soon as he had the nomination. This is the opposite of how politicians usually work. It would be incredibly ironic if Harris actually governed in a way that was more moderate after running to Bidens left in 2020. Call me skeptical.
I've always disliked the way that Democrats attack business at every turn, biting the hand that feeds them. I also dislike the way Republicans act like CEOs are this persecuted group that needs special favors. Can't we have an administration that sees both business and labor not as friends to give away goodies to, but as business partners that respond to incentives?
I feel like one of the lessons I've learned over the last 10 years is if there is anyone you need to keep out of government, it's the people from the nonprofits. The groups have done more damage to the Biden administration than any corporate wall street treasury sec has ever done. How do we get the Democratic party in general to treat people from the groups with as much suspicion as they would treat someone from the private sector?
Regarding student debt relief, I think my position is in the minority:
Substantively, a one-time debt jubilee wasn't a good solution to the problem of college costs. Also, by the time the Biden Administration first announced its plan, we didn't really need the extra stimulus. Might have been better to just shelve it.
Legally, the plan was almost certainly permissible under a plain text reading of the relevant statutory authorization, and it was bad for the judiciary to stretch standing doctrine and the Major Questions Doctrine (which is just a barely-disguised modern non-delegation doctrine) to stop it.
This is even more true for the recent SAVE plan changes, which are already facing sloppy, overbroad injunctions.
We resolve far, far too many political questions through the courts.
Forbearance during COVID -- clearly allowed by the HEROES Act.
Cancellation of loans long after COVID and when unemployment was back to very low levels -- not allowed.
But the language of the HEROES Act does not actually draw that line — which is my point.
The act applies to borrowers affected by a national emergency. It did not say it could only be used *during* the emergency. That wouldn't make sense. If a group of borrowers was affected by a hurricane, would the act no longer be available once the storm passed? Or even after the cleanup? The injury still occurred and demands to be redressed.
The statute was written more expansively than the SCOTUS majority would have liked, so they applied the newly-invented MQD to narrow it. And they had to make wild logical leaps about Missouri's standing in order to do so!
In the present atmosphere post SCOTUS’s overturning the Chevron decision (thereby greatly increasing industries’ leeway to judicially challenge regulations they consider unfavorable), won’t the executive be strongly incentivized to hire on staff from industry to “soften” regulation to avoid such challenge?
You do mention the issue of competence in staffers; granted industry types will have this in spades, but might not those academic hires be not quite as pliant to industry threats of suit? Or should we just admit the “way it is” and largely abandon regulation to industry interest?