Americans are afraid of their healthcare system — and that fear is justified. Families worry that an accident or illness will bankrupt them, and patients on public programs often wait months to see a doctor, sometimes dying in line before treatment begins. Nationally, healthcare spending is devouring nearly a fifth of the economy and driving America’s unsustainable debt trajectory.

The average family with employer-sponsored insurance now pays nearly $25,000 a year in premiums. Those dollars are siphoned out of paychecks before workers ever see them, enriching bureaucracies instead of delivering care. Meanwhile, US healthcare spending hit $4.9 trillion in 2023, almost 18 percent of GDP.

Where does all this money go? Too much is consumed by what we call BURRDEN: Bureaucratic, Unaccountable, Rigid, Regulated, Distorted, Expensive, and Needless costs. 

My co-authored research with Dr. Deane Waldman shows that these hidden costs could account for as much as 50 percent of total healthcare spending — up to $2.5 trillion every year wasted on forms, delays, compliance, and red tape, instead of healing.

Death by Queue

The most tragic result of BURRDEN is not financial waste but human loss. Medicaid now covers more than 80 million Americans, yet “coverage” does not equal access. Because government reimbursement rates are so low, fewer US physicians accept new Medicaid patients. Those who do are often overwhelmed, leading to months-long waits for appointments.

This is what we call death by queue. A Medicaid card promises care, but in practice, it too often means waiting in line while conditions worsen. Medicaid patients are more likely to experience poor outcomes, not because doctors treat them differently once in the operating room, but because they can’t get timely access to care in the first place. In economics, this is a shortage: demand outstrips supply because the government suppresses prices.

More funding won’t fix this. As long as bureaucrats cap reimbursement rates, providers will be forced to limit access to stay in business, and patients will continue to die waiting.

A Workforce Out of Balance

The structure of the healthcare workforce highlights the imbalance. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, medical and health services managers — administrators — are projected to grow 23 percent over the next decade, while physicians will grow just three percent. America is producing far more paper-pushers than doctors.

This explosion of administration mirrors the money trail. A landmark study found administrative costs account for 34 percent of US health spending. Add regulatory compliance, licensing barriers, and insurance bureaucracy, and BURRDEN consumes nearly half of every healthcare dollar.

Why More Government Fails

Washington’s instinct is to impose more rules and more price controls. The Inflation Reduction Act and the May 2025 Most Favored Nation Executive Order tied US drug prices to European systems that ration care and free-ride on American innovation.

But price caps don’t lower costs — they reduce supply. A National Bureau of Economic Research study found that a 40–50 percent drop in expected drug prices would cut new drug development by up to 60 percent. That means fewer cures and longer wait times.

The biotech sector illustrates the stakes. For decades, the US has led the world in new therapies because our system rewarded innovation. Now, with the government importing failed foreign policies, China is catching up fast, investing heavily under its “Made in China 2025” plan. 

If Washington continues to undermine innovation at home, patients will face not just queues, but the loss of tomorrow’s cures.

The Empower Patients Initiative

The alternative is clear: trust patients, not bureaucrats. The Empower Patients Initiative offers reforms that cut BURRDEN, reduce costs, and restore access to care.

1. No-Limit Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
   Families should be able to save and spend their own healthcare dollars tax-free, without arbitrary caps. HSAs restore price sensitivity and unleash competition. Instead of $24,000 in hidden premiums, families could control those dollars directly.
   
   
2. Medicaid Block Grants to States
   Medicaid should be block-granted to states, giving them flexibility to innovate. States could expand direct primary care networks, integrate community clinics, and tailor coverage to local needs. Federalism fosters competition and accountability.
   
   
3. Direct Patient-Doctor Relationships
   Third-party reimbursement schedules force doctors to serve bureaucrats instead of patients. Direct pay and subscription models restore trust and reduce paperwork. Direct Primary Care practices have already demonstrated that fewer intermediaries mean more time for patients and lower costs.
   
   
4. Transparency and Real Prices
   Markets can’t work without prices. Providers should post costs upfront, as the Surgery Center of Oklahoma does. Transparency pressures providers to compete on value, not billing codes.
   
   
5. Shrink Bureaucracy Naturally
   Middlemen, such as pharmacy benefit managers, grew in popularity because the government disconnected patients from the costs of their healthcare. In a true market, PBMs would shrink or evolve naturally, no longer artificially necessary. The goal isn’t to regulate them more — it’s to restore market conditions that render them optional.

Cutting BURRDEN in Half

The economic potential of these reforms is staggering. If we reduce BURRDEN by even half, up to $1.2 trillion a year could be redirected from bureaucracy to patients and providers. That’s enough to lower family costs dramatically, raise take-home pay, and improve access without expanding federal debt.

Think of what it would mean if patients could get timely appointments, if doctors spent more time healing than coding, and if innovation flowed freely rather than being strangled by red tape. That’s not utopian — it’s simply what happens when markets are allowed to function.

A Human and Moral Case

The human cost of the current system is undeniable. Medicaid patients die waiting for care. Families sacrifice $24,000 a year for coverage they can’t control. Doctors burn out while administrators multiply.

The moral case for reform is clear: stop rationing by bureaucracy, stop wasting trillions on BURRDEN, and give patients the dignity of choice. Healthcare is not a favor dispensed by government; it is a service best delivered through voluntary exchange.

Conclusion: Break the Chains

Healthcare is broken not because markets failed, but because markets were never allowed to function. BURRDEN is the inevitable result of central planning. The Empower Patients Initiative offers the way forward: HSAs without limits, Medicaid block grants, direct doctor-patient relationships, and transparent pricing.

If we free even half of the dollars now wasted on BURRDEN, America’s healthcare system would become more affordable, more innovative, and more humane. Patients would no longer die in queues, families would keep more of their wages, and doctors would be free to heal.

The question is simple: will we continue feeding the bureaucracy — or will we empower patients?

The answer should be obvious. Empower patients, not bureaucrats. That’s how we cut costs, cure queues, and let people prosper.

To develop effective responses to populism, it is essential to first understand its nature and underlying causes. Just as bait must appeal to the fish rather than the angler, a response to populism should persuade potential supporters by addressing its claims and causes directly. 

One of the primary causes of populism is the growing alienation of large sections of society from political, cultural, economic, and media elites. The perceived concentration and abuse of power by these elites contribute to this sense of alienation. Over the past 130 years, the rise of concentrated power and cronyism has repeatedly sparked populist discontent, leading to the formation of new populist movements and parties. 

The original populists of the American People’s Party were directed against monopolists in the railroad and financial industries at the end of the 1890s. The abuse of power by large landowners sparked the first populist wave in South America. Pierre Poujade protested against an overbearing central government in Paris in the 1950s. The Scandinavian tax populists in the 1970s took offense at excessive tax and duty burdens. The South American populists of the 1990s (Menem, Collor de Mello, and Fujimori) were offended by mismanagement and inflation. Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord was activated by the perceived corruption of the Italian government. The Hungarian protest movement Fidesz initially rallied against the old socialist elites. The Tea Party was galvanized by Obama’s socialist economic and social policies, and the German AfD in its founding years by a redistribution supposedly controlled from Brussels in favor of the financial sector. Most recently, the Argentine Javier Milei rode to power on public exhaustion with a dysfunctional and bloated state. 

Researchers like Cas Mudde, Karin Priester, and Paul Taggart have identified key elements of populist ideologies: 

• Friend-foe or people-elite thinking: a clear division between the virtuous people and corrupt elites. 
• Heartland idealization: a nostalgic view of a traditional, idealized past. 
• Productivism: the ideal of self-sufficiency and independence from state intervention. 

The populist ideal of a self-reliant middle class often aligns with farmers, craftsmen, and independent retailers who sustain themselves and cooperate with fellow citizens. 

Initially, populist movements often have a decentralized, anti-authoritarian character. When populists gain power, though, they tend to adopt collectivist and authoritarian tendencies. Once in office, they often seek to bypass constitutional constraints they once supported while in opposition. 

Over time, populist parties typically narrow their focus to the people-elite conflict, sidelining ideals like heartland and productivism. Early liberal and conservative supporters are often marginalized or leave in frustration. Ordoliberals — who believe government should design rules to maximize the potential of free markets — helped found the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) but have since left the party. 

Nevertheless, many populist parties still adhere to liberal economic positions, at least programmatically. They see market-based competition as a means of limiting the power of the elites. However, with their pronounced friend-enemy thinking and their idealization of the people, populists overlook the fact that it is not only the supposedly evil elites who circumvent competition when it is in their interests to do so, but also the supposedly virtuous people. Good and evil are spread across all classes. Replacing the old elites with new elites therefore does not solve the fundamental problem. What populists lack is an idea of how economic and political power can be permanently limited, regardless of who is in power. 

This is where ordoliberalism comes into play. Like many populists, the founding fathers of ordoliberalism (Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow, and Walter Eucken) were driven by a deep aversion to the concentration of power and heteronomy. In their youth and student years, this aversion expressed itself in sympathies for socialist (Röpke, Rüstow) or nationalist (Eucken) ideas. On their way to becoming professors of economics, however, they recognized the emancipatory power of market competition. Based on this insight, they channeled their populist impulse into a research program that sought a competitive order that could permanently limit the concentration of power and heteronomy. They had to painfully experience how, without such an order in the Weimar Republic, hyperinflation, a command economy and a defenseless democracy paved the way for the National Socialists.  

After the Second World War, in times of economic hardship and political disorientation, they filled the material and spiritual void with their concept. At the same time, Rüstow and Röpke criticized anti-market intellectuals and “theory manufacturers” and the ideologies of “utopianism, progressism, socialism, and egalitarianism” that they advocated. The sociological ordoliberals opposed the “modern mass society” with a decentralized view of society rooted in history, homeland and tradition. Both the populist and ordoliberal societies are based on a middle class that is aware of its vital function. When Rüstow and Röpke appeal to the self-determination instinct of this middle class and want to protect it from encroaching interventions by a central administration, the similarities to populists become clear, especially in their founding phase.  

These similarities make ordoliberalism an alternative to populism. But only the following differences make ordoliberalism a compatible, anti-totalitarian response to populism: 

Ordoliberalism shares some initial impulses with populism but diverges in crucial ways: 

1. Collectivism vs. Diversity
   Populists seek a homogeneous society governed by the will of the people. In contrast, ordoliberals envision a diverse society with a recognized, merit-based elite operating within a stable regulatory framework. Switzerland’s decentralized structure reflects this model. 
2. Institutions vs. Elites
   Populists target elites; ordoliberals seek to reform institutions. Eucken sought to rise above personal animosities, aiming instead to establish stable rules and frameworks that constrain power. 
3. Tradition vs. Nationalism
   Ordoliberals value tradition but reject nationalism. Röpke criticized “popular nationalism” and warned against flattering “the new sovereign, the people” at the expense of other nations. 
4. Advisors vs. Representatives
   Populists claim to embody the will of the people. Ordoliberals, while occasionally displaying elitism, seek to advise and influence democratic decision-making rather than bypass it. 
5. Freedom and Law
   Ordoliberal freedom is bounded by law and the rights of others. Populist freedom tends to be more absolute and undefined. 
6. Pluralism vs. Division
   Ordoliberals differentiate between healthy pluralism (shared constitutional and democratic power) and predatory pluralism (interest groups capturing the state). 

Learning from Ordoliberalism 

The first-generation ordoliberals found their way to liberalism in a roundabout way. As economists, they recognized the power of market-based competition as well as the need to develop this power through state-imposed framework conditions. As they always saw the economy in the context of society, they were not content to lament the crisis-ridden situation and the shortcomings of the inherited political and economic system of their time. They were looking for a humane order that would permanently secure freedom for society as a whole.  

We should resume this search today in order to find answers to the rise of authoritarian populism. As the economist Luigi Zingales wrote back in 2014, it is not enough to simply reject populist movements. Rather, they must first be understood in order to direct their destructive power at individual disempowered and dysfunctional parts of our democratic, constitutional and market economy institutions, not at democracy, the market economy and the rule of law per se. The insights of the early ordoliberals can help to distinguish liberal criticism of institutions from populist criticism of elites. Consequently, Luigi Zingales said in an interview in 2022: “We urgently need more ordoliberalism.” 

An ordoliberal-inspired policy adapted to the challenges of the twenty-first century treats sovereign citizens as such and offers them consistent rules without patronizing them. The changes driven by the market economy, globalization and technological developments have a power-limiting and emancipating effect rather than a threatening and power-fortifying one when citizens can influence the political framework and control political and economic power. Among the various principles that can guide responses to the populist challenge, the principle of subsidiarity stands out. If frustration is already being channeled at lower levels and leads to political reactions there, it will not be concentrated at the national or supranational level. Reforms based on ordoliberal principles toward competitive federalism can thus prevent the emergence and radicalization of populists.

For much of the twentieth century, the American Dream promised a straightforward bargain: work hard, save wisely, and secure a comfortable life. Today, that promise is fading. Surveys show only 31 percent of Americans believe the American Dream is still attainable. For my generation, Gen Z, lofty expectations of prosperity clash with economic realities, leaving many disillusioned.

The culprit is not just inflation or abnormally high interest rates, but also a petty populism that enchants leaders across the political spectrum. From Donald Trump’s tariffs to Joe Biden’s subsidies, both sides embrace protectionist policies that undermine the very Americans they claim to champion. These measures, cloaked in slogans like “Make America Great Again” or “Bidenomics,” are eroding the path to the American Dream.

Protectionist policies — tariffs on Chinese furniture, subsidies for domestic chipmakers, “Buy American” mandates — are building a “fortress economy” that traps sluggish growth and higher prices inside. According to the Tax Foundation, Trump’s tariffs would reduce US GDP by 0.8 percent over the next decade, translating to an average tax increase of $1,300 per US household in 2025. These estimates are understated, as they don’t account for the shrinking choices consumers face and the higher prices for substitute goods.  

Trump’s latest round of tariffs on furniture alone will raise prices for millions of households, as his previous import restrictions have already done. In fact, US furniture companies, the supposed beneficiaries of these tariffs, opposed Trump’s plan, arguing that these “tariffs cannot reopen factories that no longer exist, bring back thousands of workers who retired or moved on to other industries, nor reverse the interests and inclinations of today’s younger workers, who are attracted to higher-paying trades.”

Biden’s policies, despite their “green” rhetoric, mirrored this approach, raising input costs and slowing productivity growth without reviving manufacturing or clean energy. In his new book, Crushing Capitalism, Norbert Michel argues that populist agendas are depressing the brakes on decades of unprecedented US economic growth. He explains that the narrative of too much “liberalism” hollowing out the middle class is not only wrong, but dangerous.

These policies hit lower-income households hardest, functioning as a regressive tax, as Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute notes. Steel and lumber tariffs, for instance, drive up housing costs, while subsidies divert capital from more productive uses, dampening economic growth. Deficit spending, fueled by protectionist schemes, further erodes real wages through inflation. The result is an economic storm that all Americans, especially the working class, must weather.

Nowhere is the retreat of the American Dream more evident than in housing. 

An Economist analysis found that in most US cities, a single person can’t afford to live alone without spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. In other words, Americans are becoming house poor, or more accurately, apartment poor.

Young buyers, once an energetic customer base for housing, are increasingly priced out, their down payments swallowed by creeping inflation and stubborn student debt. Tariffs on Canadian lumber add thousands to the cost of a new home, while local zoning laws, like minimum-lot-size requirements, choke supply. Starter homes are increasingly unattainable, replaced by a rental treadmill that traps younger Americans outside the realm of homeownership.

This housing crisis is forcing many millennials and Gen Zers to turn to the stock market to chase wealth, a risky substitute for the stability of homeownership. Without reforms such as deregulating housing markets and scrapping protectionist tariffs, affordable homes will remain out of reach.

At its core, protectionism reflects a distrust of ordinary Americans, Don Boudreaux writes. It assumes citizens are too foolish to spend wisely, needing government to “correct” their choices. Trade is not a zero-sum game, butt a positive-sum exchange that has, over decades, raised living standards and the very prospect of the American Dream itself. There is no American Dream without free trade.

Protectionism reverses these gains, raising prices and limiting consumer choice.

The long-term costs are equally dire. Biden’s green subsidies and Trump’s trade wars have pushed the economy toward stagnation and inflation. Federal debt is at historic highs, productivity is sputtering, and uncertainty over taxes, trade, and regulations stifles growth. This environment punishes aspiration, making the Dream feel like a taunt rather than a promise.

Reviving the American Dream requires dismantling the fortress economy. Scrap tariffs that inflate consumer prices. Reform zoning laws to boost housing supply. Restrain federal spending to curb inflation. Above all, trust Americans to make their own choices in the marketplace.

The so-called “abundance movement,” sparked by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s recent book on the subject, is a promising development among progressives. But their overreliance on government actors to solve economic challenges threatens the very supply-side abundance they hope to achieve.

The American Dream was never about government guarantees — it was about opportunity, the chance to rise through the sweat of your brow. Populism’s suspicion of markets and its faith in bureaucratic management undermine the ethos of opportunity. Americans don’t need government meddling. They need affordable goods, stable prices, and economic breathing room.

To remain a land of opportunity, America must embrace openness, competition, and economic freedom. Only then can the American Dream be fully unlocked for a new generation.

When my eldest son was four years old, he climbed on top of a batting cage at a park in New Jersey. Several bystanders noticed and began to freak out. I called my son down and told him: “I’m fine with what you are doing, but you’re making other people nervous.” I said this because he was a capable climber and because I judged the various risks acceptable. Yet, the fear of others was at play and could have resulted in government child services intervention.

Though my experience ended peacefully, the Meitiv family had multiple run-ins with child protective services for allowing their 10-year-old and 6-year-old to walk to a playground unaccompanied by an adult. Their clashes with safetyism and law enforcement helped launch the “Free Range” parenting movement. 

Should a 10-year-old be able to take a couple younger siblings to a playground without an adult? A large percentage of Americans would say “no.” Why? Because it’s dangerous! They could be kidnapped! Yet the odds of that happening are astronomically low – kids are more likely to die in a car accident or to get cancer than to be kidnapped by a stranger – yet this extremely unlikely event has changed childhood (for the worse) for tens of millions of children. 

Coddling and safetyism reduce people’s willingness to take risk, and they distort their assessment of risk. So people will accept infringements on their liberty because they feel “safer.” Besides fueling demand for more regulation, safetyism also dampens people’s willingness to experiment and to grow through facing challenges and danger. 

As individuals, as parents, as Americans, we should learn to live a little dangerously on purpose. Now, many Americans live dangerously by accident as they engage in unhealthy practices or act carelessly. There is also the recklessness of youths who feel invincible. That’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about realistically assessing risk and tradeoffs.

By disposition, I happen to be pretty conservative and risk averse. Why take a chance that something bad happens when the status quo seems mostly okay? Yet I am also a strident believer in liberty – so I would never want government bureaucrats to legally prohibit me from taking risks (even ones that I wouldn’t take anyway). But I have also cultivated an entrepreneurial desire for value creation and improvement. I believe things can be better than they are – potentially much better – but that improvement will only happen with experimentation and, yes, risk-taking.

All of this reminds me of the movie I, Robot with Will Smith (based on the book by Isaac Asimov). I, Robot anticipated many of the problems contemporary Americans face in our current relentless cultural pressure towards safetyism. In the film, humanoid robots are trained to follow the three rules of robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

While seemingly straightforward, in the movie a comprehensive artificial intelligence decides that truly fulfilling these laws means protecting humans from each other, by force if necessary. This logic has been carried out relentlessly across the US for decades. 

Sometimes life imitates art. Rather than Rousseau’s famous dictum that men must be “forced to be free,” modern elites generally subscribe to the notion that everyone must be “forced to be safe.” We saw the culmination of this thinking in the lockdowns during the pandemic of 2020. But safetyism extends everywhere in society.

Spending years living in both DC and New York City, I got a front row seat to a safetyism that basically denies tradeoffs between risk and reward, and also encourages a warped and inaccurate view of actual dangers in the world. 

We see it in playground construction and management. Rather than the often simple and low-cost, but “less safe” metal playgrounds of yesteryear, modern playgrounds have all kinds of safety requirements around heights, hardness of materials, accessibility, etc.

You have agencies like ASTM that publish the “Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public Use” and Consumer Product Safety Commission that publishes the “Public Playground Safety Handbook.” The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires a variety of additional modifications to playgrounds. And then states, counties, and cities may (and often do) layer their own safety requirements on top of these. The level of safety is comical.

I’m not suggesting we should intentionally make playgrounds more dangerous. Nor am I saying that safety concerns don’t matter. I am suggesting that most Americans should consider raising their threshold of acceptable risk. Besides the immense monetary cost savings, higher risk thresholds will reduce anxiety in parents (and children) while allowing greater physical and character development in children who can push their limits further, learn to face fear, and also learn about risk/reward tradeoffs.

Parenting in general has become highly focused on safety – from helicopter parenting to emotional safety and self-esteem parenting come safe spaces and microaggressions. The heavy involvement of parents regulating their children’s lives has been documented by Jonathan Haidt, Lenore Skenazy, and others. This safetyism is a form of coddling. It is also soft paternalism (doing for others what they can, and should, do for themselves) that restricts children’s decision-making and autonomy which stunts their development of judgment and formation of virtue.

Our broader society is little better. Regulations around every activity imaginable have cropped up – almost always with a public safety component – industrial kitchen regulations, indoor sprinkler requirements, extensive licensing requirements, conditional use permitting, all are examples of anti-competitive costly rules built on safetyism. So are costly drug development processes, food inspection requirements, and workplace regulations.

Safetyism also has serious implications for innovation, technology, and the economy. California’s attorney general recently claimed that, as a public charity, OpenAI has an obligation to make sure this doesn’t happen. But is such a claim or regulatory burden helpful or appropriate? Large language models and AI platforms, even social media platforms that have generated measurable harm to adolescents, have similar features. Prioritizing safety over everything else, however, requires making stifling rules for everyone (millions of people) based upon extremely rare cases of harm.

California officials and regulators are going after OpenAI over “safety” concerns about how an incredibly small percentage of people use (or abuse) ChatGPT. The Wall Street Journal reported the story of Erik Soelberg who had a history of mental illness and self-harm, who developed a deeply unhealthy attachment to a ChatGPT chatbot who encouraged him in his paranoia. Tragically, he ended up killing his mother and himself.

While we may be tempted to “blame” ChatGPT for contributing to this tragedy, that would be a mistake. Imagine, for example, if Ford or Toyota were responsible every time someone used their vehicle to facilitate theft or murder or suicide. We would hardly hold those companies responsible for “enabling” this tragic behavior with their products. And if we did, those companies might not be able to exist, and the millions of people who benefit tremendously from their vehicles and use them responsibly would be harmed.

Part of young people’s swing towards conservatism stems from feeling stifled, both physically and intellectually, by their teachers, parents, and the broader cultural preachers of safetyism. Safetyism strangles technology, entrepreneurship, personal autonomy, and ultimately liberty. 

If we want a free, dynamic society of responsible citizens, safetyism browbeating has got to stop.

“Chicken” is a game where two people, or two groups, want different things, in a context where “I win/you lose.”  That is, there are no gains from exchange or compromise, and the loser is not only worse off, but embarrassed.

Government shutdowns are chicken games. Knowing that gives us a way to understand what is happening.

When I teach “chicken” I tell students to imagine you and James Dean, both in souped up 1967 Mustangs, are facing each other on a narrow road, about 1 mile apart. The game begins, and you both accelerate hard, to show you mean business.

If you both go straight (the road is too narrow to pass each other), there is a huge explosion and everyone dies. If you go straight and James swerves, you win and James is humiliated. And vice versa.

If you both swerve, then you both regret having passed up an opportunity to win. And your partisans, standing by the road and cheering, are embarrassed at your cowardice.

Who will win? Whoever cares more about winning, or cares less about dying. Of course, both of you tell everyone “I’m not afraid to die!”, but those are just words. Each player wants to win, but is in fact afraid to die. So, “I swerve, [you swerve or don’t swerve]” is better than “straight, straight.” I know that, you know I know that, I know you know, and so on.

As you get closer, you can see your opponent’s face, set in grim determination. Suddenly, James Dean does something amazing: he throws his steering wheel out the window! He can’t swerve. My only choice now is to go straight also (he dies, but so do I) or swerve (embarrassing, but I avoid dying). By throwing his steering wheel out the window, James commits to going straight, which means he wins.

Of course, I have played chicken before, so I know what to do. I immediately throw my steering wheel out the window.

(Record scratch…) What?  I want to die?

Wait for it. James throws out another steering wheel, and so do I. We are both throwing steering wheels out the window like crazy. Because each has a stack of them, on the front seat beside us.

Shutdown Background

Government shutdowns are not exactly a fiery crash, but they seem irrational. If you understand chicken, though, it makes more sense.

If a government in a parliamentary system fails to pass its budget, that is likely to collapse the government and trigger a new election. But that’s not true in Washington. In the US, the House and Senate have to agree, and the President has to sign the resulting bill. Partisan control can be divided (as it has been for nearly 90 of the years since 1800), or the minority party in the Senate can filibuster, or the President can veto.

It wasn’t always a chicken game. The famous 1879 rider fights between (Republican) President Hayes and a Democratic Congress were contentious, but there was no shutdown. The dispute involved election-related riders on Army and marshals funding, which the Democrats were using to try to end Reconstruction. The conflict dragged on for months, but partial appropriations were passed and only limited sums were actually withheld. The nonsense was kept in DC, where it belongs.

But the system showed signs of strain in the 1970s: there were six substantial gaps in budget coverage between 1977 and 1980. But agencies continued operation, even if funding expired, because it was assumed that funding would be restored.

That changed in 1980–81, when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued opinions interpreting the Antideficiency Act (enacted in 1884, amended in 1950 and 1982) to require agencies to cease operations, except for narrow “essential” activities. Those opinions — grounded also in the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause — created the modern “shutdown,” now codified in the Office of Management and Budget Circular A-11.

Since the rules changed in 1981, there have been a number of actual shutdowns, where government workers were sent home, without pay (though at least until now the pay has always been restored retroactively). Counting only funding gaps in which shutdown procedures were followed (i.e., agencies closed and employees were furloughed), the episodes are:

·         Nov 20–23, 1981 — 2 days

·         Sep 30–Oct 2, 1982 — 1 day

·         Oct 3–5, 1984 — 1 day

·         Oct 16–18, 1986 — 1 day

·         Oct 5–9, 1990 — 3 days

·         Nov 13–19, 1995 — 5 days

·         Dec 15, 1995–Jan 6, 1996 — 21 days

·         Sep 30–Oct 17, 2013 — 16 days

·         Jan 19–22, 2018 — 2 days

·         Dec 21, 2018–Jan 25, 2019 — 34 days (or 35, depending on how you count)

The Logic of Chicken

The shutdown seems pointless, from an outside perspective. Everyone would be better off if we simply implement the deal that will be agreed on later, and skip the intervening inconveniences. And, make no mistake, there will be inconveniences: tens of thousands of applications, cases, tax returns, licenses, refunds, and other mandatory paperwork will be delayed for no reason. 

Many of the 2.25 million federal employees will work, but there will be no savings because they will still be paid, and rent on all those empty federal offices will still be due. It seems possible that the Trump administration will use the shutdown as a chance to push through permanent reductions in force, but even if that happens, the cost savings will be negligible.

To understand why all this is happening, despite the costs, and in spite of the fact that there will be a deal, one must think in terms of the payoffs to this peculiar version of “chicken.”

First, the usual payoffs are reversed, in the sense that many — perhaps most — members of Congress prefer “straight, straight” to “swerve, swerve.” Sure, the fiery crash is expensive for the country, but it benefits political leaders and the rank-and-file to appear to stand firm against the enemy. Of course, each side prefers that the other would give in, but there are few costs to being stubborn.

Second, the “steering wheels” are different: you aren’t trying to scare your opponent. The reason to make statements of obdurate resolve is to appeal to “your base.” Instead of being costly, boasting about your toughness is a benefit.

Further, in a federal system the temporary shutdown of the central government is nearly unnoticeable for most people, for several days and perhaps for some weeks. Even if there is a fiery crash, it’s far away for most of us and doesn’t affect our lives much.

What all this means is that government budget shutdowns are rational, the predictable consequence of the strategic setting. The drivers of each party can blame the refusal of the other side to cooperate, and they actually get credit for the shutdown. This could change if voters stopped rewarding politicians for these craven, empty demolition derby shows. But voters actually seem to be interested, and so the parties obligingly get back out on the road to give us the show we say we don’t want, but certainly deserve.   

Zohran Mamdani announced early this month that, should he win the New York City mayoral race, he intends to shut down New York City public schools’ gifted and talented programs for grades K-2.

This proposal was met with national backlash, from parents and pundits far beyond the bounds of New York City’s school system. Mamdani may have questionable policy stances, but he’s very good at getting media attention.

Mamdani specifically targeted early-age GT (gifted and talented) programs, saying they’d be cut at the end of the current school year. GT programs from third grade onward would be left intact, although parents have voiced concern that those would be next (first they came for the kindergarten GT programs, but I said nothing, because I did not have a kindergartener…).

New York’s gifted and talented program has been a point of tension for some time. Bill DeBlasio tried to do the exact thing Mamdani is threatening on his way out of office in 2021. Eric Adams reversed the policy when he took office in 2022 and kept the programs intact.

It’s also not a new conversation on a national scale. Gifted programs are often seen as an extravagance, an unnecessary pull on resources more desperately needed elsewhere. The needs of the bottom 10 percent become so dire that they outweigh the needs of the top 10 percent, who are left cast adrift.  Being ahead of the curve is a luxury. People assume kids progressing ahead of the pack will be “just fine” if they move at the average pace with everyone else.

But they won’t be “just fine” —they’ll be bored out of their minds. And such apathy runs the risk of becoming a life sentence, with kids checking out of learning altogether.

Mamdani said: “Ultimately, my administration would aim to make sure that every child receives a high-quality early education that nurtures their curiosity and learning.”

But he’s making an impossible promise. You can only have one or the other: you can cut gifted programs, or you can nurture every child’s curiosity and learning. “And” simply isn’t possible.

Pamela Hobart (mother of four gifted kids aptly posting on X as GT Mom) posted: 

Kindergarteners are fidgety overgrown toddlers. Transitioning to school is difficult for many – even when they enjoy the social environment and academic activities. How are you supposed to explain to a five year old who can already read chapter books that it’s for the greater good that more interesting work is coming in 3-5 YEARS?!

Forcing a five-year-old to read Hop on Pop when they’re ready for The Hobbit is psychological cruelty. It makes them believe that school is boring, that formalized learning is unpleasant and pointless. 

“I really do think that early years often define whether kids think of school as meaningful or as miserable,” Kelsey Piper, staff writer at The Argument wrote.

Mamdani’s campaign argues that the GT system is imperfect, because five-year-olds “should not be subjected to a singular assessment that unfairly separates them right at the beginning of their public school education.”

The “unfair” verbiage here is important. At the surface, it sounds like it’s referring to the child, but most public criticism of New York’s GT program centers around identity groups. The program has been criticized for contributing to segregation and retrenching biases along racial and socio-economic lines, because wealthier white and Asian students are overrepresented, and black, Hispanic, and poorer households under-represented. 

But on the level of the individual student, focusing on that doesn’t help anyone. A child isn’t a fractional part of their identity group, but a little kid who needs to be supported at their level, to have their curiosity nurtured — regardless of their skin color or race or academic level.

If White and Asian students are overrepresented, the “solution” (if that’s even the government’s problem, which is debatable) isn’t to punish those top-performing students by boring them with backwards-looking instruction in the name of equity.

The real solution is to figure out ways to raise the students who are falling behind. There are known blueprints for this. Former New York City schoolteacher Robert Pondiscio spent a year inside Brooklyn’s controversial Success Academy, a network of charter schools that caters to low-income minority families, with outcomes rivaling (and even exceeding) the city’s most expensive private schools. He wrote a book, How the Other Half Learns, detailing the unorthodox — but effective — practices inside the school, and how it puts students on track, transforming even low performers into academic superstars.

But Mamdani is against expanding the city’s charter options, arguing that it goes against the principle of universal education.

This proposed “universal public education” sounds egalitarian, but really it just strips students of opportunity in the name of equity. It strives to be “fair” but defines fair as “cutting everyone down to the lowest common denominator” — as if the American promise of being “all created equal” means we must force individuals down identical paths instead of giving them equal chance to take the path that fits them best. It’s dystopia in utopia’s clothing.

The first principle of this policy isn’t greatness or success. If Mamdani really wanted students in New York City to thrive, he would organize schools to meet them at their level and help them onto the next rung on the ladder (whatever that “next rung” may be — the basics of phonics or the woes of Atticus Finch). Instead, his stance is to effectively punish students for being ahead, and fully choke off the possibility of a world-class education in a public school.

The proposal follows the collectivist trend of Mamdani’s other proposals: government-run grocery stores, city-owned commune blocks, higher taxes. Each one can be wrapped in sugar and tied with a bow: it’s making the world more fair, it’s lifting up the downtrodden and giving them access to the good things they’ve been denied for too long.

It makes a person feel good to support it. That’s how kind souls get suckered into supporting policies that ultimately stomp down the very people they meant to lift up.

Not everyone who opposes high achievers is motivated by kindness. The rhetoric also plays into something uglier, a deep-seated, nearly subconscious response that seeks to strike down anything “better” or “more good.” Some are nursing a visceral loathing, vile envy that looks at success and greatness and wants to crush it. This is the festering wound on which socialism thrives.

Mamdani’s educational proposals are the mutated offspring of that deeper philosophy: if not everyone can have a nice thing (in this case, a spot in a gifted program), no one should have it.

A rising-tides-lift-all-boats mentality celebrates excellence, in any form and from any corner, with the knowledge an improving world is better for everyone. New York classrooms should be nurturing young minds not just for their own sake, but for all the innovations (electricity, refrigeration, insulation, automobiles, air travel, cell phones, international shipping, the internet) that educated humans can build for each other. The super-wealthy invest, the super-intelligent design, the super-motivated create, and the innovations they produce become accessible to all, raising the global standard of living. In a very real way, investing in the gifted and talented brings up the bottom-ranked classroom’s future prospects, as well.  

If the problem really is “segregation,” then cutting GT programs isn’t going to fix it. There are tens of thousands of applications for New York City’s limited GT spots. If gifted kids don’t have access to the resources they need in public school, parents with means will pull them out and send them elsewhere, gutting the public schools and leading to segregation in a more absolute form — not different classrooms, but different buildings. Gifted kids from families without means will be left to rot inside the system, their love of learning laid out as a sacrifice on the altar of equity.

Demolishing gifted and talented programs doesn’t make the world better. It makes it measurably worse. Even staunch collectivists must acknowledge that the  collective benefits from individual achievements. A world where gifted kids are enabled to excel, are given every chance to succeed, to go forth and build things that are valuable and make the world better – that world becomes progressively better, for everyone.

Across the United States, harvesters are beginning to scythe their way through fields of crops. How well or badly the harvest goes has traditionally been a farmer’s make-or-break moment, but this year there is another concern. “Nothing’s moving,” says Darin Johnson, a farmer who serves as president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association. America’s farmers are on the frontline in the trade war, and they are taking casualties.

Blowback 

Last year, China bought $12.6 billion of soybeans from the United States, around 25 percent of the country’s total crop. This year, the Chinese have halted these purchases in retaliation for President Trump’s tariffs, opting for South American producers instead. China has not ordered a shipment of American soy since May and, last month, it announced that it would be buying no soybeans from the United States this fall.

The disappearance of this market is forcing many farmers to pay to store their crops or sell them at reduced prices. Either represents a financial hit.

These costs of the trade war are being felt especially heavily in Minnesota, which produces the third-largest soybean crop in the United States after Illinois and Iowa. Soybean exports in Minnesota account for over 25 percent of the state’s total exports, around $2 billion in sales annually. The state’s 26,000 soybean farmers send 60 percent of their produce overseas with China as their leading market. These were the state’s number one agricultural export.

Joel Schreurs, a Minnesota farmer who serves on the U.S. Soybean Export Council executive board, explains that “the cash flows don’t work for this coming year. I mean, you’re showing at average yield and average expense anywhere from $150 to $200 deficit per acre.” The state’s Agriculture Commissioner, Thom Petersen, explains: “We have a lot of soybeans. We’re gonna have a big harvest. We need somewhere for them to go. And we’ve worked years to build relationships and build those markets. So it’s kind of frustrating to not have that market that’s been there for us and China is a big bucket.”

The shock from the new trade war comes on top of longer-standing pressures on American farmers. A decade ago, Minnesota sold one out of every three rows of soybeans to China, the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association says: Since the tariff war of 2018 and 2019, the state now sells only one out of every four rows. “[W]e’re coming up on about three years of negative profitability,” Minnesota Farm Bureau President Dan Glessing explains. “If you look about a year ago, prices are similar; they’re still not at a profitable range.”

And then there are issues of the kind which crop up every year. Low water levels on the Mississippi River are driving up barge rates which makes transporting soybeans on the river more expensive and pushes up the cost of agricultural inputs like fertilizer and herbicides that travel on the river.

But the shock of the trade war in addition to these pressures has pushed many farms over the edge. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture reports that the number of farmers in the state entering mediation due to financial hardship has increased sharply this year and the Minneapolis Federal Reserve reports that farm bankruptcies in the Upper Midwest have increased from last year.

Government to the Rescue

The Trump administration acknowledges these problems. “Right now, the farm economy is not in a good place,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said last week. With 78 percent of American farmers estimated to have voted for President Trump in 2024, it also feels the necessity to act. “We’re working around the clock,” Sec. Rollins claims.

The administration could just roll back the tariffs which have exacerbated agriculture’s underlying pressures. Congress could assert its power to tax. Instead, having hobbled the country’s farmers, federal government officials are now scrambling to offer them a Band-Aid.

Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, has proposed federal financial relief for distressed farmers. Senate Majority Leader John Thune — from South Dakota, where farms account for the highest share of state GDP in the United States — has also floated the idea of a federal aid package. Both have suggested that revenues from the tariffs which have provoked this situation could be used to ameliorate their effects.

President Trump, who dished out more than $22 billion in aid payments to farmers in 2019 to offset their losses during his first trade war with China, says he’s planning a $10 billion aid package for soybean farmers.

But Vincent Smith, who directs the American Enterprise Institute’s Agricultural Research Program, argues that: “It is the larger farms that will really benefit from the bailout, because the bailout will be tied to the size of the farm’s production” so that “If you’re 10 times bigger than me as a farm, you will get 10 times the size of the payment that I get.” 

The Government Accountability Office estimates that seven percent of farmers received about 60 percent of USDA financial assistance available from fiscal year 2019 to 2023, with the rest receiving only about $12,000 per producer.

Farmers would prefer trade to handouts. Matt Purfeerst, a corn and soybean farmer in Faribault, Minnesota, told local station WCCO: “A Band-Aid is great, but you don’t want to impact or damage that relationship long term, whatever the long-term implications might be from losing that [market].” Farmers are working hard to find new markets, like Thailand and Vietnam.

The pain felt by America’s farmers as a result of the tariffs is frequently justified by their supporters with the argument that it is “short term pain for long term gain.” This argument would carry considerably more weight if those making it could outline exactly what these gains are and when they might begin to materialize. “The golden age for our American farmers is around the corner,” Sec. Rollins announced last month. It will need an end to this trade war to get there.

Government is presently “shut down” for failure of Congress to pass a budget for the start of the fiscal year. It is a relatively rare event, having happened just 21 times previously. Thus, politicians and pundits are presently telling us what to make of it: identifying immediate impacts, foretelling enduring consequences, and measuring the macroeconomics. 

There are just two ways out of this shutdown: approval of a full Fiscal Year 2026 budget or the more easily accomplished interim “stopgap” budget called a “continuing resolution” (CR). As pressure mounts for the easy fix, it is time to hear the truth: CRs can be worse than shutdowns.

Shutdowns Are Not All That

There will be thousands of genuine stories of hardship and frustration that will emerge from this shutdown. There will be waste, interruptions, and inefficiency. Still, from a whole-of-society perspective, shutdowns have historically been much ado about little. Government is not shut and it is usually only moderately and briefly down. 

Several myths about shutdowns prevail which make them seem dire. First: government must cease spending. In truth, spending may continue, first, with residual funds from prior years (e.g., research and development, procurement of large items, and working capital operations); and second, when required or implied by law (e.g., Social Security).

Another myth: government must cease activity. In truth, the government may conduct activity deemed essential. The result is that about 75 percent of all federal employees continue to go to work. And there they are met by a large contractor workforce. Contracts, which amount to about 47 percent of all discretionary spending, will have had lengthy periods of performance funded with last year’s budget — for moments just like this.

A final common myth: the economy suffers. In truth, while GDP does fall during a shutdown, government plays ready catch up after a shutdown. Plans swish from one month to another. When all is said and done, macroeconomic indicators will show nary a blip in the data.

The only truly unsettling predictable and regular impact is to federal employees. Whether working or furloughed, they cannot get paid for these days of shutdown until a resolution. That is indeed unfortunate.

When Washington’s Quick Fix Becomes a Slow Bleed

A CR avoids a shutdown. It grants an interim budget — one that mirrors last year’s spend rate and plan. It basically says, “Keep calm and carry on like last year!”

A CR seems like a commendable fix. However, the effects on one governmental function, the military, expose the many problems.

The first problem is that we do not live in a static world. Right out of the gate, inflation and additional sectoral price growth take a roughly 4 percent chunk out of last year’s spending power.

Then misalignment of plans quickly emerges. Each year, as the military adapts to new threats, they plan for hundreds of different acquisition and construction projects as well as various increases and decreases in production. During a CR, these changes are forbidden. Money-in-hand (usually about 6 percent) ends up sitting idle during a CR.

Unfortunately, catch up is not readily feasible as it is after shutdowns. CRs occur almost every year and last on average over a third of a year. With such recurring delays, the integrated coordination of complex projects falls apart: submarines come to dry dock and leave without updates, aircraft get built but cannot securely communicate with each other, and launch windows open and close for a satellite that is not ready. 

At the end of the year, the military often is left maintaining an island of misfit toys, while the future of warfare remains just over the horizon.

Fiscal Uncertainty Promotes Waste

CRs introduce uncertainties as to what may be purchased and when the CR will be superseded by an actual budget. Uncertainties change organizational behavior in deleterious ways.

Starting at the Treasury, each level of authority becomes protective of its funds. Managers parcel out money to lower organizations the way survivors on a life raft parcel out morsels of food.

Between price growth, restrictions on change of plans, and an organizational possessiveness that would make Gollum blush, spend rates for lower-level program offices often fall to 75 to 80 percent of last year’s. 

Tough decisions about priorities must happen: hiring slows, training is put on hold, military moves are held off, and leaders get pitted against each other.

In this environment, financial managers repeatedly must justify short-term spend plans and execution performance. To avoid money being clawed away, they spend expediently instead of necessarily effectively. Small-batch purchases replace the harder but more efficient large-batch purchases; the immediate gets preference over the optimal.

Similarly, contracting officers must repeatedly let contracts with small periods of performance. Because of the churn, they tend to choose contract types based on simplicity of execution instead of effectiveness.

When a full budget does arrive, yet more trouble occurs. Financial managers race with their belated windfall into frenzied end-of-the-year spending, often on low-value items.

A lengthy CR (as occurs in most years) undermines plans and produces many colors of waste. 

Stopgaps and Jacklegs: Euphemism for Failure

A continuing resolution is commonly called a “stopgap.” But is “stopgap” an appropriate term?

Modern dictionaries define stopgap as a “temporary expedient,” a solution “until something better or more suitable can be found.” Etymological dictionaries trace it to the literal plugging up of openings — dikes, hedgerows, and shield walls used against restless seas, impertinent cattle, and bloodthirsty Vikings.

Calling a CR a stopgap makes it seem a commendable act. But in truth, CRs are applied too frequently and lengthily. As a result, they swamp the land year after year, leaving it salted. This swamping, no doubt, does more damage than the brief political theater of shutdowns

The public should start to stigmatize CRs. To that end, I propose a different metaphor for a CR. I suggest we dig up an old slang word of American origin, an “Americanism” suited to this uniquely American malpractice. I suggest we call a CR a “jackleg.”  A jackleg is a temporary fix like a stopgap, but it is a fraudulent one from those who are “incompetent, unskillful, or dishonest.”

Congress’s License to Miss Deadlines

Each year, Congress has from February to October (about the length of time of the gestation of a human being) for its members to agree on terms. Nearly every year they fail.

A CR came about as an invention by Congress. It is their self-approved license to fail at the constitutional duty granted them. For such an insidious invention, a “jackleg” is perhaps the only appropriate epithet.

The public should demand that Congress does its job and passes a budget by October 1 each year. If it cannot, there should be only one tolerable outcome — the embarrassment of a shutdown instead of the illusions and deceptions of jacklegs.