livingston
20×102mm Vulcan
What Washington Gets Wrong
written by Benjamin Ginsberg October 11, 2016
At a Washington dinner party, I happened to be seated next to an executive of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency responsible for Americans’ health care. I mentioned that Jennifer Bachner and I had undertaken a survey of Washington officials to find out what the government thought of the people. It would become the basis of our new book, published this month, What Washington Gets Wrong.
My dinner companion expressed some bewilderment and asked why we needed a survey to learn the obvious. According to this experienced public servant, “everyone knew” that Washington officialdom did not think much of the American people. After a pause she added, “Many of the people are quite stupid, aren’t they?”
We have heard condescending comments like this from public officials too many times to have been surprised. Those of us who live in and around Washington, D.C. often hear such remarks from federal officials of all stripes. Officials like to point to opinion surveys as well as their own occasional encounters with ordinary citizens as proof that most Americans are fools and their views on public issues not worth much attention. Most Americans are taught theirs is a “popular government” by elected officials. This concept, however, as applied to contemporary America is misleading. Most of America’s national government today is not popular.
It consists, instead, of administrative agencies staffed by unelected officials and linked to constellations of contractors, think tanks, quasi-governmental entities, and other elements of the Washington policy community that each year collectively write thousands of pages of rules and regulations possessing the force of law. This unelected government, though formally subordinate to Congress and the president, arguably does much of the actual governing of the United States, remaining in power year after year as presidents and congresses come and go. In many respects, this unelected bureaucracy is the real government of the United States.
We spent a year surveying these government officials and others in the Washington policy community. What we concluded after analyzing the results was disturbing. We learned that those who actually govern our nation do not think very highly of the American people. Many civil servants expressed utter contempt for the citizens they nominally served. We find, for example, that 72% of government officials think the public knows little or nothing about programs aimed at helping the poor and more than 60% think the public likewise knows almost nothing about childcare. Our survey also shows that government officials and ordinary Americans disagree on a lot of things.
Interestingly, though, government officials are convinced that they hold policy positions even more removed from those of the general public than is actually the case. This is a phenomenon called “false uniqueness,” which usually means that one group believes that it is so much above the other in wisdom and intelligence that they cannot possibly agree on important matters. For example, 75% of the officials we surveyed believed that they disagreed with ordinary Americans on a number of key policy questions when, in fact, only about 12% disagreed on these questions. Many officials seem so blinded by their disdain for the citizenry that they cannot see the areas of agreement that might actually exist.
Even more disturbing, our findings show that officials don’t think it’s very important to heed the will of those they govern. With respect to policies that aid the poor, for example, only 12% of officials think they should follow public opinion. In the areas of social security and welfare, these numbers are a mere 18% and 13%. These findings seem inconsistent with the notion that a democratic government ought to be responsive to the public’s will.
We suggest that this disdain and disregard for the public results, at least in part, from the wide gulf in the life experiences of ordinary Americans and the denizens of official Washington.
More at
What Washington Gets Wrong
written by Benjamin Ginsberg October 11, 2016
At a Washington dinner party, I happened to be seated next to an executive of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency responsible for Americans’ health care. I mentioned that Jennifer Bachner and I had undertaken a survey of Washington officials to find out what the government thought of the people. It would become the basis of our new book, published this month, What Washington Gets Wrong.
My dinner companion expressed some bewilderment and asked why we needed a survey to learn the obvious. According to this experienced public servant, “everyone knew” that Washington officialdom did not think much of the American people. After a pause she added, “Many of the people are quite stupid, aren’t they?”
We have heard condescending comments like this from public officials too many times to have been surprised. Those of us who live in and around Washington, D.C. often hear such remarks from federal officials of all stripes. Officials like to point to opinion surveys as well as their own occasional encounters with ordinary citizens as proof that most Americans are fools and their views on public issues not worth much attention. Most Americans are taught theirs is a “popular government” by elected officials. This concept, however, as applied to contemporary America is misleading. Most of America’s national government today is not popular.
It consists, instead, of administrative agencies staffed by unelected officials and linked to constellations of contractors, think tanks, quasi-governmental entities, and other elements of the Washington policy community that each year collectively write thousands of pages of rules and regulations possessing the force of law. This unelected government, though formally subordinate to Congress and the president, arguably does much of the actual governing of the United States, remaining in power year after year as presidents and congresses come and go. In many respects, this unelected bureaucracy is the real government of the United States.
We spent a year surveying these government officials and others in the Washington policy community. What we concluded after analyzing the results was disturbing. We learned that those who actually govern our nation do not think very highly of the American people. Many civil servants expressed utter contempt for the citizens they nominally served. We find, for example, that 72% of government officials think the public knows little or nothing about programs aimed at helping the poor and more than 60% think the public likewise knows almost nothing about childcare. Our survey also shows that government officials and ordinary Americans disagree on a lot of things.
Interestingly, though, government officials are convinced that they hold policy positions even more removed from those of the general public than is actually the case. This is a phenomenon called “false uniqueness,” which usually means that one group believes that it is so much above the other in wisdom and intelligence that they cannot possibly agree on important matters. For example, 75% of the officials we surveyed believed that they disagreed with ordinary Americans on a number of key policy questions when, in fact, only about 12% disagreed on these questions. Many officials seem so blinded by their disdain for the citizenry that they cannot see the areas of agreement that might actually exist.
Even more disturbing, our findings show that officials don’t think it’s very important to heed the will of those they govern. With respect to policies that aid the poor, for example, only 12% of officials think they should follow public opinion. In the areas of social security and welfare, these numbers are a mere 18% and 13%. These findings seem inconsistent with the notion that a democratic government ought to be responsive to the public’s will.
We suggest that this disdain and disregard for the public results, at least in part, from the wide gulf in the life experiences of ordinary Americans and the denizens of official Washington.
More at
What Washington Gets Wrong
