Periodically, new presidents make a go at reforming the way government operates, making it more efficient, bringing in new ideas from the private sector. The trump administration is no exception to the rule. President Trump has established the White House Office of Innovation to bring in business ideas to various government departments and agencies and has set his son-in-law Jared Kushner to head it, according to the Washington Post.
The idea is that the new office will send in “SWAT Teams” into various parts of the government to bring the new ideas to implementation.
The plan is goal oriented, with the aim to solve a number of pressing problems, such as the mess at the VA and the growing opioid addiction epidemic. The new office will make quite a bit of use of technology and data to revamp the way government works.
One sure thing is that the federal bureaucracy is going to be resistant to change. It has seen reform efforts come and go and have proven to be adroit at fending off such efforts. The government is slow and slothful because it suits the people running it.
However, the Trump effort may be a bit different because the president is very goal and results oriented and past reform efforts have been process oriented. Trump wants to see, say, the military develop and procure weapons at a lower price than it has hitherto.
He wants to see fewer people hooked on heroin and OxyContin. The president wants to see veterans get the health care they need in a timely fashion. These and other goals will be the metrics against which the reform effort will be measured.
One thing that will hamper the reform effort is civil service rules regarding federal workers.
In his private business, if someone did not perform or was unresponsive to direction, Trump could glower at them and say, “You’re fired.” Under civil service rules, it is all but impossible to get rid of a federal bureaucrat. Trump is trying to move legislation that will allow agency heads to fire people at will, essentially making national service the same as employment in the private sector.
The federal bureaucracy and its allies in the media are fighting this attempt at reform tooth and nail, claiming that it would subject government workers to the whims of political appointees. But that, from Trump’s point of view, is the feature and not the bug. Without the whip hand of termination, the bureaucracy will continue to resist reform and do things the way it wants to and not, necessarily, for the good of the country.
