Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. I'm Samantha Fields here with Kimberly and for Kai Rizdahl. Thank you all for joining us on this Tuesday, April 1st. It's great to be here for this week's Deep Dive. Yes. And for the deep dive this week, we're going to dig in to what's been kind of a longstanding idea. You often hear it.
popping up in various conversations that the federal government should be run more like a business because lots of people believe that companies do a better job than the government at saving money or meeting people's needs. And now we're sort of seeing this play. in real time with President Trump and Elon Musk, two businessmen of varying success, leading the charge to reshape the government and scale back agencies all in the name of what they're saying is efficiency.
So we want to know more today about where this idea comes from, why it seems to have such appeal, and also some of the fundamental differences between how governments and businesses operate. Philip Joyce is here to make us smart about this. He's a professor of public policy at the university. University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Philip, welcome to the show. Thanks for being with us. Thanks so much for having me.
So I just want to start with this idea of sort of where this whole idea came from, how long it's been around, and sort of why people seem to gravitate toward this notion that the government would be better run if it was run like a business. Well, it turns out that it's been around for a long time. I think we can take it all the way back in this country to the progressive reformers of the late 19th century and early.
early 20th century. Woodrow Wilson is probably the best example of that. I mean, he wrote an article back before he was president in 1887 that basically argued that there was a science of administration and that essentially... argued that there was no difference between what it takes to run a successful business and what it takes to run a successful government and then it's just kind of come and gone since then and and i get why it's a
appealing because people look at the government and they look at you know what they see as the sort of messy way that it operates and the kind of dysfunction of government and they basically say well you know i know businesses that run well. So maybe if we could just bring in those people that run those businesses, you know, we can solve some of the problems that we see in the government. And we can talk more about this, but I think a lot of the problems in the government.
are not problems that exist because of mismanagement as much as politics. And politics is something that doesn't enter in as much when you are running a business. We'll say more about that because that's interesting. Well, you know, let's take a couple examples. I think it's important to acknowledge that what makes government apparently not operate well.
that a lot of that is self-inflicted. You know, let's take a couple examples I think that people pay a lot of attention to. The first is the fact that... The Congress and the president can't seem to get budgets done on time. That's a good sort of indicator of people that government doesn't operate well. And they're right about that. There's only been three fiscal years in the last 48 years that appropriations have been passed.
on time and we have this sort of constant, you know, is there going to be a shutdown or is there not going to be a shutdown? A business person coming into government. is not someone who can solve that problem. That is a basic problem of the Congress and the president really not doing their job.
They do that sort of collectively, right? The president can't come in and kind of solve that problem by himself. The other example that people point to is the fact that we have a $30 trillion debt. And there's this sort of notion that, well, you know, if you bring in a successful business. executive, somehow they can make the debt go away. We have the debt because we have made a lot of decisions.
over time to provide a lot of benefits to people. And over time, we have not been willing to tax ourselves in order to sort of fully pay for those benefits. There's a reason for that, which is that the things that we would do in order to make the debt go away would be politically unpopular. But that doesn't really mean that bringing in a business executive to run government is going to sort of automatically make them more politically popular.
fundamentally different than running a business. And you were just sort of touching on some of them there. But to me, one of the main things that I think about when I think about this idea is that businesses are all about profits, making profits for shareholders. That's at their core what business for-profit business is about. That's not what government is about, right?
No, that's not what government is about. I mean, government has different measures of success. Success in government is measured by how well we achieve societal objectives. Right. So what we have decided first is there are some things that we as a society. want to do and want to value. And then the question is, can we leave it to the private sector to make sure those things happen? And a lot of the things that we've said that we value
are things that the private sector could not do and make a profit. I saw a great quote that was in a Forbes magazine article, and it said simply, not everything that makes a profit is of societal value and not everything that... is of societal value would make a profit. So to your point, if I'm running a business, then I am measuring my success.
based on the financial bottom line or the return on investment or the return to shareholders or stockholders. When I'm running government, I'm measuring success. by how well we achieve societal objectives such as keeping people safer or better educating them or making them healthier those are completely different kinds of measures than the kind of measures I would use in order to evaluate my success as a business person.
the government, federal, state, local, whatever, and a private business is that lots of private businesses fail. And the consequences of that are a bit different than your government failing. Right. I mean, the government is in a sense the provider of last resort. Right. I mean, the you know, when when the government fails, it means that, you know, people are.
you know, no longer being educated. People are no longer having their, you know, health care guaranteed. They're no longer having their, you know, at the local level, their trash picked up. So governments don't really have They don't have the option of failing, meaning ceasing to operate. by and large, the way that businesses do. So the question is sort of how well do they operate? And I don't want to suggest that there's nothing that governments can learn from.
businesses. I'm simply saying that the sort of bottom line of how you would evaluate the success of government is very different than how you would evaluate the success of business. It's interesting that you just say that because I was just going to ask you whether you think there are things government could learn or take from how businesses are run, because I don't think many people would argue that there isn't any room for improvement when it comes to government efficiency.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's right. I mean, one thing that I think has been actually highlighted by Mr. Musk's activity is the fact that government technology systems are antiquated. but they're antiquated by and large because they haven't been invested in. And it might actually be the case. that we would need fewer government workers if we had more up-to-date technology systems. Now, in my view, you don't get rid of the workers first and then fix the technology, right? Because these are...
processes that have to sort of continue to operate. The other thing is that governments actually engage in a lot of activities that involve the kinds of things that private firms also do, things like processing driver's licenses, managing health care systems, running public utilities. You know, I think the closer something is to sort of having an analog in the private sector, right, where you can see that there are.
for example you know kind of transaction based government activities the more it is that you can kind of bring private sector techniques into government. But one of the big challenges here, I think, is that governments don't exist just to provide services more efficiently. They also exist. to provide services in an equitable manner. And sometimes what creates government inefficiency kind of at the retail level, meaning in terms of providing individual services, is that they are required.
to provide services to everyone. And some of those services that there... required to provide to everyone are not cost effective to provide. But that doesn't change the fact that they have to serve everyone. A business can decide that it's not going to serve a particular portion of the population. or that it's going to charge them a higher amount to serve them because it's more expensive to provide those services. That's not something that government often has the flexibility to do.
So let's take a concrete example of this because we are seeing versions of this play out in real time like For example, efforts to privatize parts of the government. So President Trump and Elon Musk have floated privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, which has struggled to make money for a bunch of years. And there are private sector equivalents.
You have UPS, you have FedEx that also deliver mail and packages. Could outsourcing work to the private sector help make the government work better for the public? Well, let's take the postal service. Since you mentioned the postal service, let's just take the postal service as a specific example. And let's think about what privatizing the postal service, what kinds of changes that would.
mean that might actually, you know, make the postal service at least operate more cost effectively. One of the big reasons that the postal service can't... end up breaking even is because it has massive pension obligations. And one might argue that it would have been better had it not offered less generous pensions, and a lot of private firms now don't offer generous pensions.
So that's a decision that could have been made were the postal service privatized that could have put it in a better position now. But that's not the only reason that's trouble breaking even. It's required to maintain a lot of post offices that don't get much traffic. There are more than 31,000 post offices in the U.S. There are 5,300 UPS stores. Now, I would suggest that...
UPS sort of knows what it's doing in the sense of trying to put UPS stores in places that are cost effective. A lot of those post offices are in places where they don't get much traffic. Why are they there? Because members of Congress don't want the Postal Service to close. post offices. If we closed those post offices, a lot of people in rural areas would have to go further in order to mail a letter or mail a package.
There would be there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but we have to recognize that that there is a cost to that. The other piece in terms of the Postal Service is that if I mail a letter across town or I mail a letter to Alaska. My first class stamp costs me the same amount of money. If I go to UPS and I mail something to Alaska, it costs a whole lot more than it costs for me to send it across town.
I feel like that's something that if that were to change, people would be very upset about, but they might not be thinking about it in those terms when they're listening to sort of rhetoric around making the government more efficient and saving money. I agree with that. And I also think that there's a bit of a myth here that I think people sometimes don't focus on the fact that...
Not all of their negative experiences with large organizations are with government organizations. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've had unsatisfactory interactions with insurance companies, with private insurance companies. I've had unsatisfactory interactions with telecom companies where I can't find anybody, a real human being, to talk to me.
to just sort of say, well, I went to the DMV and I didn't really enjoy myself. And therefore, if the DMV was private, everything would be better. I think people sort of minimize sometimes the negative effects that they actually have or the negative interactions that they have. have with some of these private firms. And by the way.
I've had very positive experiences with the DMV, and I've also had negative experiences with the DMV, and I think that's true across a lot of different private services, but I think it's also true around a lot of different government services. Bringing it back to the current moment, what do you think it means that we have the types of businessmen?
in government that we do trying to push this idea of running government like a business you have donald trump who has a lot of businesses that filed for bankruptcy and a reputation for like not paying his vendors you have elon musk who you know has taken over bunches of businesses, but run them in this Silicon Valley way of like move fast and break things approach. What does it mean that these kinds of business people are trying to run the government?
like a business? Well, a couple of things, not to be overly flippant, but in terms of business people who have declared bankruptcy, I would say we already knew how to go into debt at the federal level. I would say one of the things that these two people have in common, and I think we are seeing this play out, is they're not really into having other people tell them. what is not possible to do or what is not legal to do. I mean, they have shown very little.
Very little in terms of appreciation for the separation of powers or the existence of the United States Congress. Right. These are people who are used to behaving in autocratic manners. And I. mean that only in the sense that they don't have other people, they don't have other institutions that are out there trying to constrain them in the way that the courts and the Congress were set up by the founders. to try to constrain executive power you know i always tell my students the
The founders did not set up a system to try to promote good things happening. They set up a system to try to prevent bad things from happening. And what is it that prevents those bad things from happening? It's this thing that we call checks and balances or the separation of powers. These two men. have shown very little appreciation for the fact that they are operating in a system where they are not exercising unchecked executive power. I mean, the best example of this to me is not...
Doge. The best example of this to me is the fact that, you know, President Trump has shown more than an interest. you know, in things like shutting down the Agency for International Development or the Department of Education in Impounding funds, meaning refusing to spend them even though they have been provided for by law. You know, that has in the past been viewed not only as illegal but unconstitutional.
And so, you know, they have not said, well, let's go and ask the Congress if they want to continue these programs or not. They've just said, we're going to shut them down. And that certainly is the way that they would have operated as business people. But it is not the way that we historically have expected presidents to operate. I have one last question.
Is this a uniquely American idea that running the government like a business would be better? Or do people and politicians in other countries think like this too? Well, I mean, I guess I would not call it uniquely American. I think probably we're at one end of the continuum in terms of our I'm glorification and I'm using that term advisedly of business and business practices. You know, I think we we exist in a very sort of individualistic culture.
And we have for a long time, you know, sort of suggested that that, you know. being successful in business is really something, you know, to be really valued. I think. You know, for example, there are many other countries where there is a lot more appreciation for the role of being a public servant in government than there is in this country. I think we, you know, we have a tendency here to sort of denigrate government.
service in general, relative to service in the private sector. So I think the notion is more... It's more extreme here in the sense that we kind of assume business good, government bad. And it's certainly a lot more nuanced than that. Well, Philip, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us. This was really great.
Thank you. I really enjoyed being with you. Philip Joyce is a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. You know, Sam, it's so fascinating. I can't quite get past the type of businessmen that we have in government at this point, because there are a lot of people who have been very, very successful at business. And I do say businessmen because it's mostly men.
But, you know, successful at what cost? Right. And you have a lot of venture capital folks. You have a lot of Silicon Valley folks. You have folks with reputations for sort of being. individually successful at business, sometimes at the expense of workers, sometimes at the expense of like kind of crushing other companies or even. maybe difficult workplace environments and things like that. And so...
If we are indeed trying to run the government like a business, which I think we just established you can't really, even what kind of business are you going to run it like? Are you running it like a sweatshop or are you running it like a startup? a startup or a B Corp or what. And also, like, so many businesses fail.
Yeah, I thought that was really interesting when you brought that up because failure in this case is not really an option, right? I mean, I suppose it's always a possibility, but it's not really what you want to open the door to. Yeah, I was doing an interview years ago with someone about, you know, efforts to kind of privatize roadways and operating toll lanes is a way.
They're doing these public private partnerships of letting private companies set up toll lanes to get infrastructure built when the state didn't have money for it. And so you end up with like toll lanes or high speed lanes that. We're charging like 40, $50 tolls during rush hour, but it wasn't going to get built otherwise. But at the same time, that can make money.
What private sector business is going to find a financial incentive to, you know, build a sewer system or rebuild a sewer system for a community, right? Or to operate something like Medicaid. Yeah, these are things where just like the profit margins in terms of what people can pay are never going to equal the cost. And the market forces just don't really work.
Anyway, we'd love to hear from you all. Do you think business practices could improve how the government serves you? Do you think the government should be run more like a business? And if so, how? We'd love to hear your thoughts. 508-827-6278. also known as 508 UB Smart. And we will be right back.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the news cycle, you are not alone. I'm Emma Varvalukas, and along with Progress Network founder Zachary Parabel, I host What Could Go Right, a podcast that looks beyond the headlines to uncover progress happening in the world, even in difficult times.
Each week, we sit down with experts to discuss today's biggest challenges without ignoring the hard stuff. We bring nuance, insight, and a forward-looking perspective to help make sense of the current moment. Fight the urge to do your scroll. Tune in to What Could Go Write instead, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's talk news of the day. Kimberly, what do you got?
It's very much news of the day. I'm watching all of these elections that are happening today. There are special elections in Florida for two House seats that were vacated because of Trump nominations. And then the big, big money race is this Wisconsin Supreme Court race that has drawn a lot of attention and money from Elon Musk, as well as a lot of Democrats.
trying to flip or at least change who's going to control the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And that particular race has broke records in terms of spending on court. And it really is, as the Associated Press points out, a proxy battle for the nation's political fights, pitting a candidate backed by President Donald Trump against a Democratic-aligned challenger. I... think that between now and the midterms and even in the midterms, every single election is going to be so important.
elections that a lot of people maybe didn't pay attention to are going to become pivotal. There's such a narrow majority in the House that all these special elections really, really matter. I think a lot more people are starting to recognize. that who sits on their state Supreme Court, who their state attorney general is, who's even their state representative or state senator has a lot.
of sway in their day to day lives in a way that I don't think a lot of folks noticed until in particular, these abortion fights, a lot of these fights about. you know, LGBTQ rights and things like that that are being rolled back at the federal level and people are starting to notice that what happens at the state level is really going to be crucial for their day-to-day lives. And especially I think because so many people are feeling a little bit.
Helpless to stop what's happening at the federal level or they don't necessarily know how to address some of these drastic changes happening at the federal level. The state level fights feel a little bit more. more actionable for people who... do want to do something to challenge the Trump administration. And so I do think these state level races are going to become more and more important. And every single House seat is going to be a huge battle with big money. And so I'll be very interested.
see the outcome of these elections in Wisconsin and Florida later tonight. For sure. And I think you're right that they're becoming even sort of local races in one or two places are becoming sort of bigger national stories. And also fundraising around the importance of some of these seats is becoming national, right? Like I've seen on social media.
number of appeals to Democrats or people who are, say, opposed to the Trump agenda all over the country to donate to Florida candidates. And I, you know, hadn't seen that so much previously. Yeah, for sure. What do you have? So this is actually something that happened last week, but didn't get a ton of attention. So I wanted to bring it up.
The National Institutes of Health early in the week announced that it was canceling dozens of long COVID research grants. Now, these were existing grants that had been sort of awarded in 2022 or 23, and a lot of this research was well underway. It had been going... on since 22 or 23. Some of these researchers said they were nearing the end of the data collection portion of their studies, which is
really time intensive, right? Like you have to recruit hundreds or thousands of participants, do tests, often follow them for years. And researchers said they were nearing the end of those, that portion of their studies and about to begin the analysis.
and with funding pulled effective immediately, which is what was happening in a number of these cases, that they wouldn't be able to analyze that data and finish the studies, which would have meant that sort of millions of dollars of federal funding that had already been spent. would have effectively have gone to waste. Yeah. And so the long COVID community has a strong group of people who are...
who are advocates, and they really sort of activated and got a lot of people to call representatives and congressmen and senators and sort of say, hey, this is really important. What are you doing? On Friday, NIH announced that it was reinstating many of those grants. And so a lot of the funding is back in place. And it seems sort of like a rare win.
for people who are sort of opposed to a lot of this funding that's being cut on all sorts of programs around the country. And it means that these studies will continue. And, you know, this is really important because there are millions of people in this country who are dealing with serious
life-altering effects from COVID. And there are currently zero approved treatments for long COVID. So this research is really important to try to understand what's going on biologically that's causing these symptoms and then hopefully help find treatment. And I think it's particularly important to highlight what you just said, that
People organize themselves. They contact their members of Congress. They raise the alarm. They made their argument and they change the policy. And we're seeing versions of this around the tariffs that are supposed to be announced. You know, there are all of these industry groups and even members of Congress actively lobbying the Trump administration for exemptions to tariffs or for changes to tariff policy to try to protect their individual industries. And so, you know.
For whatever you want to say about this administration, they are vulnerable to pressure from their key constituencies, whether those be members of Congress, whether those be industry groups. And so individual actions, especially when organized together, do. tend to matter. I was just, Kai would be laughing at me hysterically at this. I was looking at regulations.gov yesterday. We might all laugh at you about that. It's Kimberly's favorite website.
But I was looking because I was curious because I know that like Health and Human Services is dialing back like the types of policies that they're going to be seeking public comment on. And I was wondering, you know, like in with an administration that is so kind of gung ho. as our guest was just saying, about doing whatever they're going to do regardless of the consequences or needing to check in with Congress.
You know, how much are they still asking for public input and will that public input matter? And one of the things that was up on the site seeking public comment was from U.S. Customs and Immigration Services. public comment right now. On this new policy they plan to roll out, which would require people filling out immigration forms to come into the United States on a temporary basis or even longer to provide their social media identifying handles. Yeah.
taking public comment on it right now and whether that will make any difference or not who knows but they are accepting public comment on it until May 5th I believe is what it said so anyway you can still have your say Especially if you go check out what they're looking for comment on on regulations.gov. Exactly. Be a nerd like me. Anyway, that's it for the news. Let's do the mailbag.
Hi, Kimber Kai or Kiberly. This is Bernadette from Atlanta, Georgia. Dan from Boulder, Colorado. I have a bunch of questions. I love the show and y'all are awesome and nerd it out. OK, last week while I was out, Kai and Rima were talking about a community in Arizona that was specifically designed to be car free. And we got this message about it from Ben in Omaha.
One of my main arguments that I always mention about living in a car brain city is that we don't have serendipity anymore. There's no... running into somebody you haven't seen for 20 years. I think about that all the time when I'm driving and I wonder. how many people I've passed, but because I'm in my little metal isolation box driving down the road, I don't pay them any attention. So yeah, I would really love to see a world where we could have more walkable communities.
Metal isolation box. Wow. I love that description of a car. You know that is really interesting and I know like in New York in particular They're really pushing New York City and you know this better than me pushing for more pedestrian only streets and such like that Yeah, and
I will say I just love I do love living in a walkable community. And, you know, the other day, my partner and I were walking down the street and we saw this gorgeous tree and we were admiring it. It was it was all in bloom. And we were talking about. what kind of tree it was. And we weren't totally sure in this.
Guy comes up to us on the sidewalk, very friendly, and says, you know what kind of tree that is? And I said, I don't know, maybe a cherry? And he said, no, it's an apricot. And then he started telling us about the history of the tree and that it used to bear fruit. And then this woman driving down the street popped her head out and was talking to him.
and they clearly knew each other and she knew about the tree bearing fruit. And it was just this delightful, random sidewalk New York interaction that makes it. That's one of the things I love about living here or just in a walkable community in general. So I'm with you, Ben.
I went on vacation in Venice, Italy, a little while ago, and the city is completely... completely car free like you can get into like the suburbs in your car but then at some point you just have to either walk or take like the gondolas and the water taxis there are no cars allowed and when we were walking around with the tour guide she was
constantly being stopped and talking to people. She like knew all these shop owners and she knew all these people and people were just like chatting and saying, you know, how like welcoming us because we were with somebody that they knew. And it was really, really. Delightful. Yeah. Yeah. That is so awesome.
Well, here's to more walkable communities. And before we go, we are going to play you this answer to the make me smart question, which is what is something you thought you knew, but later found out you were wrong about. This week's answer is from Corinne Kratz. cultural anthropologist at Emory University, and she actually has some thoughts on the question itself. When you do the make me smart question, I've often thought to myself, cultural anthropologists deal with this all the time.
Our work is built on trying to see the world from different perspectives. I thought of this again recently when an anthropology journal published a set of articles called I Was Wrong. With scholars telling stories about moments they realized their fundamental beliefs were off, the range of stories shows that realizations come in different ways. Sometimes it's gradual, through immersing in another culture. Other times it's more like a lightning bolt.
and countering a different perspective. But in every case, these moments and realizations matter. It can be powerful to recognize when we're wrong. That self-reflection can reshape the way we think and how we interact with and understand the world and each other. I think that's so key, especially that bit about immersing yourself in another culture and how that can just drastically change your perspectives on things when you really...
actually try to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. Those series of articles that she was referencing there, we're going to put a link to that on our show notes. I can't wait to go and have a look at some of those. I was going to say that's great. I really want to read those because I feel like we live in a culture and in a moment where people do rarely.
say they were wrong and change or question their fundamental beliefs, maybe something minor, but sort of those deeply held fundamental beliefs that we all have about all sorts of things, I think it's pretty unusual for people to really change them. And I'd be curious to learn more about what actually makes people change them.
Yeah, I mean, like when was the last time you really changed your mind about something? Something that you really, I mean, something you thought you knew, but later found out you were wrong about. It's a... I do think you're right about us being in kind of a cultural moment about you. It's so easy to find. content and voices to validate your own way of thinking and be isolated by the algorithm from counter perspectives and then you know what does it take then to break out of that
bubble or that silo and actually change your mind. Yeah. Well, we want to hear what you think about this. Send us your answer to the Make Me Smart question. Leave us a voice message at 508. 827-6278 or 508-UBSMART. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergseger. Our intern is Zohan Malik. Today's program was engineered by Juan Carlos Torado with Mixing Down Later by Mingxing Qiguan.
Ben Tallade and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodner is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is executive director of digital. And Marketplace's vice president and general manager is Neil Scarborough. If there's one thing we know about social media, it's that misinformation is everywhere, especially when it comes to personal finance.
Financially Inclined from Marketplace is a podcast you can trust to help you get serious about your money so you can build a life you've always dreamed of. I'm the host, Janelia Espinal. And each week I ask experts important money questions like how to negotiate job offers, how to choose a college that you can afford, and how to talk about money with friends and family. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.