{"id":501,"date":"2017-03-31T17:17:02","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T21:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=501"},"modified":"2017-03-31T17:17:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T21:17:02","slug":"beware-trumps-bearing-gifts-ideas-fixing-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2017\/03\/31\/beware-trumps-bearing-gifts-ideas-fixing-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of Trumps Bearing Gifts — or Ideas for Fixing Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"President Trump recently appointed his 36 year-old son-in-law, Jared Kushner, \u00a0to head up\u00a0an effort to make government more efficient. Ron Klain<\/a>, who has served in numerous top White House positions (including a very impressive stint as Ebola Czar where I worked with him), is skeptical.<\/p>\n

Aside from the fact that Jared has a few other part-time assignments — like being a senior counselor to the President, negotiating a trade deal with Mexico, and bringing peace to the Middle East — \u00a0Klain has identified some other problems: namely that these guys hate\u00a0government and they hate government employees.<\/p>\n

And then there’s this:<\/p>\n

There is reason to suspect that the Office of American Innovation is just a front for an effort to peel away environmental, health, safety and consumer-protection rules in the name of making government more efficient.\u00a0Kushner has emphasized that his new office will work with corporate chief executives \u2014 leaders who are (understandably) more likely to make requests for regulatory relief than get into thorny issues of improving government efficiency.\u00a0Of course, private-sector leaders are free to seek regulatory changes, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with their government hearing them out \u2014 but dressing that up as an effort to make government run better is a bait-and-switch.<\/p>\n

But, as seems to be the way of the world these days, Klain provides\u00a0a better idea in a simple tweet:<\/p>\n

\n

I’ve got a simpler two point plan for then: (1) hire some people who know what they are doing; (2) work harder. t.co\/GhneBRBy5h<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ronald Klain (@RonaldKlain) March 27, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n