Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age - Jennifer Pahlka

Come join Triangle Heterodox in reading Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and Why We Can Do Better.

"The book I wish every policymaker would read" - Ezra Klein

With Trump and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency having made the headlines for its massive disruption, cuts, and shuttering of government programs in the name of making government more efficient, we are going to look at the question of government inefficiency and failure seriously.

Jennifer Pahlka was Obama's Deputy Chief Technology Officer, founder of Code America, and one of Wired's "25 people who have most shaped the past 25 years". In particular, she was brought in to retool the Affordable Care Act website after the original issues with its rollout. She would go on to be a co-founder of the U.S. Digital Service, which was renamed and restructured under DOGE.

Recoding America makes the case that improving how government works will require more than just applying new technology to government or loosening regulations, instead pointing to addressing cultural aspects of government, including the unique number of horizontal, diagonal, and even subordinate veto-points. Avoiding making simplistic evaluations of government's problems, while still taking the problems of bureaucracy seriously, Recoding America will be a chance to think about the question of government efficiency soberly.

In This House, We're Angry When Government Fails - NYT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT4lxJKj0I0

Pahlka on DOGE
https://archive.ph/XbdCm