Move fast...and fix democracy?

23:48Bradley Tusk:I can check it off the list. And because mobile voting is so hard and it's going to take so long, I have to let myself feel good about the process instead. um but yeah it's hard for sure but at the end of the day like you know look i was a really weird this is now way too personal for this interview but like i was a weird kid when i was growing up i was a misfit and i just didn't really ever fit in anywhere and you know to me i just always knew that i wanted my life to have impact to have meaning i don't even know if i knew what that was I didn't want to just kind of live, have a normal life and die.

24:26Bradley Tusk:And that was it. And so to me, you know, trying to do things that are moonshots have always made sense because it's sort of the only way that my mind has ever worked. And, you know, I don't know if I'm going to succeed with mobile voting or not. And it is maybe a little crazy that just one totally random guy is just taking this thing on when it should really be the responsibility of the government, quite frankly. But our government doesn't try to make voting easier. In fact, they frequently try to make it harder. And someone's got to do it. And so I'm willing to try. That was Bradley Tusk. He's the head of Tusk Ventures and Tusk Philanthropies.

25:05To get the latest on the Mobile Voting Project, you can go to mobilevoting.org. And you can see Bradley's full talk at TED.com. On the show today, how upgrading the way our government works could actually strengthen democracy. Because sometimes you want to put aside politics and just renew your driver's license or get to work on time or sign up for health insurance. That was nearly impossible to do in 2013 when the then new platform called healthcare.gov launched.

25:44Bradley Tusk:The online system has been overloaded since October 1st when the exchanges opened. A series of glitches, delays and crashes kept people from getting to state exchanges as well. President Obama acknowledged some early hiccups with the government's website. Healthier.gov was an enormous, enormous task. This is Jennifer Palka. She had just joined the Obama administration as the deputy chief technology officer when the launch happened. The policy was enormously complex. they had to serve really every possible person who would be looking for health care insurance. Affordances for folks who are gig workers and then for those who have, you know, special status or special needs.

26:25It wasn't really supposed to be for non-citizens, but there were actually exceptions to that that got to like very, very small groups of people. And to get to that, you had to code in a lot of really specific logic to be able to sort of do that flow. It was complicated. It was really complicated. But there were some people behind the scenes saying, look, could we do what we'd call a soft launch that just works for like the easiest folks and then work out the bugs with them and then add the other people's needs in? And of course, what they got back was you can't do that. it would have been a very different experience had they been allowed to do a soft launch and have it grow in its functionality over time.

27:10I think the concern there that, say, a gig worker, for instance, that they'd be able to access it later than the other people is certainly a valid concern. You can add those people a month or two later or three months later, depending on how long it's going to take you to work out these bugs. And the reality is that those people actually could not access the site in the way that they did it. And so there's this sort of false sense of trade-offs. We've got to have it work for everybody from day one, when in fact, that tactic means that it will work for almost no one on day one. Within a few months, Jen's team got healthcare.gov back on track.

27:49And Jen, along with many others, set about bringing a more digital mindset to government. Because before the White House, Jen had worked in Silicon Valley and then launched a nonprofit called Code for America in 2009. From her perspective, marrying the new digital ways of doing things with old school bureaucracy presented a huge opportunity. She talked about it back in 2012 on the TED stage. I started a program to try to get the rock star tech and design people to take a year off and work in the one environment that represents pretty much everything they're supposed to hate. We have them work in government.

28:31The program is called Code for America, and it's a little bit like a Peace Corps for geeks. We select a few fellows every year, and we send them into the wilds of City Hall. And there they make great apps, they work with city staffers, but really what they're doing is they're showing what's possible with technology today. I think we can't emphasize enough how much there was a change in thinking at that point. Around then, 2012, I think is when the lean startup by Eric Ries became sort of the Bible of Silicon Valley, which was a completely different way of approaching how you built a company, how you problem solve.

29:09For folks who maybe aren't familiar with the lean startup, you start small. You try it. You see what works. You pivot in the lingo. that's become a bit of a cliche now. But at the time, it was kind of radical, right? And I assume that when you first got to Washington, that lingo was not common at all. Oh, I think it's still not very common, or at least not as common as it should be. But it is gaining more traction. This idea that if you have the right people in-house, and you're really focused on the people who need to use the service and their experience of it, then you're going to be able to follow your way.

29:46Yes, pivot. Though it is a cliche. Pivot your way to something that works. But it's very hard for government not necessarily to adopt the technology. It's hard for government to adopt the ways of working that make that technology have a big impact. If you think about who goes into government, it's lawyers and economists and administrators, very much people with sort of a certain way of thinking about the world. I mean, I talk to people all the time in government who are planning things for 2035, you know. It's like, what is the world even going to look like in 2035? So before we go into the future, Jen, can we talk about another more recent fiasco?

30:28In 2020, Congress passed a law to make it easier for hopeful college students to fill out a form to get a loan. It's called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. But that upgrade, it did not go as hoped. Was this just healthcare.gov all over again, or were there lessons learned this time? Unfortunately, the better FAFSA kicked off what is known in government technology world as a modernization. And I say that with heavy air quotes around it. And that modernization process resulted in a new system that did not work and was absolutely terrible for millions of young people who needed to be able to apply for financial aid and really just couldn't because the system wasn't working.

31:17You know, in sort of much the way that healthcare.gov didn't work. The good news, though, is that the Department of Education brought in some people to help out, a team from the United States Digital Service and an outside team from the College Board, both of whom practice in a really different model. It's what we call the product model. And the FAFSA this year has worked quite well. People are very satisfied with it. It has high marks. According to Jen, this rescue team, including the U.S. Digital Service, which she had helped found, dug in with more of a digital approach. They worked nonstop to find bugs, beta tested new features and fixed the problems fast.

31:57They sort of brought this lean startup thinking to the rescue effort. But ironically, this team ended up getting in big trouble. In the midst of this great success, the government accountability office writes a letter saying, hey, the FAFSA team isn't doing things by the books. And so you're in trouble. They wrote a 60-page, you know, slap on the wrist, essentially. The rebellious better FAFSA team refused to accept their reprimand. and said, yeah, we're doing things by a different book. We automated a lot of the testing so that the parts that computers could do, they could just do quickly, and the parts where we really needed people on it watching humans, you know, struggle, they would do their part right.

32:41They're actually spending less and getting better outcomes now, but they caught this nasty gram from the GAO because the GAO is holding them accountable to the old way of working. When we come back with shutdowns and layoffs in Washington, Jennifer Palka explains how states are stepping in and how we can bring bureaucracy safely into the AI age. On the show today, updating America's operating system. I'm Anoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. We'll be right back.

33:24Bradley Tusk:This message comes from Schwab. With the new Schwab Teen Investor account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience. It's co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. This message comes from Dell Technologies. Interruptions happen at work, but with the Dell Pro laptop, powered by Intel Core Ultra with vPro, built with optimized battery and built-in intelligence, your tech won't slow you down. Dell.com slash Dell-Pro. Built for you. This message comes from Middlesex County, New Jersey. If you've been thinking about where to grow your business next, Middlesex County, New Jersey should be on your shortlist.

34:07It's got a world-class workforce, easy access to U.S. and global markets, and one of the most resilient supply chains in the country. Add 40 % of the U.S. population within a day's drive, and you've got every advantage in one place. Visit biz.discovermittlesex.com to set up a meeting with a business advisor today. This message comes from BetterHelp. People talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2 ,000 Americans and found that 85 % believe getting support is wise, yet 74 % say society discourages people from doing so.

34:50Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Today on the show, giving the government a digital upgrade and how it could actually strengthen democracy. We've been talking to Jennifer Palka, founder of Code for America and former deputy chief technology officer with the Obama administration. She thinks the government can be smaller and smarter, even though between federal shutdowns and sweeping layoffs, it's hard to imagine what a smaller, faster, more capable government might look like.

35:34One of the things that has happened very recently is the sense that people are like, fine, forget it. It's not working. Let's start all over. I'm thinking of Elon Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency. And say what you will about what he did, but one thing he definitely knew was shock the system.

36:02And I wonder if sometimes that's what it takes when things are so entrenched that people think a very certain way. They are scared to make changes. They're scared to iterate. They're scared to fail, frankly. And maybe were you hopeful, actually, when Doge came on the scene? I was hopeful. And I know many other people who were. I think DOGE cut the workforce but didn't really cut the work that needed doing. We have so many policies and procedures that have accumulated just like layers of cruft over decades and decades that, unfortunately, public servants are still stuck doing those things that aren't the core work that they want to do.

36:49Public servants want to serve the public for the most part. And we really need to free them to do the work that most gets the outcomes that the public expects. So just cutting the people but not actually reducing that decades of procedural bloat isn't really what I was hoping to have happen. But that's the reality we live in today. There has been a shock to the system. So what do we do with it? you can't want really transformational change and then think it's going to happen without anybody ever getting upset about anything, right? They always say, right, you're going to have to break a few eggs to make the omelet.

37:28Kind of where I think of us right now as is like the eggs have been broken, whether you like how they were broken or not. And it's up to us now to make the omelet. What do you think it is that makes people struggle to do things differently? Is it a matter of simply a generation that we get stuck in our ways that young people and fresh blood and different perspectives? What do you think it is that keeps government from keeping up? There are a lot of reasons that it's hard to move this. The one I would point to right now, just because it seems so timely, is that people don't like the idea of just getting rid of the old.

38:10They need to be able to envision what the new thing is that they're moving to. Mostly people kind of want a lot of the same things, right? We want better schools. We want better roads. We want to feel safe and secure as a nation in the world. So we look to the policies that we think drive those better outcomes. But we've been doing a lot of policy work and we're not getting those better schools. Jen says following four rules can bring the government up to speed. First, we need the right people in government, which means we probably need some sort of civil service reform so that our systems get us and retain and develop the right people.

38:52Second, those people can't be stuck dealing with red tape. We need them focused on the right work. So there needs to be some procedural reform to right-size all of that procedure that people are stuck with. Third, you need those right people doing the right tasks with tech that actually works. They need purpose-fit systems. We have to find better ways to build and buy the technology that runs our government. And finally, they need to be able to test, learn, and pivot so they can actually achieve their goals. Once we see that that foundational work needs to be done and this is the perfect time to do it, then I think people start to get, I know where we're going.

39:37Let's all go there together. I guess what I'm concerned about is like all this bureaucracy you've been talking about as the biggest barrier to an effective government. But many people would say those bureaucratic rules were created by political choices. How do you separate the two? Immediately it becomes a telegraphing or a signaling of what you believe is right or who you hate in some cases. I think there's so much more of this that isn't polarized. we have always added and added and added to our laws and policies and regulations from the left, right, and the center, and from the best of intentions, and we never subtract.

40:16So, again, I'll give you an example. People were outraged at how many states accrued backlogs of unemployment insurance claims during the pandemic. We had people waiting months for their benefits, and that's not okay. When someone's out of work and has no money for food, we have an obligation to get them. that money, and yet we weren't. And one of the state labor commissioners, a guy named Rob Asaro Angelo in New Jersey, when he was called to testify about why that state had a backlog, he brought these huge boxes and put them on the table in front of the state legislature.

40:53Bradley Tusk:We're forced to go through a gauntlet of federal requirements before paying out claims. Federal rules and regulations have changed about 30 times just in the past two years. for New Jerseyans who found themselves out of work after COVID hit. These are all the unemployment regulations they had to wade through. And quite a bit, it said 7 ,119 pages of active UI regulations in our state. It's like if you want the system to be able to scale up to 10 or even 15 times the volume overnight, you need something that is just a lot more streamlined and simple and clear. You can't just always add to the regulations and never go back and simplify and sort of rationalize them.

41:37I can imagine someone saying, like, we need checks and balances. Government requires oversight. The stakes are too high not to get into the details. What do you say to someone who's worried about people, well, moving fast and breaking things? I 100 percent agree that we need checks and balances. I think the question is, do we need 7 ,119 pages of them in just one program, in just one state? This is not a call for deregulation in that sense or no regulation or just to sort of go willy-nilly. But it is a wake-up call, I think, that we need to make choices that additional rules and regulations don't come without a cost.

42:22We've really gotten to the point where it's almost impossible to understand how you would create a set of rules that would govern that system that would be, you know, scalable and robust. Except now we have AI that can help you get through 7 ,119 pages of regulation. So that's another reason where, like, this is the right moment to be doing this work. So let's talk about that. I read an op-ed you wrote for The New York Times, which said that New Jersey is actually kind of becoming a model of smart, safe AI use in government, that it trained more than 14 ,000 employees to use some tools more efficiently.

43:03Tell me about what you are seeing about AI working in government, because I think it scares a lot of people, frankly. I think people get scared when they think about AI making decisions that people should make. And the greatest uses of AI are to help people make decisions and to help people do their work faster. So in New Jersey, they've said our public servants really can do a better job with AI in their hands. So not only have they made sure that their people have access to models that are appropriate, but they've also been training them in how they can use these tools to do their jobs better.

43:46And I don't think that's as scary if there's a human in the loop. In many cases, folks are worried about AIs making decisions that encode bias. And I think we need to take that very, very seriously. I also think we need to remember that the status quo is that people are making those decisions with a lot of bias, even despite all the rules and regulations that have come into place. And so let's not compare a system that may make some mistakes to a theoretical perfect system because that is not the system that we have. Do we want AI helping us go through literally thousands of pages of regulations and saying, where might we make this program a little bit easier to administer?

44:32Yes, we're still in charge. Guess what? You can't let AI make a decision about turning back law or policy or regulation because by law, that has to be done by the legislature or the regulator. I mean, I can also assume that there's so much busy work that happens, that that's where a lot of the backlogs are, and nobody really wants to do that stuff. How do you begin to think of jobs and the role of the humans in the government system, whether that's in, you know, local government, state, or federal? There are a lot of people doing a lot of work that computers could do better. And that wouldn't be a problem necessarily if you didn't have a lot more demand coming from the public for the state to do stuff, right?

45:21So we're about to enter an era where states are going to have real budget crises. If you say, and AI cannot play a role in this, the people that is going to hurt are the public. You also have enormous staff shortages at the state and local level that are talked about much, much less than the shortages that we have now in federal government for a different reason. So we need people in the public sector. You could be moving people into the jobs that aren't being done. But we're going to have to make some choices here, and I really hope that our leaders in state and local government in particular decide to be thoughtful about how to adopt AI in such a way that we meet the needs of the public first.

46:08I have to say I renewed my passport for the first time online, and it was awesome. I am so glad to hear that. I can tell you that until I guess it was last year, you couldn't renew your passport online. No. But a fantastic team from the United States Digital Service went and worked with the Bureau of Consular Affairs and helped them really move their model of working into this product model. They brought in the right people and the right approaches. and I think you have them to thank for a much improved experience. I mean, I remember just a few years ago renewing my kids' passports and we still had to go somewhere to get our pictures taken.

46:54I was like, oh my gosh, this is so archaic and ridiculous. But this time it was like, upload a new picture. And I was like, oh no, what am I going to do? And it was like, just stand against a white backdrop and take a selfie. And I did. I did it in my hallway, loaded it up. It was like, great, you're all set. I was like, what? It's magic. It feels like magic when it works, but it's not. It's groups of people figuring out the kinks and making it work. Yeah, and challenging the notion that the way government has always done it is the way we need to do it today. That was Jennifer Palka. She is the board chair of the Recoding America Fund and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center.

47:35Her book is called Recoding America, Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. You can see her full talk at TED.com. We've talked a lot this hour about upgrading America's operating system. But there's one place that we mentioned that is way ahead of the digital curve, Estonia. So we want to end with an expert on e-governance there. Here's Anna Paperell on the TED stage in 2019. Almost 30 years ago, my country was facing the need to rebuild everything from scratch. After years of Soviet occupation, Estonia regained its independence, but we were left with nothing. No infrastructure, no administration, no legal code, an organizational chaos.

48:26Out of necessity, the state leaders back then had to make some daring choices. There was a lot of experimentation and uncertainty, but also a bit of luck involved, particularly in the fact that we could count on a number of brilliant visionaries, cryptographers and engineers. I was just a kid back then. Today, we're called the most digital society on Earth. I'm from Estonia, and we've been declaring taxes online since 2001. We've been using digital identity and signatures since 2002. We've been voting online since 2005. And for today, pretty much the whole range of the public services that you can imagine, education, police, justice, starting a company, applying for benefits, looking at your health record, or challenging a parking ticket, that's everything that is done online.

49:22In fact, it's much easier to tell you what are the free things we cannot yet do online. We have to show up to pick up our ID documents, get married or divorced, or sell real estate. That's pretty much it. Indeed, one of the features of the modern life that has no reason to exist anymore, considering technological possibilities of today, is the labyrinth of bureaucracy. see. The central idea behind this development is transformation of the state role and digitalization of trust. Think about it. In most countries, people don't trust their governments, and the governments don't trust them back. And all the complicated paper-based formal procedures are supposed to solve that problem, except that they don't.

50:15They just make life more complicated. I believe Estonian experience is showing that technology can be the remedy for getting the trust back while creating an efficient, user-centric service delivery system that actively responds to citizens' needs. Now, of course, running a digital society with no paper backup can be an issue, right? Even though we trust our systems to be solid, but one can never be too cautious, as we experienced back in 2007, when the first cyber incident happened and it literally blocked part of our networks, making access to the services impossible for ours. We survived. But this event put cybersecurity at the very top of agenda.

51:07So how do you back up a countrywide system? Well, for instance, you can export copy of the data outside the country territory. So today, we have data embassies that are holding the most critical digital assets of Estonia, guaranteeing continuity of operations. The Estonian system is location-independent and user-centric. It prioritizes inclusiveness, openness, and reliability. It puts security and transparency at its center and the data into the hands of the rightful owner, the person they refer to. Don't take my word for it. Try it. Thank you. That was e-governance expert Anna Paperell. You can see her full talk at TED.com.

52:02Thank you so much for listening to our show today. If you liked it, learn something, please leave us a rating or a review on Spotify or Apple. We read all your comments and we love hearing from you. This episode was produced by James Delahousie, Phoebe Lett, Katie Monteleone, and Fiona Guerin. It was edited by Sanaa Zmeshkinpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Rachel Faulkner-White, Matthew Cloutier, and Harsha Nahada. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineers were David Greenberg and Zoe Vangenhoven. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablewe. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Heilash, and Daniela Ballarezzo.

52:43I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. This message comes from MidiHealth. CEO Joanna Strober shares the personal experience that led her to start a virtual care platform for women in paramenopause and menopause. I was having anxiety. I had gained weight. I wasn't sleeping. And my primary care doctor never once said that perhaps I was in perimenopause and that all these things could be related to my hormones. So I had a really tough time for quite a while. And a friend recommended that I try a concierge doctor. She prescribed hormones for me, a combination of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

53:24And I felt very relieved that I had this care. And I also had a lot of sadness that I had spent such a long period of time going through this and not getting the right care. And so essentially what we really want to do at Midi is democratize access to this type of care. Midi Health, committed to helping women in midlife with paramenopause and menopause care, accessible via telehealth visits at joinmidi.com.