Transcripts For CSPAN3 Authors 20240705

Care, but also the costs of that care and the sort of wrenching decisions we have to make. Thats what we are trying to address with. Health maintenance organizations 40 years ago. And i think thats where we have to turn today. Great. Thank you. We have to wrap things up. Unfortunately. The Volker Alliance is a nonpartisan nonprofit founded by the former head of the Federal Reserve board of governors paul volcker and dedicated to advancing his vision of an empowered Public Sector workforce. Sometimes in very nicely with the theme of the day. I want to thank fill up and mr. Is a good friend and that helps for hosting us today at columbia and we have a great set panelists for this third panel we have two people joining us on zoom Neil Ferguson and, jen parker and up here we have paul light to my right, to my left, and then richard roth joining us. So well turn first to neil on zoom. He is the milbank family senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and also a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for science and international affairs, harvard. Hes the author of over 16 books, including most doom the politics catastrophe, and hes a regular columnist with Bloomberg Opinion and an Award Winning historian and economic journalist. So without further ado, let me turn the panel over to neil. Thank you very much, emily. I hope im audible. I can see that im visible. Apologies not having any fancy and apologies also because im going to stretch the meaning social almost to breaking points in. Im about to say. But i hope that it wont seem entirely beside the point. Ten years ago i published a called the great degeneration, the subtitle of which was how institutions decay and economies die. It began life as the the reith lectures the bbc the year before, and it made for arguments. First, the Public Finance was violating Edmund Burkes contract between the generations. Secondly, and here are pompously myself that excessive complex government regulation is in fact the disease of which it purports to be the cure among the most dangerous foes of the rule of law are the authors of very long and convoluted laws. Thirdly, that the rule law had degenerated into the rule lawyers, which is different. And finally, that salvation lay in the associational activity of citizens, for example, that new educational institutions would be the best to disjunct tional schools and universities. So the issues that have already been discussed by the previous panels are ones i have thought about for more than a decade. The theme of what i want to see today is the connect between the work that and yuval and nearly all the other speakers have done on the dysfunction of the Administrative State and the concerns that i and others have about the condition of our Foreign Policy and national security. Thats where i am going to stretch the the meaning of the word social. But lets face it, a society that cant defend itself has no bigger problem than that. The excessive power of Public Sector unions, which is the focus of philips new book, not to mention the power in academic institu as well as in public institu ations of diversity, equity and inclusion officers and the like. That implications in many different domains ranging from economic efficiency. As paul romer already emphasizes as to the health of democracy. Youve alluded. And it also affect our ability to pursue environ mentally optimal policies to speakers in the last panel pointed out. But i really think its most disastrous consequences lie in the realm national security. In my most recent book, doom the politics of catastrophe, a nice, cheerful scottish title for a book, i argued that the relatively poor performance of the United States in response to the covid 19 pandemic was. Not peculiar to the institutions responsible for Public Health, but was symptomatic of a broader malaise. If you think back just a few years to 2018, the us government, a 36 Page National biodefense strategy. It had a dedicated assistant secretary for preparedness of the department of health and human services. They also had a pandemic Preparedness Plan. Congress passed a pandemic all hazards preparedness and advancing innovation act. In june 2019, there was a bipartisan commission, biodefense, and yet all this by the end of last year, the United States. 16th in the world for deaths. Million of population attributed covid, which was not far behind, and the east European Countries that did globally the worst by measures of mortality. The us also fared very badly in comparative prospect to now at the federal state and local level, we imposed a variety of restrictions on social, educational, economic activity, but its become increasingly clear that the costs of of these, for example, to young intellectual development and Mental Health almost certainly exceeded the Public Health benefits. By the way, when Philip Zelikow was, a commission publishes. Report on covid, which could have been but isnt significantly official report, i think that become even more apparent than it was when i wrote doom and i wrote doom in 2020. Well before we had a full sense of what had gone wrong. The key point i want to make today is that the broad deterioration in the us governments ability to respond to natural disasters was which was a core theme of doom, implies that we might perform just as badly in the face of a manmade disaster, like a major war. Im sure that somewhere in the pentagon there are multiple plans for the contingency, a war between the United States and the peoples republic of china. Well, if things turn out to be as ineffective as the pandemic Preparedness Plan produced by dhs hhs in 2018, which disintegrate rated on contact with an actual pandemic. But some have no illusions. The United States government and i mean both the executive and legislative branches is on the march to a showdown with china over taiwan and to the defense, which spokespersons for both branches make increasingly unambiguous commitments. But just consider the following. Just as covid exposed the sclerotic state of american Public Health, so the russian of ukraine has already laid bare comparable deterioration of our once mighty military Industrial Complex. Ill just give you a few brief examples. The quantities of javelins transferred to ukraine through late august 20, 22 represented 70 years of production at the 2022 rates as of january year, 38 high marks. Thats high mobility artillery rocket systems have been sent to ukraine. Each system costs 6. 8 million at the start of last year, Lockheed Martin could produce. 48 of those systems a year. Its got it up to 60 now. So far, 8500 javelins have been sent to ukraine. Thats a third of the us stockpile. The center for strategic and International Studies estimates that if there were a war over taiwan. The us would expend more than thousand long range missiles, three weeks of conflict, 4000 joint air to surface standoff, 450 Long Range Anti surface missiles, 400 harpoons and 400 tomahawk land attack. The Long Range Anti surface missiles would run out within one week and takes roughly two years to produce one of those jet. One of that sorry, one of the jsc arms the joint air surface standoff. By contrast china and this again is a quotation from csi is less constrained as it is investing in munitions and acquiring high end Weapons Systems and equipment 5 to 6 times faster than the United States and quote, i think the military Industrial Complex has succumbed to its own version of institutional degeneration. The Government Accountability office, a report last year amongst the things that pointed out was that the cost of building the new 12 vessel columbia of Nuclear Armed submarines has risen. To 132 billion, and its doubtful that the subs will be available for deployment. In 2031. And that was of 17 programs that they identified delays in last september. Pentagon had to suspend deliveries of marquee f35 jet because a component in the planes engine turned out to contain an alloy made in china. The recent the latest tag for that program, 412 billion. Did i mention that the Interest Payments on the federal debt will overtake defense spending in 2029 . Im nearly done. So let me conclude. About 100 years ago, 123 or thereabouts, the boer exposed profound deficiencies in the British National Security State and that led to calls for National Efficiency from both sides of the political spectrum. These calls were largely disregarded by royal navy and the army and the results manifested themselves. Disaster boisterously jutland in the somme in 1916. I think the United States urgently needs a version of that National Efficiency debate and it has to produce more tangible results than were produced in britain before 1914. Great or great powers succumb to institutional sclerosis, the sort were discussing today are weakened by plagues, but they are more often broken by wars they lose or even by wars. They manage to win, but only at intolerable cost. In my view, the concerns have been discussing the ones weve heard so far are all and important but really the greatest danger posed by the great degeneration is that its actually setting United States up geopolitical disaster. And thats why when i discussed this conference with philip a few weeks ago here at stanford. I was so keen to participate again for stretching the meaning of the term social. But as i said, it really doesnt get more than military defeat. Thanks very much. Thanks much, neal. Neal thank you so much for kicking this panel off and really calling how critical this discussion for the future of our. Now that you have a good sense of impending doom. Paul light can give you a nice rundown of all the ways that government has failed and led to this sense of doom. So paul, is the nyu wagner is paul latin godard professor, Public Service and before joining nyu was at the brookings institution, where he founded its center for public. Hes the author of 25 books and. His most recent book is the government complex tracking the true size of government. In addition to his academic record, paul light was a longtime adviser to the founder of my organization paul volcker on all things related to Public Service, worked with him on two commissions about Public Service and a paper just recently released, i believe, last week. Right, paul, on what want from government reform. Yeah, i get the title right. So let me hand it over to paul. I mean, i am fundamentally depressed with the meager hopes that i can present you here based on some of the survey work weve been doing. I should say that mr. Volcker was always much taller than i, and i can only reference some of the work he helped sponsor. He was fundamental concerned about public support for government and for the needed improvements that we see talked about today. So ive got a bunch of takeaways here. Weve got a few of them and ill just walk you through them rather and maybe who was whos back there . Whos clicking, hey, so ill just say click right. There. We got it. Oh, its on the podium. There we go. Now im responsible. Very, very. Lets just see if we can do it up where im sorry. You can see it there. Oh, dear god almighty. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I just have these takeaways here that basically show us where the public is. And i got to tell you. Theres some good news in here that americans so dispirited that theyd really like us to do something. Thats a good sign that when you say, you know, to what extent do americans believe that the federal government needs very major reform and then you put it with, you know, whether we can actually accomplish something weve weve got a strong base of citizens who are saying get done. They want it done. Notion that theres all this public resist stance to fixing government. And i see that in some polling. And i see that in some commentary thats just not true americans are wanting us to do something radical to make government work. Now who that might be im not paul volcker would take it on perhaps Ronald Reagan tried to take it on jimmy carter went at it hammer and tong. Its a hard to do when we sit here and we talk how difficult things are and how government continues to fail here and fail there. And ive got a new indicator a later in this talk, i wont go into much detail on it, but were tracking governance breakdowns very level, highly events where the federal government just didnt do its job and those numbers continue to rise and we havent had a good forceful discussion about how to fix government or whether even want to go down that route. We have wonderful people today talking about alternatives to the traditional state thats driving forward. We have in the first chart here just federal government performance ratings. And we see that the number of americans who give the federal fair poor ratings is pretty darn high. We a second slide here. Weve got the federal performance ratings. I dont know how to do click through here while im clicking through there. At any rate, im going to run through here to slide, which is demand for major government reform. Americans are really quite convinced. Keep go on. One more. Have you figured it out, my dear it was there we have a demand government reform that has been going up ever so slightly but its around for a good long time. To what extent do americans believe that the federal government needs very major reform . There are effects and these findings. We run the based on income education, on Party Identification passed vote, so forth and so on are fairly steady marks. And what you would expect to see in a our response to the biden presidency that would be driven by red voters as opposed the democratic blue. So lets move on to the next one here, a what i want to get you to is show you right here on this chart are support for major reform. This is a four way division respondents where were saying, okay who believes that the government needs very major reform. Pair that with support for bigger or Smaller Government. We see these four archetypes perhaps we can use that term here and say, well, youve got people who are very much interested in expansion. A bigger government, not too much reform, and were going to see in just a second how that out the expanders want of what government does and not particularly disturbed at particular point when we asked them. Well how good a job is government doing. Just give us more is some times the take away to the bottom left are the dismantlement weve seen them in political settings for some of course been around a while basically saying government needs major reform and that major reform is going to be towards a Smaller Government and we can figure out whos who are the standard bearers for this. Joe biden on the expanders, donald trump on the dismantlement. You see a little bit of jimmy, a little bit, the rebuild ers and so forth and so on. The two major anchors in what public what the public wants, not what we think best, but what the public says is best. When you pair these questions up and you hope youre hitting it and doing a good job explaining as we move forward, we see movement here. Lets take a look at the next just show you what we have so we did this survey back in 1997. Weve run it at several points in time. And what can see here is that a strong amount of public support away from expanding. You see back at the early bottom bar chart here, you know, americans were ready to grow what we now at the top of the chart, baby blue at the top of the chart, see declining interest in a bigger government and we see concerns about it. Now lets go to the next so i can show you this. This is one heck of a bar chart chart if i can use for you. Ive circled the key findings here down near the bottom and the green are the expanders. And you can just see where its headed that. Fewer and fewer americans respond. So now services are saying bring on bring us more. That is in decline and at the same time those circles that ive drawn for you are a much larger number of americans are saying we want it fixed. These are folks who are saying less is better and better performance is better. The dismay handlers right now occupy position, which could harnessed generate the kind of push that many of you are talking about. Theres no constituency for yet. Theres no candidate for yet. Its not donald trump, im guessing, because theres a large number of people in, these red bars, who are going to say, no, we do not trust him. And i would argue to you that over the next few, perhaps were going get some debate over how use this kind of analysis to structure reforms that could actually pull americans a more useful conversation about government and delivering on the promises we make, i think im getting the sign that thats the time right . So let me move on and up to you now to clarify. I think actually were going to turn back to zoom to jen parker and well turn to you, richard, if thats all right. We got thank you so much for you are so welcome. Youre welcome. Its nice to. Have some glimmers of hope, especially for me. Its rather unusual. Emily would say yes. So turn next to jen parker. Shes on zoom. Jen is the founder of code for america, which was founded in 2010, and she also served the u. S. Deputy chief technology under president obama. She was of the founders of the u. S. Digital service, and she also cofounded the digital response, which government meet the needs of the public with volunteer tech support. She is a recent author of new book recoding america, due out this summer without further ado. Let me turn it over to jen. Thank you. Its great to be here. Sorry not to be there in person. I think ill take us back to a little bit of the doom that in. And ive got some prepared remarks that start with the story from the book that emily mentioned out in june. Its about a team of developers hired by the air force to update the software on the satellites that enable gps, the Global Positioning system. But its also about why a culture of rules trumping is particularly destructive in the realm of government technology. And ill add, i think National Defense will sort of become clear how so . A friend of mine was brought in to help this team because they were behind schedule and over budget and. The thing that was immediately obvious was holding them back was the for getting data from, the satellites to the ground stations and back again. Now there is an Industry Standard way of doing this, a very simple, reliable protocol thats built into almost every operating system in the world. But this wasnt using the protocol on its own instead. And forgive me while i go into the details, i think youll youll it instead. The contractor had written a piece of software to receive the message from that protocol. Read the data then recode it into a different format so they could feed it into a very comp piece of software called an Enterprise Service bus or sb. The sb eventually delivered data to yet another piece of software at which point the whole process ran in reverse in order to deliver it back to. The original simple protocol. Now, because the data was taking such a roundabout route, it wasnt arriving quickly enough for the ground stations to make the calculations that were needed. If theyd been using the simple protocol alone, it would have been a snap like easy nailing a couple of boards together. But instead they had this massive Rube Goldberg contraption that was never to work. The people on this project knew very well that the speed was a idea. They were using it. They were told they had to. It was a requirement in their contract. We can hire and we do some of the best Software Developers in the country. But when we tell them in government, they must simply follow orders. Even if those orders dont make sense, then we are hiring them for their expertise and their judgment. But telling them then then allowing them to use either. The monumental waste of taxpayer is almost the least of the problems, in my opinion. Maximalist interpretations of rules dont just tank satellite software. Too often they make government services. We rely slow, frustrating to use and fragile. They erode trust and faith in government and inhibit civic engagement. When people use burdensome services. They tend vote at lower rates. Digital technology is needed to administer almost everything government does when were bad at tech, were bad at governing. Part of the reason for this is what i call the accountable trap. I think youre all familiar with it. When there are failures like the pandemic Unemployment Insurance crisis, as we just about which i had the privilege of helping with Public Service or trapped between public are trapped between two distinct systems of accountability. In the first politicians hold the Public Servants for outcomes, whether the website works or whether benefits are actually getting to the claimants. At the same time, the Administrative State will hold these same Public Servants accountable to process inspectors and others will review procurement planning documents for any gaps, any skipped or partially skipped steps. Any deviance from standard protocol. Even if that deviance is legal, just nonstandard if an esb is thought to be best practice, even if it really is not, why wasnt it used . They will ask the deviance from standard goes in the audit the ig report as a deficit. Now the first system as you know, is uncomfortable and it is the Second System of accountability to process that to Public Servants because. It is the process lapses that will get you fired or demoted if an esb is seen to be compliant with policy. Many public will be afraid not to use it, even if it makes the software fail. And of course, the great irony is that while politicians hold accountable for outcomes, the that constrain bureaucrats are the result of policies and oversight by our elected leaders. We dont just have a problem of too many rules, a culture of risk aversion rules where they were not intended. The federal Enterprise Architecture from which this requirement originates never states that esb be used. It mentions esb is in a handful of charts and diagrams that the text clearly meant as examples of how certain principles of interoperability might be achieved. But the esb became incrementally more codified as the federal Enterprise Architecture, which was written by the white houses cio council back in the 1990s, gave rise to the department of defense Enterprise Architecture, which gave rise to the air force enterprise and the contract that awarded to this team. Each rung down the hierarchy, the esb took step from merely suggested towards required this slide towards rigidity is worse in technology than elsewhere for the simple reason that there are so few people in government who have much tech expertise that cascaded down from the highest level. Policymakers to teams on the ground is like a game of telephone. The meaning would get mangled anyway, but its mangling is worse when. The people in the middle of the game dont understand. The words that theyre using this dynamic, by the way, is especially distract in the realm of cybersecurity. Speaking National Defense government used to dominate the first punch cards in computing were the brainchild of herman hollerith, a former clerk at his what is now the census. One of the most durable programing languages was developed by Navy Rear Admiral grace hopper in the mid 1960s. The federal government purchased over 62 of the output of the entire u. S. Computer industry. Today, Public Servants talk about getting yesterdays Technology Tomorrow instead investing in our holleriths and hoppers their tech expertise. Weve invested in mountains of rules to govern the procurement of technology. Our latter day holleriths and hopper spend their days on paperwork instead of programing and design. They must master procurement rules so complex and so drawn out that the technology they buy is or irrelevant. By the time is delivered, which i think speaks to those submarines. If it ever gets delivered. Despite intervention from the white house itself. That esb requirement was removed from my friends project. The software never worked. So billions of dollars later. The new satellites were sent into space with much of the old software. When elected leaders. And pundits tell you whats wrong with government technology, theyll say, we need more money, more oversight and better contractors and we need stricter policy and procedure governing tech. I believe wrong. And they need to recognize how contribute to the problem. The single biggest thing that we could do to make technology that works in government to hire people capable of judgment and let them use it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so, gene, and the examples bring to life of stifling the ingenuity of Public Servants also call to mind, ned phillips works on rewarding work and how we need of that unparalleled satisfaction, as mr. Volcker called it, of working in Public Service. So let me now turn the microphone over to richard robb is a professor of professional practice in finance at columbias of international and public affairs, where he teaches courses in microeconomics, economic foundations of, Capital Markets and finance. He also has a background in banking and is the ceo of christofferson company, which is a investment firm. Thank you, richard. Thank you, emily. Look, i agree with everything been set up till now, and im sure going to agree with what phillip and his band going to say in the final panel. How did it get this bad . Is it that society allowed all this human agency to get disempower in the first place . You know, it just be that the forces of darkness succeeded in their campaign and now the forces of light have to rally back. At some level, people get the laws and the institutes tions that they want and that they deserve. Im going to a couple of culprits, one of which is the model of our time. Its a powerful, a useful model, often true. Its neoclassical econom model of rational choice, rational choice means that we understand our preferences. We rank them and that we maximize them in light of our resources. You you know, if you look at the model very closely, though, we are passive or reduced to a calculation and that a computer could make. You know in a ironic in economist jargon we call the protagonists of our models. We say things, assume the agent is maximize using the following function, but really they have no agency all. They have capacity for surprise, for exercise of will. You know, shortly before he died keynes left us with a warning, he said the pseudo rational view of human nature leads to a thinness, a superficiality not only of judgment, but also fueling. I used to teach a graduate seminar at Columbia School of International Public affairs called foundations of individual, and asked the students when the day what interested you in taking this class . And one by one they would say, well, i dont see myself as a fully, completely creature. So ive come here to learn about behavioral economics and, you know, behavioral, economic may have seemed to them like an alternative to rational choice, but really its the same. They both assume that action is purposeful, that were rank our preferences and we try to pick whats best and maybe we fall prey to something, you know, overconfidence or framing. And so but were still making the same sort of decision, you know. Jen in an earlier session, the ikea that people like, the tables that theyve assembled more than tables that bought. So we medicalized i think she even used the term cognitive bias. We medicalized that. But its really just a fundamental impulse to want to make and create something. So, you know what behavioral economics may seem . Offer an alternative to the economist, a narrow conception. Our understanding. It really just tightens its grip either way. Were trying to make the same sort of decision where were robots and behavioral economics just robots were badly programed, you know, micro economics might even be a special case of a of a larger trend 100 years ago people worried modes of thought that were slipping away. Abstraction was winning calculation over judgment, the universal over the particular types of knowledge that could be quantified and that meant rational choice. You know, it would be surprising if a shift of that magnitude didnt profound consequences for inner lives and was the genius keynes, the only one who noticed. It turns out he wasnt in their new book called uncountable for this article history of number and humanity antiquity to the present. David nirenberg and his father document that concerns like keynes widespread in his time. The first half of the 20th century, people debated the tyranny of reason when a physicist assassinated the Prime Minister of austria. In 1916. His lawyers argued that his client suffered from an excess of the mathematical and they met with some success because two years later he he was the assassin set free. So nirenberg give a fast dating account of how numerical analysis became the foundation for human claims to truth. And today, as they say you know, it takes a specialized historian to make any sense of that language. Now that to me, the current bull market in utilitarianism is a is another symptom, an action is good or bad, depending how it comes out in. The bentham calculus in its most extreme expression is effective altruism and effective altruism and provides a cost benefit calculation that tells you everything that youre supposed to do maybe effective altruism will have a crash now that its famous advocate Sam Bankmanfried has has met downfall. But know with rational choice behavioral economics utility arianism our age of abstraction leaves out the possibility a spontaneous gesture embracing a challenge because. Weve chosen it gesture thats purely for itself. Were even losing the words to talk about that kind of behavior that doesnt fit into the abstract sphere that the philosopher William Barrett tells story of kirkegaard about, an absent minded man whos so abstracted from his life that he hardly knows that hes he exists until fine morning. He wakes up to find himself dead. So, you know, its no wonder that people tolerate loss of agency. They forget that they had it in the first place. And maybe one way to reempower agency is to teach more carefully, to be clear on on its limits without denying its the current orthodox. See that were nothing more than preference. Preference maximizing. We dont want to say agent. Yes as a preference maximizing creatures. We sometimes slip up because cognitive bias. It isnt just wrong. Its wicked. Its sometimes we want to act on the world. Our curious curiosity just discharge responsibilities, have an adventure greater, small beat arrival. Its a message in the phelpss towering mass flourishing. And no matter how much ingenuity deploy, these matters cannot shoehorned into economists utility function. Life is more than that. And of course, you know, not studies economics, but you know it or not, people are under its spell. I, along with other economists, believe that. So, you know, to transform the way we think about ourselves as agents is a big project, probably a losing one, but it would be the biggest structural reform of all and i think any progress would make the other reforms that weve discussed today go down more easily. Well, thank you so much, richard. I wanted to inquire if we still have neal on the line. I know had a hard time he left. Okay. I was wanted to open it up for any questions from the audience for this esteemed group of panelists. Is it jen still on . Jen parker . Im here. Yeah. Good. Jen, somebody once said that to me. 95 of all federal i. T. Contracts ended in failure. Is there are is you really are i. T. Successes in the federal government. And and what was the. How were they structured so that they could be successful. Theres great question. The answer is absolutely. Id particularly with the veterans administrator in not perfect by any means, but now doing truly fantastic work, serve our veterans. Its been ten year process and. Theyve really built the capabilities now to do things starting understanding actual needs, learning, failing and picking themselves back up, which is ultimately ends up in all the that you wanted to get out of your big bang project, but you actually get them longer by by building incrementally and really in partnership with users. I tell some pretty detailed stories in the book about whats happened at the centers for medicare and medicaid services. After healthcare. Gov. Dont go into great detail on healthcare. Gov. A lot of people know about that. But the team there really learned they not all of the agency its its still transitioning but its just tech that makes it successful. Its tech people working with the policy, people simplifying the policy and processes that are assumed to be and in fact really can be down to something that in the words of one of the people in the book, it has to make to a person you cant have nine different definitions of things. You cant have. 500 require minutes in your tech project. You really got narrow it down and figure out whats important people. And so i think you see teams all over government now doing that. And i think that there is greater appetite now sponsor teams doing that kind of work than there ever has been. There is absolutely enormous of their success, not just in keeping the cost of the project down, but in making their users happy. Covid test dot gov is a good example of that. I mean it may not have a perfect policy at the perfect time, but people were delighted. It took them 11 seconds to order covid tests when they were expecting to fill out a form that was going to take them half an hour. We just really need people understanding the in which these teams need need to work in order to succeed and giving the space to do this work the way they know how to do. Thank you, john. And perhaps paul romer has a question. I had another question for for. One conjecture is that the government is suffering systematically in areas related to tech because. It doesnt pay market salaries. So how important i mean, its probably a factor, but you think its a very important factor or a relatively less important factor. The second question is about what weve learned by watching the the arms and how theyve performed in in ukraine, given everything that we had heard about military and the kind of story you were just telling about the gps satellites, one might have expected, you know, just disaster. But is it possible the military side of the government actually ends up procuring and deploying technology more effectively than the rest of the government and then if so, what can we learn from that . You know, starting on the second question, i simply versed enough our Weapons Systems to give you good answer. The the group i founded in the white house called the United States digital has a branch called the defense service. Thats great work there. Other parts of, dod, including the Defense Innovation unit, a group called kessel run, all doing iterative, agile, user centered software. Theres still really long way to go in in the Department Since when it comes to software. But i wont comment on on weapon systems just out of my of my wheelhouse. I will say i think were learning a lot how ukraine shown up in terms of fighting war. So, you know, they had amazing technological sort of technology transformation. The war started. They have fantastic apps for their for the public that allow to do stuff just seamlessly on their phones. So when the war came, they could focus on fighting a war because getting assistance to their people was i mean, compared to what we have just absolute snap. They even had great apps to allow citizens to report military activity, you know, you know, report where the enemy was incredibly enabled on the civic side, shes actually really helped them on their National Defense. And theyre theres so much that we can learn from them. And they also very operate in an agile user centered sort of fast paced model, which is which is so inspiring. I really appreciate the first question. The the salaries matter a little bit, but there are several things that i would put as much more important to solve before the salaries and i think we have a lot of evidence that we can get great people into government at our current salaries. Im not showing you nothing. You couldnt do better. Number one would be time to hire. We recruit fintan World Class Developers and designers and other technologists to come in to government. Theyre hugely inspired by the mission. They want to do great work. And then it takes us nine months to get them an offer letter in which, you know, which time theyve had to move on to something else. Theres Civil Service rules all over the place that need to be adapted in for us to get those folks. I think youve the will. Youve just got to able to act a lot more quickly and then all of the things around those people when they come in and realize theyre not allowed to do what they know how to do, they bounce. We cant afford that. Weve got to actually give them them in environments where they can choose to take out the esb, choose to run a product, agile Product Management framework instead of a death march or requirements so. Those i would put ahead of salary. But thank you so much, john. I think paul wanted to add a comment as well while i was thinking during your your youre close to the mike. Oh, i was thinking during the conversation that we just had my best friend, i was thinking a lot about the 100 breakdowns that were studying, we are diving deep into a number of very large scale federal mistakes. You could use other language if you wish. The thing kind of strikes me as part this is what were calling the self policy problem that a lot of the designers of policies and programs no clue what going to do by way of implementation it just doesnt come up. Its assumed. So this notion that things will take care of themselves and all we need to do, put in some incentives here and a little bit of punishment there and itll just work fine and it just aint true to get ourselves out of this notion that, you know, its really or y or z. But the policy folks are going to get it right. Im at a school of public policy. I started out at the Hubert School at minnesota, and im now at the wagner at nyu, and im telling you, were teaching students oftentimes about how to be self executing policy designers, and its a nonstarter i wonder whether others in this room might say our our School Teaching the right things, these professional schools and were strong. Were big. Weve got a of bodies coming through looking for that. Its just something to wonder about in terms of our canon and what were teaching and what can we do better. Thanks much, richard. Do you have any comment on that of pedagogical question that paul proposes . Yeah. I also teach at a policy school. Not sure that a lot of can be taught as an academic subject, so we teach them some economics and accounting some statistics and data and wish them well. Some politics, but a lot. This must come from on the spot type of knowledge that you have a wisdom that you that that takes some time to to acquire. I think. So luckily i dont have to teach them how to implement. Im not sure that we do you know may i speak to the implementation question. Yeah please. You know, i think i completely agree that we are not considering an implementation when we make policy. And you can see it everywhere right now, i think we a model thats a waterfall, it starts policymakers and cascades down and the people at the bottom end up left holding the bag right what im supposed to do this but i have to have an esb or im supposed to do. But there are nine different definitions. Any one thing this this technology will by definition be good in the service delivery. You good. But if we rethink that waterfall and say instead, what is the outcome . Were trying to get . And how do people who actually work with the beneficiaries of that policy on, the ground work side side with policymakers to come up with the policy in sort of a selfreinforcing positive loop that this doesnt look anything, what we what what our hierarchy look like, but that actually results in implementable policy and you have to have people at the table who not only tech because most of stuff will be delivered through tech, but do User Research and understand the lived experiences of people and just come at the problem from the bottom up. Instead of the top down. Thats such a good point. And it goes, i think some of paul romers points about whats different in the versus civilian sectors too, that that idea that one of ukraines advantages has been pushing down the level of you know, the enabling people at the on the ground to make the judgment calls instead of at the highest levels has been key to their success so i think we have time for just one more set of final reflections. I was wondering, paul, if you could start us off just talking about public trust in government, which is something that youve studied for a long time in which, you know, youve levin and other panelists spoke earlier today, but it seems to me to be one of the chorus of effects of this lack of agency. And i was wondering if you could speak to that. And then we could pass it to richard and jen for any final reflections as well. Well, we are we continue to do these quick surveys to try to figure out whats going on out there. I was pleasantly surprised with these new runs i talked about earlier that theres a large a very large percentage of americans are saying, okay, we think you but were were willing to give you a chance, so get to it. Now, how you actually spend that acceptable language, which of course ive just violated basically thats thats challenged the reaction to the politics of today is just so extreme youve got to come with a more tempting prospect and more engagement. And i dont think weve done the work in the public political polling arena. Were looking for quick wins. But there is something there thats happening that we can energize. I think. Thank you, richard. Do you want to go next or jen . Well, also, since youre giving me the microphone one last time. Ill use the opportunity. Push, my friend. Neds new memoirs, which i think fantastic. And theyre on point for for this conference because you an idea about what work can be an old view and has been before its a concept of the modern where its and weve taken a wrong turn in the way that we think about labor economic and the way we think work and it it and its rewards and it presents you in a the book presents in a very painless way, an entertaining way to learn economics and to learn this, this, this idea which has been forgotten. Thank you so much for that, jen. Any final comment . Since ive been telling very concrete stories, ill ill end on another one. Thats positive and tell the story of an amazing Public Servant in the book who learns through healthcare. Gov, to sort of take and bring these new practices his into the centers for medicare and medicaid services. And, you know, she becomes more and more empowered over time. And it near the end of the story, shes charged with yet another implementation of a law thats come down to this very minor regulation that has to do with data around prescription drugs and what shes told to do is dump the data out for the ecosystem to look at once a quarter. Its a very costly process and it takes nine months to wrap up any of that data, get it out the door. So the medical and others who need access to data going to get it till like a year late. And she says thats not the right way to do the right way to do it and forgive the tech speak course is to make an api, give them real time access to these things a safe way. And she says, i understand whats in the law, but what they meant was, they wanted to give people access. Were going to not actually follow the exact letter of the law, but were going to do what we know they wanted. And i think that is a kind of two things about that. Thats a the kind of empowerment that we should be celebrating instead of running around looking at all the failed projects and wringing our hands over them. Why dont we find those bright spots and say, how do we make more