I think if you are merely looking at

income, the lower down you go, you are

spending more time interacting with the

government and you're not getting the

nice parts, right? Like you're not

getting the oo, I'm visiting an American

embassy abroad parts. You're getting the

standing in line and pee in a cup parts.

One of the big problems in left politics

is that the very people who Democrats

and liberals and socialists think should

be the most excited about big new

government programs meant to help them

are often the least excited.

[cheering]

>> We're often voting for the party that

wants to cut government.

>> It's not possible for us to take care of

daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these

individual things. And one reason for

this, a reason I think we don't talk

about nearly enough is that oftentimes

their experience with the government is

horrible. Their experience with

government programs meant to help them

is not just inefficient,

it's punitive,

it's humiliating,

it's controlling.

That's because sometimes those programs

are built to humiliate, punish, and

control them.

Annie Lowry is a staff writer at The

Atlantic. She's the author of the new

book, The Time Tax, [music] which is all

about this. She's also my wife. We are

married, so we talk about this a lot at

home. [music] She joins me now.

Annie Lowry, welcome back to the show.

>> Thank you for having me. [laughter]

So, I think people might imagine that I

know everything about this book,

>> but but in fact, like when you live with

a writer, they will not let you ask

anything about their book while they're

working on it.

>> Oh gosh. No. And it's also we have very

different like work habits. So, I write

almost exclusively between like 1000

p.m. and 4:00 a.m. which is when you are

sleeping and getting up to [laughter]

meditate because you're like a normal

person. So, I feel like there's a real

ships in the night quality to all of

this.

>> Yeah. So, this is a huge opportunity for

[laughter] me. So to finally find out

what this book is about.

>> Yeah. No, it comes out shortly. So I'm

glad that you'll finally be acquainted

with it.

>> So I want to start simply.

>> Yeah.

>> What's a time tax?

The time tax is the burden of work

whether that's emotional work,

logistical work, uh you know like

learning knowledge work that goes into

any paperwork or bureaucratic process in

which you are the enduser. So it's

basically thinking of bureaucracy's

effect on the people who are being

bureaucratized.

you you're sort of describing them here

as irksome, but you sometimes have

another definition of it I've heard you

use, which I always find very vivid

where you describe the time text as

administrative burdens as a tool of

social control.

>> Yes.

>> What do you mean by control there?

>> These things seem neutral. There's this

understanding, right? If you're going to

get something, there's going to be some

paperwork,

but these are not infrequently

purposeful. They are designed to make

people feel good about themselves in

their relationship visa v the government

or feel bad about themselves in their

relationship visa v the government. So

they're one of the ways that we

construct class. Uh they're a way that

we make sure that people can get

something and make sure that some people

can't. So the way that I think of them

is that they are a regressive filter on

progressive policies. It's out there,

but it's going to be so hard to get that

a lot of people aren't going to get it.

And I don't think that we really think

about the way that we have this

regressive filter on a lot of

progressive policies.

There a way in some ways in terms of

just social control, right? We use work

requirements to supposedly get people to

work. They're not terribly effective at

that depending on the program, right? We

can use them to encourage people to get

an education. We can use it to shape

economic decisions, household financial

decisions.

>> See if you're taking drugs.

>> Yeah. What can you what can you buy with

this? Um, the SNAP program, uh, you have

to get food that you're cooking

yourself. You can't get hot food. So,

you can't, you know,

>> can't get a rotisserie chicken at

Costco. You

>> can't get a rotisser chicken, but you

can get uh like food that you microwave

at your house, right? That's actually

like that's not just like about

nutrition. That's that's a method of

control, right? We don't want you just

using this uh to be easy. We want you

cooking your own groceries. Um, and

there's, funnily enough, in a lot of

states, there's exemptions for people

who are unstably housed or homeless

because it's really hard to cook for

yourself if you're not living anywhere.

SNAP cards are good, right? Um, EBT

cards now, they work just right. It's

like your Visa, but it used to be that,

you know, still, and in some cases

still, right, like you have to separate

out the grocery orders. It makes you

very visible to other people in the

grocery store that you're using it. And

I think that that is like a social

outcome too.

>> A tool of humiliation.

>> Yeah. They want to humiliate you or they

are willing to humiliate you so that you

can feed your kid. And so that's what I

mean when I say that these are social

tools, right? And they come with this

kind of time veilance. They come with

this financial veilance and then they

come with an emotional veilance too. You

have a a good line in the book where you

say poverty is a social construct not

just a material state of being [snorts]

and the time tax is part of its

construction with forms, summones and

sanctions. The government impresses upon

poor people that it is their fault they

are poor. It applies skepticism to the

needy, the overwhelmed and the unlucky

that it does not apply to the powerful

and wealthy. It does that but it also

adds and and you say it this way in

other places like a part-time job.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. You're already behind. are

already struggling with the basics of

life and now you have to do all of this.

You've been reporting with someone in

Utah which like I feel like is a very

good example of this. Do you want to

talk through that?

>> Yeah.

Um Marcela is a single mom of three kids

and she's a manicurist

and so she is low income and there's so

much that I admire about her. Um, she

has just been handed a lot and she has

worked so hard to make her life better

and her kids life better. When I met

her, she was going to school so that

like aesthetician school so that she

could perform different services, higher

value services. When I saw her a couple

weeks ago, she has this idea for kind of

like a nail tech thing. She'd gone to

the University of Utah to ask about like

what is a copyright and a trademark? Can

they help her patent it? She had found

an American producer, like a made in the

USA producer. And she had been helped by

an amazing nonprofit based in Salt Lake

City called Circles, which is

self-empowerment, right? Uh people come

to these meetings, they get advice, but

they're really focusing on getting their

income up and and you know having help

and accountability towards a plan and it

is this enormously enormously great

resource that's very different than the

experience that people often get when

they're walking into a benefit office

there.

and she um uses public assistance,

Medicaid,

other program, SNAP, and uh she was

labeled as a fraud risk 9 years ago.

And she [snorts] sort of describes this

as a paperwork error. She didn't mean to

do it, but she can't like afford a tax

person. And she didn't know how to, you

know, talk to the state about like, hey,

we the nail salon I was working kind of

screwed me over on this. What? and she

paid some restitution to the state. The

dollar amount is really low. And ever

since then, she has to reapply for her

benefits every month or two.

Years later, and these benefits are

meant to help her kids, she has never

had any issues since then. And the state

of Utah has kicked her off of one

benefit or another more than 120 times.

120 times and she doesn't have a lot of

choice, right? She's got kids to feed in

a very literal sense and it's like what

what is the point here?

>> But it's still just a lot of time. I

mean, you have this scene where she's

being helped by I think at least in part

social workers and they're just

befuddled in front of their computer.

>> Yeah. It takes hours and hours and hours

>> and she doesn't have a computer, right?

>> She doesn't have a she just got one. But

she didn't she didn't have a laptop. She

didn't have Wi-Fi, right? She was, you

know, went on on on on at some point

with me about how hard it was to like

get a photo on her cell phone and send

it as a fax because she needed to do

that. [laughter]

And she's like, "How do I how do I do

this thing?" And I'm like, "Why do you

got to why do you have to send anything

as a fax?" But you do. And the amount of

time, the amount of stress, and it's why

I think that she's such an amazing

person that she has managed to figure

things out in spite of this. So yes, she

gets the help, but it comes with this

tremendous cost

>> and it's time she can't spend with her

kids working her way out of poverty,

being a mother,

>> doing anything, right?

>> Working on her nail business.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> And I I just always think this is such

an underrated like there's all you talk

about some of it in the book and this

has been like a obsession at times in

our household. There's a huge cognitive

cost to poverty.

>> Yeah.

>> That being poor is like being sleepless.

>> Yes. And like we've people have like

done this, they have looked at it, they

have done all kinds of experiments.

>> It's equivalent to pulling an allnighter

>> and it's just constant like thinking

about things and mental weight and it

just makes it harder

>> to pull out that if the point of the

state was to make it easier to not be

poor that these states that believe the

way you're going to do that is wrapping

people in procedure and humiliation.

It's exactly the opposite. Oh,

>> the like

you need to make it easier for people to

move forward in their life, not harder.

Yes.

>> Like if you're poor, it's hard

enough,

>> right? And there's this idea, the ordeal

mechanism theory, so this is this like

very, you know, probably nobody has ever

heard of this. Comes out in the 1980s

that basically in government programs,

you want to make them a bit of an

ordeal. And what that is going to do is

that is going to get people who don't

really need the benefit not to get it,

right? It's going to discourage them.

>> Um, and it's also going to help you

protect about against fraud. It's going

to, you know, increase the public's

confidence in a given program. And I

think layered onto that is this idea,

this almost puritanical notion, if

you're getting something, you got to

work for it. It shouldn't just come to

you. And so if you're not working or not

working enough in the labor market, you

should you should have to work for these

things. You shouldn't just get them. And

in fact, you needed to have all of these

little structures and these rules in

order to build the kind of mass public's

trust. But this didn't always totally

make sense to me because it's not like

people liked welfare better after 96.

It's not like a more popular. Nobody's

like, "Oh, that's a really great program

today."

So I don't think that adding

administrative burdens to it improved

it.

>> But so then what happens in 96?

>> Today we are ending welfare as we know

it. But I hope this day will be

remembered not for what it ended but for

what it began.

>> In 96 uh the program is required to have

work requirements. It's required to have

sanctions for non-compliant users of the

program. There's a time limit. You can

only get it for five years. no matter

how many kids you have, right? If you

have one kid and then you have a kid 10

years later, like you're not going to

get TANIF, right? It stops being an

entitlement. So, if you meet the

criteria, you don't necessarily get the

benefit. It gets block granted to the

state. And they've never changed the

block grant amount, even adjusting for

inflation. It's still 16.5 trillion

dollars per year. So tiny, tiny, tiny,

tiny, tiny. From now on, our nation's

answer to this great social challenge

will no longer be a never- ending cycle

of welfare. It will be the dignity, the

power, and the ethic of work.

Today, we are taking an historic chance

to make welfare what it was meant to be,

a second chance, not a way of life.

>> For the people who are receiving the

money, they have to do so much work to

get this really poulry benefit. and the

benefit is so hard for them to get and

the application is not just difficult to

do but the application is like

humiliating,

embarrassing,

something that nobody actually wants to

do often because the benefit is so

small. So one example of this is that

let's say that you were a teenage parent

and you weren't married to the father of

your children. state requires you to

identify the father of your child to the

state so that they can go after the dad

for child support. And you might think,

okay, that's like reasonable, right?

Like maybe that helps the non-custodial

parent become more involved in the life

of their kid. But if you actually talk

to mothers who are complying with this,

they say things like, "I actually have a

pretty good relationship with that guy,

but he's really poor." and like what if

he becomes homeless because he's been

garnished for child support or they

might say I was in an abusive

relationship and I don't want to

identify the father of my child to

somebody I don't trust right to some

state admin what I'm going to tell them

about one of the hardest things that

happened in my entire life and so

non-compliance with the child support

rules which again I think they have a

fine theory behind ind them leads to in

some cases like half of the people who

get sanctioned by the program which is

this sort of punitive you're not

complying with the rules we're going to

claw your benefits back um depending on

the state are sanctioned for that one

policy alone and tannif now is so

ineffective

that it does not actually

change the child poverty rate it has no

effect on it is like one of my favorite

right the program that we have that has

this supposed goal has gotten so jumbled

up and the money goes to so many

different things and the states

administer this program often with such

cruelty that it doesn't actually do

anything.

>> So I think this gets it the the big

distinction operating across a lot of

these programs which is the programs

where we intuitively or by default think

people are deserving.

>> Yes. and the programs where we treat

them intuitively or by default, right,

the government does, right,

>> with suspicion. They they have to prove

themselves worthy.

>> Mhm.

>> And I think it's useful to sort of jump

back and forth a little bit between

them.

The postal service is kind of an amazing

example here of a program uh of a

government um operation

>> that just decided everybody is worthy of

getting their mail delivered

>> no matter where they live. You you talk

about a a art project I guess by Steven

>> Brower

>> um at New York's uh school of visual

arts. Can you just talk about that and

talk about the post office as a kind of

counter example here?

>> Yeah, absolutely. So, he has these

students, art students I think, and he

asked them to send him a letter. So,

these students, they draw maps, they

make pictures, like they write things in

kind of unusual type faces and fashions,

right? And they're art students and

basically all of the mail gets to him

because the postal workers like figure

it out. They look at the map and they're

like, "Okay, like we'll take it. You

know, it has a stamp on it. We're gonna

try." Or they're like shading and

oluding and trying to figure the

addresses out. And I think that the

postal service has this service

orientation. It is in so many ways like

the most amazing service I think in

American life. They operate everywhere.

You don't have to register your address.

They deliver mail by skiff in some

cases. It's like I think like those

boats that you do this they deliver mail

by mule to the base of the Grand Canyon.

>> Who who lives at the base of the Grand

Canyon and has a

>> there's a hotel there and there's a a

Native American reservation I believe is

there. There's people down there. They

make a good faith effort to get mail to

everyone.

>> But this gets to the question of

deserving undeserving.

We have decided you are deserving of

getting your mail delivered. You live

somewhere. There's not a question.

>> Medicare, you turn 65.

>> That's it.

>> It happens pretty easily. And we were

talking about this in in the team as we

were preparing for this and and one of

the questions somebody saying, well,

it's like, well, that's easy because

it's just when people are are getting to

retirement age, but no, these social

security in the sense that uh you get

different amounts depending on what your

income has been, what you've paid in.

Medicare has multiple programs within

it.

>> So, why are they easy? Is it like a lack

of administrative complexity in figuring

out who it is or is it something else?

>> Seniors vote.

Uh seniors are enormously politically

powerful as a constituency in the United

States.

This is a contributo benefit. And

there's this idea that the government is

kind of saving your money and giving it

back to you. That I think is

a pleasant fiction. That's not how it

works.

>> Yes. Regardless, there's this idea that

yeah, if you don't earn social security,

you're not going to get social security.

And I would, you know, there's

tremendous amounts of beautiful

political science research that shows

that participating in social security

makes you civic, makes you feel like an

American, and then you'll come out as a

constituency to defend it. And a lot of

other programs don't have that. Many

other programs don't have that.

>> You talk a bit about the research on

this of what happens when you interface

or depend on programs that humiliate you

that make you jump through a lot of

hoops. What does happen?

uh the work that I like on this one of

the great pieces of work on this and

there's a lot in political science and

there is a lot in sociology

um is this work by Joe Sauce and he

looks at moms who are on cash welfare

and compares them to moms that are

similarly situated in income terms but

aren't getting the program

and he finds that welfare makes people

withdraw,

right? It makes them less civic, less

likely to vote. They develop this

adversarial relationship with the state

because they see the state as being um a

source of aid and help, but also a

tremendous threat to them and their

children personally. And the government

through programs like this is imparting

a sense of worth on people, political

worth, right?

It's saying, "Well, maybe you deserve to

be treated like this. Maybe this is how

much we care about you."

And people absorb that feeling. You get

the sense that Social Security cares

about you. You get the sense that the

postal service cares about you. One of

the parts of the book I found very

moving is in the latter half you you

tell these two stories and one of the

people is she works for sort of a

boutique real estate agency.

>> Mhm.

>> And she gets a a bad head injury.

>> Yep.

>> And she's treated she ends up in what

you describe as like a paperwork vortex

with the state. But is she and her

family sort of react to that as an

injustice?

>> Yes. like they I don't know what their

income background is, but but clearly

they're not used to being treated this

way by the state.

>> She's college educated. Siblings are

college educated. Yeah.

>> And you compare it to someone who

doesn't come from that and how much

they're just like, yeah, this is the way

the state treats me. But it it reminded

me and and I often think that people

they'll look at how sort of

working-class voters are often less

trusting of the government, right? They

vote more Republican now. Yeah. Yeah.

>> And they sort of think there's just a

strange like a false consciousness there

or it's all culture issues. But often

times working class voters have terrible

experiences with the government.

>> Awful.

>> And I think that's actually quite

underplayed in why sometimes they are

not as enthusiastic

about, you know, liberal or, you know,

leftist government programs as one would

think, right? Like you know, if you've

had good experiences with the

government, you think, think, think,

think, think, think, think, think,

think, think, oh, redistribution, it's

going to be great for everybody.

>> Yeah. But then if you've been on the

business end of redistribution sometimes

it has maybe been really humiliating and

timeconuming for you.

>> Absolutely. This is one of the

complications I think to the what's the

matter with Kansas theory. Right. Um

>> which is that these are voters voting

against self-interest.

>> Yeah. They're voting against their own

self-interest. Right. Yes. The people

who are middle class, who are college

educated, I have spoken with and there

are many who have the bumpy fall down

the income ladder and then have to

interact with the government as a

supplicant who is there begging for help

are traumatized. Often they're like,

"Wait, you're treating me like I'm

poor?" And they don't conceive of

themselves as being poor. They conceive

of themselves as having a hard time. And

that's fair and fine. But yes, I think

if you are merely looking at income, the

lower down you go, you are spending more

time interacting with the government and

you're not getting the nice parts,

right? Like you're not getting the oo,

I'm visiting an American embassy abroad

parts. You're getting the standing in

line and pee in a cup parts. You're

getting the I'm going to humiliate you.

I'm going to treat you like you're a

fraud risk.

But then again, there are some parts of

the government that even highincome

folks deal with that are absolutely

miserable. They just have more capacity

to handle it.

>> I want to get to the parts that rich

people do interact with in a second, but

I had asked you uh before this if you

had a favorite time text, if you had a

favorite form, a thing that exemplified

what you're talking about here. And and

so maybe as a way of illustrating what

we're actually describing. Um you said

you did. What is it?

>> The DHS 1171.

>> Oh, of course. [laughter]

Um,

there is a guy named Michael Brennan who

used to run one of the United Ways in

Michigan and now runs a firm that helps

the government and other, you know,

agencies redesign enrollment processes

and things like that around people,

human- centered design. and he for years

carried around the DHS 1171 in his

pocket, like a little miniature version

of it.

>> You meet the most interesting people.

>> I do. I do. I'm an [laughter] I'm an

extrovert. I'll yap with anybody. But he

um you know and it reminded me of right

like a priest carrying the Bible or like

a lot of politicians are constantly they

love miniature constitutions

and uh that was because this was the

main application for aid in the state of

Michigan and it was uh 18,000 words and

a thousand questions. a thousand

questions.

>> A thousand questions.

And you might not have to answer all of

those, but regardless, if you're like,

I'm not sure if I can feed my kids, this

is the form that you're filling out. And

so, Michael Brownin and his

organization, Cilla, helped to redesign

it. But until recently, this was the

form. And I have it if we want to look

at it. Okay.

>> Love a prop.

>> So, this is on kind of like two-sided

paper. So, it's actually kind of smaller

than it, you know, but take a look here

at the what that says. What that

>> I just the idea that you would be handed

this for. This is heavy, by the way.

[laughter]

>> Yeah, it is heavy.

>> Um,

>> and it's really hard. You look at it.

It's like it's hard to read. It's like,

do I have to do all of this?

>> Oh my god.

>> So, look at

>> I I do want I've not seen this one

before. This is a lot of boxes.

>> It's terrible.

>> If this person is under 22, complete

this section. Who paid for this child's

birth expenses? State, parents, another

person. What was a marital status of the

mother while pregnant with this child?

If married or divorced, marriage date,

separation date, divorce date, order,

county, state, order, county, state. If

single, this child's conception date,

city for the same question, conception,

city, state, country, has an affidavit

of parentage or court order name someone

as a father,

>> where your kid was conceived.

>> Doctors don't ask you that.

This is the state telling poor people to

go themselves. That's what that is.

I cannot imagine

how upsetting it must be to already be

in a state of risk or distress

>> and you're going to the state for help

like for help and they're like, "Oh, was

your kid what day was your kid

conceived?

>> What day was your kid?" I don't know

what day our kids were conceived.

>> Nobody does.

That's not like a thing. And

What is the state telling you when it

asks you that?

>> It's also just a kind of if you go

through this form,

>> it's it's very intimidating as a form.

>> It's hard to read.

>> It's hard to read.

>> It's like it's enormous.

>> It tells you a lot that if you like I'm

just looking at the front. It's like if

you don't give correct information. I

mean, what if you get the conception

date wrong? I look at something like

this and and here's my question for you

about it.

Is the way you understand this form that

the government here was

incompetent, rulebound,

fetishistic of procedure? Or is the way

you understand this form more the way

you said it a minute ago that this is

not a government that is not thinking

about the time tax? This is a government

with exquisite sense of what the time

tax can do. This is government

weaponizing the time tax because it does

not want people to complete this form

>> because it wants you to get it. And its

view of you is if you're asking us for

help, you should pay. And if you can't

pay with money, if we're going to have

to support you,

>> then you better really need it.

>> And the way we know if you really need

it is if you will subjugate yourself

before us. If you will humiliate

yourself in this way. and that it you

know in this telling right not my view

acts as a

virtuous disincentive to people going on

the public do

>> I think it is all of the above oftent

times I think that these documents kind

of happen by accretion there's some

state laws there's some federal laws

they ask that you figure this out some

of it's well-intentioned like maybe

we'll get you this extra little bit of

assistance if we know that you're at

risk in these categories

But this is constructed by people who

have a law degree and are talking to

lobbyists and are wearing suits. And it

is constructed to meet the state's needs

of like, okay, what do we feel like we

need from these people? What are the

legal requirements?

What given our processes do we need?

This is not a form that is constructed

with people in mind. the end user, the

citizen, the person who's actually at

risk.

>> But so you're saying the the way you're

describing this, you're saying you

actually think this is coming from a

government that sees rules, not people,

not a government that correctly

understands what it is attempting to do.

>> All of the above. And I think that we

have a great example of this in HR1,

which is currently rolling out, which is

applying a nationwide work requirement

in the Medicaid program.

>> This is the one big beautiful bill act.

>> One big beautiful bill act. So, so yeah,

describe that. So, the main pay for

which is not pay for all the tax cuts

but pays for some of them are work

requirements in Medicaid and SNAP.

>> Yeah, it extends them in SNAP. SNAP

already has work requirements

>> which is food stamps the modern name for

it.

>> And so, uh there's some just

straightforward SNAP cuts. So, refugees

and asles get cut from the program in

some cases. Um, and then in SNAP food

stamps, it uh takes the work requirement

and it extends it to some categories

that didn't have to comply with it

before, older Americans, for instance.

But then what it does is it takes the

Medicaid program and just stop for a

second. Medicaid is not a cash benefit.

You can't do anything with Medicaid

except for get healthcare. So the idea

that you would get Medicaid and you

would stop working or would just be

living on the dole is kind of silly,

right? But for the first time ever, uh

it is applying a nationwide work

requirement to non-disabled adults in

the Medicaid program. And that is the

engine, the cash engine driving tax cuts

for the wealthy. Not because those

people are not poor enough to get on

Medicaid, but merely because most of

those people will not be able to comply

with the work requirement because it's

so ownorous. Th

>> this is a I I want to stop here because

both because it's a good example and

because it's a really massive policy

change about to go into effect.

>> It's huge.

>> You try to think about this. It's like

what is Medicaid for? Yes. We think

people should be able to have healthcare

even if they're poor.

>> Yes. So now you imagine a person who is

poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.

>> Yeah. And you got to be really poor,

138% of the federal poverty line, which

is really low,

>> and either

>> Mhm.

>> cannot find a job.

>> Yep.

>> Or cannot get it together in a way where

they can like work their way through the

paperwork and continuously prove that

they're looking for a job in the right

ways. And different states are going to

implement this and places will implement

this in different ways with different

levels of uh difficulty for the people

they are testing.

What is what about society is improved

if that person now has no coverage when

they have a heart attack?

>> Beats me and they're going to go to the

ER and it's going to be uncompensated

care that somebody will pay just not

Washington. So, will the individual pay

because they're not going to get treated

for that health condition that they

have? I think about this all the time.

I'm a type 1 diabetic. No insulin. I'm

dead in couple weeks. I don't know,

maybe longer. And you are creating this

burden where many people on Medicaid are

already working if they can. Notably,

they just don't make enough or they

don't have a job like a nice fancy job

like we have that comes with health

insurance, right? or they can only get,

you know, a part-time job or whatever.

They have caretaking responsibilities.

These are not generally people who are

just like sitting at home not working

>> and they're not people who have other

health insurance options for the most

part. I mean, the thing that I always

thought was the most telling about this

move was that it was not done on its

own. You could imagine a world where

they did like a big Medicaid reform

package and they decided we want to have

work requirements and they thought about

how to implement them. I would oppose

that like all the way through.

>> Yeah. But it was telling that this was

done to get savings so richer people get

tax cuts.

>> Yes, absolutely. And there was this

tremendous, you know, uh Donald Trump

promised that he wasn't cutting

Medicaid, right? This is going to be

easy to comply with and what we're going

to do is we're going to get people like

they kept on citing young men, young men

who aren't working to get Medicaid.

We're going to get them to work.

>> We're also the cheapest people to

insure, by the way.

>> Yeah. don't really use a lot of

healthare young men generally, but we

actually know that putting a work

requirement in Medicaid doesn't raise

employment rates because some states

have had work requirements. There's some

local programs, they've gotten waiverss

basically to implement them. And when

they do this, the employment rate

doesn't go up. What happens is that it

is a big paperwork cluster and

it's expensive for the state to

administer and it's hard for people to

comply with.

and then they lose their insurance and

they find out when they're in the ER,

right? Because oftentimes if you are,

you know, a younger person, you're

managing this, that, and the other, you

might not really realize that you're not

insured until all of a sudden you're

like, "Oh, I've dislocated my shoulder

or I have something that really needs to

be checked out." So, yes, as you were

saying, this does not work unless it

kicks people off. And they said it

wasn't a cut. They said they're not

cutting, but how are you going to get a

trillion dollars from the program

without cutting? Um, I would also note

that the predominant recipients of

government benefits, they, you know,

they're always saying it's about the

young guys who don't want to work.

They're women. Women who are much more

likely to be taking care of kids, much

more likely to spend a lot more time

doing that, much more likely to be the

person who is managing the household.

And I think that there is a lack of

integrity. I think it would be one thing

to come out and say, "We're cutting.

We're kicking people off Medicaid. They

should figure out how to get insurance

in some other way." That is a terrible

policy, but at least it's honest.

This

This isn't honest.

And I was talking with somebody who runs

a health clinic uh that serves an

indigent, mostly homeless population of

folks, many of whom have a substance

abuse problem.

And these people, the treatment that

they often need is inpatient psychiatric

treatment and then wraparound supports

to help them get stable. And we know

that that is the best way to help them.

That is often what they are seeking.

That is the care that they get. They're

all going to lose their insurance.

because they're not going to be able to

comply with this. They don't have

phones. They don't have computers. How

are you supposed to comply with a work

requirement if you're sleeping in a

tent?

One of the things that people are very

well rewarded for in modernity

>> is the kind of mind that is very good at

managing tasks and bureaucracies and

information that like works with

symbolic information very smoothly that

has a lot of executive function that

wakes up in the morning and you know

does your morning pages and like writes

out your task list by the end of the

night. You're laughing at me because

>> you're describing yourself. [laughter]

Um, I I I'm I hue to a task. It's true.

>> The great irony is that I've married

somebody who's good at this stuff

because I do. I have a driver's license.

Do I know where it is? Nope.

>> I think one yes to the first and no to

the second.

>> Yeah. I think it exists someplace in

[laughter] time and space. I've

literally talked to my therapist on the

phone and we have opened the mail

together.

>> So, good good insight there. Good

insight there. [laughter]

If you don't have that, right? If for

all kinds of reasons, you know, people

have addiction issues.

>> Yes.

>> People grew up in homes where they were

badly traumatized. People are operating

under all kinds of other burdens.

People's minds are neurode divergent in

a certain way. People have terrible

social anxiety.

>> Yeah.

>> That makes it hard to do the things that

society rewards you for, things that

come very naturally to other people.

Mhm.

>> Um, we like pretend that people are all

successful because they either worked

hard or they didn't. And everybody knows

it's

>> Yeah.

>> And the things that help you work hard

and that make you a compulsive worker,

you often don't choose those either.

>> And so you take somebody who is already

struggling with this and maybe that is

part of why they are poor

>> because like they just have trouble

navigating modernity. They have

depression. They have anxiety. They have

other health issues.

And then you begin to pile

bureaucratic procedure on them.

>> Pile forms you have to fill out

>> forms that like routinely I get in late

or that totally

>> we get in late

>> that I that I get in late. To go back to

one thing you were saying before. Yes. I

think that highinccome people have a

often a completely different orientation

towards this kind of paperwork.

And I really like the the Bernard Suits

um uh idea of having a lucery attitude,

right? The lucery attitude is what makes

a game a game. Arbitrary rules and this

like, okay, I'm going to try and win.

And this is the attitude that many

highincome people bring to like for

instance a college application. Yale is

going to make you spend a 100 hours on

the application. You're like, "Oh,

that's another place where I can

achieve." Right? this meocratic idea of,

you know, the harder you work, the the

better a boy you are, right?

>> Or if you you have highriced

accountants, high price tax preparers,

>> it's a game you're trying to win.

>> We've talked about this that

>> sometimes you meet a very highinccome

person in our line of work and the

degree to which they talk about tax

avoidance, they really talk about it all

the time.

>> They're like kind of getting off on it.

Yeah, exactly. Um and you know and I

think that we can both take this sort of

and it's actually it's not just pure

student it's Elizabethan idea of there's

deserving and undeserving and we're

going to separate these to I think that

importantly in the United States this

has to get filtered through the prism of

race right the reason that we do not

have these kind of universally

accessible simple benefits is anti-black

racism uh right a lot of these big

programs are set up during Jim Crow I

know that this sounds kind of overly

declarative, but I don't think it's it's

wrong.

>> You brought up deserving, undeserving,

poor, and one reason that a lot of these

benefits look like this, including in

blue states

>> under Democratic governments that

believe in Medicaid.

>> Yeah.

>> That believe in tanniff,

>> that believe in all kinds of tax credits

and hands up and all the rest of it is

twofold. That one, fraud is a real

problem.

>> Yeah. And two that even just politically

if you believe in these programs if they

develop a reputation

>> yes

>> for helping people for whom that help is

not deserved

>> right

>> the program will be destroyed right this

is functionally what happens to welfare

right we have tanif because the view was

and this was racialized and this was

wrong in many cases but it wasn't wrong

in literally every case that um welfare

reform was helping people that you know

middle America didn't think should be

helped And that got strong enough that a

Democrat was the one who ended up

gutting it.

>> Yep.

>> So what about the arguments, you know,

that actual policy makers make for doing

things this way?

>> I think it's important when you're

thinking about the shift from AFDC to

TANFS. This is what happens in 96.

>> Old welfare to

>> old welfare to new welfare. And old

welfare, it used to be an entitlement.

If you met the criteria, you got it.

That's not true anymore at all.

[laughter]

you can meet the criteria. This is true

for a lot of public programs actually,

housing vouchers, that kind of thing.

You can meet all the criteria, you might

not get it.

>> Um, which is crazy to high-income

people, I think, where it's almost

always like you meet the criteria,

you're going to get it.

>> Yeah. If you have a mortgage, you get

the mortgage interest deduction.

>> Yeah. They're not shuffling around who

gets it and who doesn't.

>> If you're uh eligible for section 8

vouchers, you may not.

>> Yeah. You might not, you know, and you

or you might wait 10 years, 12 years,

right? And it might not be obvious to

you why some people are getting it and

some it's often you know not entirely

obvious to the people within those

organizations either I would note but um

yes the shift to AFDC to TANF is

driven not wholly

but at least strongly by racial concerns

not fraud concerns. Those come together

right? These are two sides of the same

coin. uh the originator the the program

that comes like way earlier is this

mother's pension program which is used

almost it's run at the state level. It's

used almost exclusively by white women

in which you you know if you were a good

widow or a woman who had been abandoned

and you had kids you would have kind of

a social worker come and it was very

paternalistic but you know it was

supposed to be wages for being a mother

and doing the most important work uh in

American life. This is like a old

progressive era policy, right? But then

uh uh when you get ADC, which then

becomes AFDC, this is complicated part

of social security. Um because it's an

entitlement, uh because black women are

more likely to be low wage, you know,

when they have kids. Yeah. They use the

program and the entire program becomes

about, you know, the the media

conception of the program. Whenever they

show images, there's a really great

study by Martin Gland showing that

whenever they show images, they're not

showing white women anymore. Even though

black women are never a majority user of

the program, they are never, they still

aren't. Uh, you know, it's these black

families in urban areas. And that is

partially along with concerns about the

rising cost and everything else is what

leads to this backlash that you can

actually trace the way that politicians

are talking about it. They stop talking

about kids. They start talking about

moms and they start saying that well

these moms need to be working and you

know they start saying well welfare is a

work program and it transforms and that

leads to 96 which then leads to us

there. So I would just note that I think

that when you are thinking about fraud,

it's really important to think about um

the racial diversity in this country and

the way that that has changed the way

that we set our public programs up.

Second thing is that there would be way

less fraud if the programs were simpler

and easier,

right? If you have fewer rules and the

government does more work to determine

like, okay, we're going to look at your

tax returns and figure out if you

actually get this, we're not going to

have asset tests and all these other

little kind of fussy finicky things.

There would be fewer people getting

overpayments, underpayments,

inappropriate payments. I would note

that we have not a great sense of how

much fraud there is in these programs.

We have an improper payment error,

right?

Which is, you know, just right like when

they go back and they look, did you get

too much? Did you get too little? A lot

of it is driven by the by the complexity

of the program itself and the fact that

the government is not doing the work.

It's these people who are kind of

pulling together forms or, you know,

filling out this and oh gosh, who could

imagine anybody filling this out

incorrectly?

And yes, there's fraud. There's

absolutely fraud. I'm not saying that

there isn't

>> fraud is both real and whose fraud we

choose to care about

>> is telling

>> who does a lot of the Medicaid and

Medicare fraud doctors

>> or the um heads of large organizations

like Rick Scott, a senator from Florida

who ran a I believe it's a for-profit

hospital organization that was one of

the largest fraud that had to do one of

the largest fraud settlements with

Medicare in history. Yeah. Separately,

Donald Trump. You got to you got to be

real fancy to do a big Medicare fraud.

>> Donald Trump pardoned um pardoned or

commuted, I don't remember, but did one

of the two. Um somebody who had settled

one of the largest fraud cases with

Medicare more recently. You you you do

have real fraud on the individ on the

part of individuals. On the other hand,

>> Trump and the Republicans gutting the

IRS audit division has made fraud a lot

easier for high-income taxpayers.

>> You know, they are not going after

Medicare and Medicaid fraud um in the

way they could. But I mean there are a

lot of way like the biggest frauds come

from organized

actors both legitimate and illegitimate.

>> Yeah.

>> Who are able to do kind of complex

frauds that are not about like putting

the wrong name down on a form.

>> Yeah. It's unbundling services. It's

complicated. You got to

>> It's buying fake It's buying like leaked

information online and using that to

apply for unemployment

>> insurance criminal groups. It's you know

>> you know and you do I mean in Minnesota,

right? like the kind of smaller ring

frauds which are real whereas

organizational.

>> Yes, absolutely. I can tell you this.

There would be more improper payments in

the home mortgage interest deduction tax

program which to be clear we should

think of as a benefit program because it

is even if we don't frame it that way.

If you had to do piss tests, how many

people would get would get their benefit

revoked for that? I wonder

>> Mhm.

>> if you had to do this form instead of

like ticking a single box that actually

your accountant is doing because you

don't do your own taxes,

you know.

>> Well, this goes to maybe the time tax

and also like a good place to see the

choices we're making that the most

people interact with in America, which

is the tax system itself.

>> Yeah.

>> So, this is part of the book. Uh,

how does our tax system work from this

perspective and how could it?

>> Oh my gosh.

In Japan,

for the most part, if you're earning a

salary, you don't ever have to do your

taxes. Japanese tax authority just does

it for you. In a number of European

countries, you can like I forget whether

it's Sweden or Finland. You do it by

text message.

Norway. Sorry to the Nordics. [laughter]

Paul,

>> do they all look the same to you, Annie?

>> I'm just I can't remember which one. I'm

so sorry. The Danes are over here and

they're like, "It's not us." And uh in

many other peer countries, they'll just

send you a form that's mostly filled out

and you can figure out if you want to do

any changes and then maybe you sign it,

you send it back. It is like visible.

You know when Europeans are like wait

your health care system works how

you got build for what?

like you know the whole right like you

ask a European like oh how much did it

did you have to pay to get that baby

[laughter] like pardon

um sort of similarly I think if people

understood

that the IRS I'm not saying they're not

like a competent and professional agency

at doing what they're doing and in fact

I know a lot of civil servants at the

IRS that are like chomping at the bit to

be able to do people's taxes for them

they're not allowed to they're not

allowed Well, here's the crazy thing

about this because I think it's worth

like getting at the mechanism here. The

IRS has all the information.

>> They do.

>> So, the reason the IRS can come after

you fill out your taxes and say

[clears throat] you underpaid

>> Yeah.

>> is because they know how much you're

supposed to pay.

>> Yeah.

>> And given that they know how much you're

supposed to pay, they could just tell

you how much you're supposed to pay.

>> And in other countries, they just tell

you how much you're supposed to pay and

then you're like, "Okay, great." And

then you pay it. We even had a pilot

program of letting the IRS tell you how

much you're supposed to pay in direct

file and Trump just killed it. Yeah.

>> And people liked it.

>> Yeah. Oh my gosh. Direct file. It was

great. There's two things. There's two

things here. So, one is that the US tax

system is

so complex. There are so many write offs

and kind of arcane fussy little

provisions that do require people to

tell the IRS. But most people that's

like not true for most Americans take

the standard deduction which means that

you're not itemizing things. It's 9 and

10 take the standard deduction. The

second is that there's uh legal

prohibitions on data sharing between US

government agencies. So HHS might have

some information on you. They can't send

it to the IRS very easily for the most

part. These systems don't talk to each

other. And very often in other

countries, they do. And for a lot of

Americans, the idea of having a

government that has a unitary repository

of all of this information and it's all

connected is really terrifying. We have

very little social trust and I think

correctly.

Why would we? Um, however, you can

always give people the option. Make it a

permission. I want the government to

fill up my taxes for me. I want the

government to search for benefit

programs and then go get the data from

the state tax office and the IRS. You

know, just think about optionality. I

think a lot of really lowincome people

might be like, "Yeah, if I could just

tick a box and have them do as much as

they could, that would be great." And I

think that letting databases talk to

each other with permission is different

than probably having it in a big

database.

>> So I want to stop here because one of

the moments in the book where you said

something that just like stopped me a

little cold was you went to Estonia.

>> Uh I remember when you went to Estonia.

>> You didn't tell me much about that trip.

So I read about it [laughter] in your

book

>> and you talk about Estonia's only once

policy.

>> Oh yeah. Like this was so utopic.

>> Yeah.

>> That it's almost hard to read about it.

What what is the Estonia only once

policy?

>> So Estonia creates a government denovo

not that long ago, right?

>> Posts Soviet.

>> Yeah. They get their independence back

and it's all really young people that

are not that this is the most important

thing, but I do think it's interesting

in the history. often the people who are

putting a government together in their

like 20s and 30s, a lot of them are not

actually retirement age now

and uh or just barely retirement age

now. And uh they are extremely

poor.

They are financially distressed. They

need foreign investment and they need

the support of institutions like the

IMF. So they want to also after the

Soviet experience, they want to have a

government that people kind of trust and

believe in. And they end up putting

together the most

uh like technologically advanced

government I think perhaps on earth.

>> Almost certainly.

>> Yeah.

>> Like at least in terms of service

delivery.

>> Yeah.

And uh they have this policy

that if you tell any part of the

Estonian government a single piece of

information, I had a kid. I switched

addresses. It you only tell the

government once, only once.

So like if you tell your kids school,

you know, like here's our new address,

it just updates it with every other

agency. And they have this unified

system of benefits that you can go

online and see like your voting record,

your property records, um you know,

access your medical, right? And I was

sitting

with a woman who was showing me this and

I was like, I don't even know how I

would get all of like you know your your

educational records, right? Like I was

like, does the government have any idea

where I the public school where I went

to elementary school? How would you even

know?

And so, yeah, going back to the IRS,

there is a challenge, but again, it's

like they don't want to meet it. They

want you to have to do your own taxes.

And so, you know, this costs Americans,

>> but it's notions of hours. It's not the

IRS that wants you to do your tax. It is

Republicans in It's not Congress, it's

Republicans. [snorts]

>> Yeah.

>> Because Republicans forever have wanted

taxes to be hard, so you hate the

government.

>> Yeah. And it's not just because they're

in the pocket of like big tax preparer

although they are a little bit in the

pocket big tax preparer like in it and

others have done a lot of lobbying on

this

>> lobby so heavily it's a big industry

>> so heavily

>> but if every time you meet the

government

>> it is smooth and seamless and you walk

away thinking that government's pretty

great

>> then you're going to want more

government

>> totally

>> and Republicans don't want you to want

more government and so it creates this

kind of

>> kind of don't they now right like they

want government for some people. There's

a whole thing about Donald Trump,

>> but they don't want to fish a

government, although I will say about

Doge. One of the things I just remember

thinking about with Doge, you and I

talking about is a number of times when

I would

>> walk out of here, [laughter]

>> when I'd be reporting on the way social

benefits worked or something and I would

run into all of these privacy

considerations in the government. We

could we can't do the obvious thing

because the IRS won't share any data.

Yes. And it's like that's a firewall and

we just can't get through it even though

that's how we could make everything work

a lot better. And then it turned out

that that wasn't a firewall. And I'm not

saying what Elon Musk and Doge did was

legal. It was probably not legal. It

turned out to be doable.

>> Look, one way or another, guess who gets

to change laws? Congress.

>> You could make things work better. We

have taken too much of how the

government works as settled and

unchangeable. And it's not. and Doge

was, you know, running through walls

destructively,

>> right?

>> But one thing they really showed was a

lot of things that say the Obama or

Biden administrations treated as

sacrian.

>> Yes.

>> Those were guidelines. Those were

recommendations from your lawyers.

>> Yes.

>> And maybe

it's worth it to start breaking some

guidelines and rewriting rules in order

to make the government work better.

There's a deeper issue here which is

that Congress does not see itself as the

administrator of anything.

>> You know, my view is Congress should get

rid of the filibuster and then when

Democrats are in power. Yes. Like they

should actually do the things they say

they're going to do and vote on a party

line to do them and then see if the

public likes them and then if the public

does like it, they can be reelected.

>> And that's how democracy is supposed to

work.

>> Instead of this like we can't do

anything and we would like you to study

congressional procedure to understand

why. Let's have a parliament [laughter]

on the bumper sticker, dear. Right.

Like, take away presidential power and

think of a prime minister. It's gonna

[snorts] be really popular.

>> The essay wants to abolish a Senate.

>> This is the moderate position now.

>> Yeah.

>> The thing you're really debating in this

book pretty explicitly is the

federalization of powers.

>> Yeah.

>> That you do not like how many programs

are state administered.

>> You definitely don't like it when it

goes down to the county level. Like

you're you're arguing for a simpler but

bigger and more national government.

>> Yes, things should be federalized.

>> What do you want to federalize?

>> Oh my goodness. So there there are some

constitutional issues here. I'm not a

lawyer. I'm not going to get into them.

Yes, Medicaid federalize it. UI

unemployment insurance federalize it.

Tannif, if you're going to have it,

federalize it. any program.

Yeah, this is my bumper sticker is like

I hate laboratories of democracy. The

federal government is better at doing

this. They are for a few reasons. One,

they don't have balanced budget

requirements, right?

>> This is actually like a really big

thing. States and cities do.

>> The second is just like a simple

who like how many agencies are we going

to have doing the same work type

question. There's 56 Medicaid programs.

>> Yeah. What happens when you move?

>> Yes. It's a constant, right? Like it

happens all of the time.

>> And if you're like housing insecure, you

move a lot.

>> Yeah. Totally. And I think that there is

uh a floor that so many state and local

pro programs sink below that. That seems

like a much more important issue to me

than the laboratories of democracy that

actually go above and beyond and have

great benefits. Although it's very

interesting to me that it's not

necessarily blue states that have better

administration than red states because

they're under the same constraints,

right? So,

>> and they're also often so highly

proceduralized their own government that

they're less effective. Like you often

have like more generous benefits in a

much more complex bureaucracy.

>> Yeah, absolutely. It is not the sort of

thing like California is a nightmare on

a lot of this. They've gotten better on

some fronts, but it's just it's not like

a simple, you know, the more liberal. It

doesn't map on like that at all. It

really, really doesn't. But yes, if you

could take these programs and federalize

them and make it such that the agencies

administering them were responsible for

outcomes and saw themselves as a service

delivery organization. Yes. It would be

a lot better. It would be way better.

>> Your first book was about universal

basic income.

>> Yeah.

>> And when I got to the end zone,

>> I came to think these books were more

connected than I had thought when you

were writing.

>> They're twins. [laughter]

Like it it seemed to me that you were

moving towards something that's more

like the government should do fewer

things but do them clearly and well,

right? Like this seemed to me in the

anti-poverty dimension like it was sort

of an argument for a negative income

tax, right? Not quite a UBI where it's

like Bill Gates gets it, but you know,

something where if you're below a level,

you just get it. We don't test you. We

don't put you through hoops. We just say

there's a level in this country people

do not need to fall beneath. M I mean

the the sort of conservative argument

over the years for something like UBI or

negative income taxes which Richard

Nixon pushed at one moment.

>> Yep.

>> What I am proposing is that the federal

government build a foundation under the

income of every American family with

dependent children that cannot care for

itself and wherever in America that

family may live.

>> Excellent president up until

>> the government should do fewer things

would do it better. He had some

problems. Cambodia I'm not a huge fan

of.

>> Yeah. No, no, no. I'm not I'm not here

to [laughter] rehabilitate Richard

Nixon. There's a lot of things to be

concerned about there,

>> but a fascinating figure. Um that that

seems like the kind of thing you're

envisioning here.

>> Yeah. Look at the child tax credit,

right? So the child tax credit, it

exists. There's this brief moment during

the pandemic where they give a really

big CTC

and it reaches

80% of target families. the IRS

administers it instead of some welfare

agency somewhere. What does it do? It

cuts child poverty in half. And granted,

that's mostly due to just the sheer

amount, the giant money cannon, but the

administrative simplicity, I think, is

actually important there. Most people

don't have to do anything. The money

just shows up. And so, the problem, I

think, with running so many programs

through the tax code, where it really is

much more efficient. And the IRS has

become a crucial welfare benefits

administrator, even though it doesn't

like to think of itself that way, both

the IRS and Congress, I guess, is that

then people don't notice, you know, um

there's amazing research by Suzanne

Matler of Cornell that shows that

highincome people uh no matter how much

they're getting in government benefits,

they're always like, "Well, I don't use

any government program." That's because

it's like their accountant is figuring

it out. I I think that they might just

not conceive of it that way because we

are not beating somebody over the head

with like, hey, you got a home mortgage

interest deduction, which you didn't

have to pee in a cup for, whereas it's

really obvious to people getting safety

net benefits that they're getting them

because they have to go to these offices

and fill out all this paperwork and

everything. So, I do think that there is

this kind of downside to tax programs,

which is that, you know, they become

invisible, but look, they're way easier

for the government to administer, way

cheaper, and you're much more likely to

get them to the people who you want to

get them.

>> You could also make some pretty simple

design tweaks and make things happening

through the tax code more visible. I

mean, it could come as a large check.

It's not that difficult.

>> Absolutely. I remember there's this

whole story from the Biden era

>> where Biden like he's like I'm not going

to

>> put my like big signature face on a

check like Donald Trump. It's like you

should have put your

>> big signature giant face on the check

>> check like Donald Trump. Yeah.

>> So what do you say to conservatives

because I've seen this um case pushed

against your book. It's like look this

is a great description of how government

fails. It is a great description of

government complexity. It is a great

description of government incompetence,

which you agree is at least part of the

story here.

>> Oh, totally.

>> So, ending in a stirring call for bigger

government, more government

>> is like fundamentally paradoxical.

Government just do less and be more out

of people's lives and not take and waste

so much of their

>> Do they want to take away social

security?

>> Some of them do.

>> A lot of Oh gosh. A lot of big programs

work great. They work really, really

well. I think it's not a crazy thing for

Americans demand that the government

that they pay for works

in the way that the governments around

the world work. We have low standards.

We're letting these get away

with murder. I mean it. You have a great

line in the book where you say that

politicians care a lot about whether or

not a program exists but not really

whether it's accessible.

>> Totally. And it's also and again I think

it's the civil servants often they

really want these programs to work. They

would love to use they are experts on

these programs and we don't listen to

them either. They aren't like people who

are stakeholders. It's not like, you

know, you have uh them coming forward

and being like, I think that we could

make these really good changes and that

would result in, right? Like a lot of

them want to do that and they're

statutoily not allowed. You'd have to

get a law passed. You'd have to get a

regulation passed. Who are the White

House going to listen to?

>> You're not allowed to speak out. You'd

get fired.

>> No.

>> Can't go write an op-ed from the I mean,

I know through you how many people you

talk to in the bureaucracy who are just

like hair on fire like funneling you

information about how it doesn't work.

>> Oh my gosh. But nobody wants to make

government programs work better than the

people who are held back from

administering them correctly.

>> If you've devoted your life to getting

people SNAP and now you are not able to

get people SNAP, it drives you crazy.

>> Absolutely. If we treated people as

experts in their own experience, by

which I mean people who are using these

programs and the people administering

them, I think things would work much

better. Jen Pala I think has like the

greatest,

you know, exigist of this idea in

recoding America.

>> Recoding America.

>> Yeah. Guest of the podcast,

>> past guest for the show,

>> right? Where she describes it as this

like bureaucratic anxiety cycle. So what

happens is, you know, Congress spends

some money, they have some program, the

program doesn't work well, and so they

put more rules on the bureaucrats who

become then less capable of actually

administering the program. They get

called in before Congress. And so you

just end up in this kind of doom loop of

like Congress telling them telling these

bureaucrats, "Okay, well, here's in an

even more specific way what I think you

should be doing instead of saying to the

bureaucrats, we trust you. Here's the

goal. get it done.

>> We were talking earlier about our

government bumper stickers and and I

thought about this before. Mine is

actually simpler, fair, faster. I feel

like Democrats should run and they're

going to say the government will be

simpler, fairer, and faster. And they

should actually make that happen. They

should make the policies simple.

>> They should make them way less corrupted

by money. They should actually pass and

try to pass in fact a constitutional

amendment on money. Um, and they need to

make them faster. Right? Abundance is a

lot about speed. This book has a lot in

the end about speed, too.

>> And I think when people talk about

making government efficient, it doesn't

mean anything.

>> And I don't think Democrats often know

what they mean when they're talking

about they tend to mean saving money

when they talk about government

efficiency.

>> Yeah.

>> But you want the government to be

efficient from the perspective of the

person it benefits. And that means it's

simple to use.

>> It treats them fairly and respectfully.

And they get what they need from it

fast. So their time isn't taxed.

>> Yeah, absolutely. I think that this is a

great way to do it. The thing that I

think a lot about is the political

economy here, right? If that was a way

to win votes

and if people wanted that, why doesn't

it happen? Because the time tax, it's

like a problem. It is a giant mess of a

million different problems administered

at different parts of government. And

that is in fact part of the problem. And

I think that the feedback loops are

broken in a lot of cases here. So what I

mean by feedback loops is that the

people who use the most punitive, stupid

government programs,

they get turned off from civic

engagement. So they don't become a

constituency demanding for the program

to get better. But I think you can

actually look at some politicians that

have tackled this and it's pretty

popular when you can actually do it. So,

Zuran Mdani in New York has had this

whole, you know, like if you're a small

business, it shouldn't take you a

million, you know, pieces of paper and

all this time to just like get a very

basic business license. That's great.

And almost like kind of like Republican

politics. And I think that, you know,

could that politics work for people? I

think so. I think it'll be very

interesting to watch what people think

of Medicaid after the work requirement

comes in because I can guarantee you

that the stories are going to be about

people who can't get cancer treatment.

Marginal cases who cannot prove that

they are disabled because doctors don't

know what condition they have and they

don't have a doctor to diagnose them.

Isn't that part of the reason that they

need health insurance?

um this is going to kill people and so I

don't think that it's going to be more

popular for the Medicaid program.

And so um there's this piece of

political science research that actually

showed that administrative burdens do

not just make recipients less likely to

engage civically. They kind of sour

entire communities on the government

because they're like, "Wait, why are you

treating us like this?" And you know, I

would want to see more research on this.

I'm really interested. But it makes

sense to me. Do people like a government

that treats people this way?

>> I've wondered whether or not the Trump

uh Medicaid and SNAP work requirements

are going to create an opening. I mean,

when Republicans cut government sharply,

>> they often create the conditions for a

politics of expansion because people

don't like the effect of the cuts. We've

seen this happen many, many times

before.

>> People feel the cuts all of a sudden or

they fear the cuts all of a sudden. They

recognize what they are losing or might

lose and it creates focus and it creates

like the possibility to do something.

Now they've decided to do a massive cut

that's going to hit many of their

voters. Many Trump voters are on

Medicaid or on SNAP. it's going to hit

them in very unpleasant, complicated

ways and I think give, you know, the

opposition an opportunity to

make this kind of burden an issue

>> and not just sort of argue for, you

know, expansion or restoration of

funding, but actually say like this is

not what your relationship with

government should be. This is not what

government should do to you. Make it

easier for rich people to cheat on their

taxes and harder for you to get

>> totally

>> medicaid. I think that that's absolutely

true. I am very concerned that SNAP

could collapse in some states because

one of the things it does is it says to

the states if you have an error rate

that is above I think it's 6% which like

40 states have a again improper payments

not fraud rate improper payments rate

above that it uh makes them pay for part

of the benefit which they've never had

to do before. And I'm very concerned

that states will not be able to do this

and they will not have the money to

cover it and they might just not have

SNAP. I've talked to hospital

administrators and state legislators who

are like what are we going to do when

Medicaid gets gutted? How are we going

to keep hospitals open? They are going

to destabilize whole health systems. I

think that they might drive doctors and

nurses and respiratory therapists out of

the profession. They are creating a mass

administrative burden, a mass time tax

the like of which we have never seen. 96

TANF reform like that was so tiny in

comparison to this

>> much smaller program

>> almost 25 million people. They're

sapping billions of hours of people's