"Field-building" may sound jargon-y, but after 15 years of trying to make change in govt, it's the thing I've come to believe is exactly what we need. Recoding America's CEO Anne Healy explains it here. It's worth a read, despite my lame pitch, I promise. artofassociation.substack.com/cp/206219901

Government Reform Needs a Field

I spent twenty years helping build a field without realizing that's what I was doing. This one, we're building on purpose.

artofassociation.substack.com

What @nanransohoff calls the third wave of philanthropy (from AI companies) is huge -- but adds up to about 3 weeks of Medicaid. The real move isn't substituting for government, or hacking it. It's fixing it. And we've barely tried. www.eatingpolicy.com/p/philanthro...

Philanthropy’s Willie Sutton Problem

Third wave philanthropy will need to work with government, but it will also have to work ON government

eatingpolicy.com

Hello smart people of the Internet Why is wifi on planes so hit and miss?

What Colorado has just done is a huge deal. The first state to adopt the product model at scale. www.eatingpolicy.com/p/the-digita...

The Digital Service Was Never the Point

Colorado becomes first state to commit to the product model at scale

eatingpolicy.com

What DOGE coulda, shoulda been: "A Three Horizons Framework for Government Reform" @pahlkadot.bsky.social (Plus- Nixon invades Cambodia) Face forward: roughlydaily.com/2026/04/28/t...

Excellent post from @pahlkadot.bsky.social . This is what 21st century government should be about. Measuring the administrative burden on individuals, whether front-line gov staff or citizens, and then moving back up the chain to fix it. www.eatingpolicy.com/p/what-doge-...

What DOGE Could Have Done

Done right, cutting staff actually can be a part of getting better outcomes. Part of.

eatingpolicy.com

DOGE asked a question it never answered. Louisiana answered it. Read how. www.eatingpolicy.com/p/what-doge-...

What DOGE Could Have Done

Done right, cutting staff actually can be a part of getting better outcomes. Part of.

eatingpolicy.com

Too many people are ready to burn our institutions down. But there's another kind of burning — the controlled kind, that clears the way for what comes next. I wrote about the new book Crisis Engineering and why we need more crisis engineers. www.eatingpolicy.com/p/trial-by-f...

Trial by Fire: Crisis Engineering

A new book shows how to turn a crisis into the change you've been waiting for

eatingpolicy.com

I wrote about the awkwardness of reforming the laws that govern how we build and buy technology in federal government just when everything is changing. Again. It's 1995 all over again. But we can avoid the mistakes of the past! www.eatingpolicy.com/p/reforming-...

"Outcome reviews" with elected leaders help close the gap between policy intents and real world outcomes. @pahlkadot.bsky.social www.eatingpolicy.com/p/outcomes-r...

Outcomes Reviews: Realigning Legislative Incentives

How might a state legislature shift from outputs to outcomes?

eatingpolicy.com

A promising experiment in closing the loop between legislations and real-world outcomes: www.eatingpolicy.com/p/outcomes-r...

Outcomes Reviews: Realigning Legislative Incentives

How might a state legislature shift from outputs to outcomes?

eatingpolicy.com

Excellent use of "rococo" (and a good reminder of how useful that word is in Spelling Bee) paired with a shout out for everyone's favorite crackpot, Charles Guiteau. No, he's not a chocolate maker.

Chase Madar@madar.bsky.social · 11mo ago

How social-democratic visions for New York (or anywhere else in the US) will require a thoroughgoing rationalization of our rococo civil service hiring system. (With guest appearance by Charles Guiteau)

If you care about Mamdani's success, you might want to read this. www.eatingpolicy.com/p/robert-mos...

Robert Moses's unfinished business should be Mamdani's priority

The mayor-elect has 25,000 job applicants in 24 hours and a civil service system designed to keep him from hiring any of them

eatingpolicy.com

This week we were joined by @pahlkadot.bsky.social & Robert Gordon for a conversation about their new project, Recode America, & how they are working to reimagine our regulatory process so that government at all levels can effectively deliver for Americans. open.substack.com/pub/statesfo...

Making Government Work for the People

A conversation with Jennifer Pahlka and Robert Gordon

open.substack.com

I am a huge Manoush Zomorodi fan, so getting to be on NPR's TED Radio Hour was a real treat. We talked about how to update the operating model of government in the service of our democracy. Take a listen! www.npr.org/2025/10/31/n...

The tech revolution bureaucracy desperately needs

Government feels stuck on dial-up. Political advisor Jennifer Pahlka explains how smarter tech—and less red tape—could finally speed it up.

npr.org

Congrats to @pahlkadot.bsky.social & @robertgo.bsky.social on the launch of the Recoding America Fund! America needs new, bold policy solutions that are ready to deliver effective governing & improve people's lives. We're excited to work together towards this future. www.recodingamerica.fund

American Government Needs to Deliver

Recoding America Fund is taking this once-in-a-generation opportunity to generate and pass reforms that shape that change in the public interest.

recodingamerica.fund

Announcing the Recoding America Fund! It's time to update the operating model of government. eatingpolicy.substack.com/p/announcing...

Announcing the Recoding America Fund

A bipartisan reckoning with the administrative state

eatingpolicy.substack.com

What happens when a team turns a failure into a dramatic success? Sometimes, their hard work and courage earn them a GAO nastygram. That's because the GAO holds them accountable to the wrong operating model. www.eatingpolicy.com/p/gao-gets-s...

GAO gets schooled by the Department of Education

The FAFSA team stands up for itself, and for everyone operating in the product model

eatingpolicy.com

Choose your variety of abundance. It's like having your colors done, but actually useful. www.niskanencenter.org/abundance-va...

Varieties of Abundance - Niskanen Center

We will know that abundance has succeeded when there is a proliferation of “abundances,” different governing projects attached to previously existing ideologies, interests, and parties.

niskanencenter.org

“As any gardener knows, planting is not the hard part. Gardening is about creating the right conditions: tending and fertilizing the soil, watering, weeding to give seedlings the space they need to grow. Effective leadership in today’s sclerotic government also requires cultivation”

Jennifer Pahlka@pahlkadot.bsky.social · last yr.

In which I argue that Weeding is Fundamental. :) www.eatingpolicy.com/p/better-pol...

In which I argue that Weeding is Fundamental. :) www.eatingpolicy.com/p/better-pol...

Better Politicians

Weeding is Fundamental

eatingpolicy.com

Per @pahlkadot.bsky.social, “You can’t redistribute what doesn’t exist.” Successful abundance policies must reduce the barriers that make it hard to access resources AND increase the supply of those resources.

💼 “To transform the operations of the public sector, leaders will need both courage and creativity. Government unions and contractors alike will be uncomfortable." @nytimes.com @robertgo.bsky.social @pahlkadot.bsky.social buff.ly/fS3RQch

You can have government efficiency or you can wage the culture war through administrative policy. You can't have both. @gabemenchaca.bsky.social @pahlkadot.bsky.social

Government can deliver better digital services—but only if it adopts the right operating model. Our new piece at @niskanencenter.bsky.social with @pahlkadot.bsky.social explains why moving from projects to products is the path to services that actually work. www.niskanencenter.org/the-product-...

by Ann Lewis Ann Lewis

The government could replicate some private sector practices that have provided results like digitizing more services.

niskanencenter.org

The President Accounts. A 1939 film by The Government. Newly available in the public domain. archive.org/details/FedF...

The President Accounts : Bureau of Accounts, U.S. Treasury : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

On government accounting practices affecting money spent on unemployment relief. President Roosevelt addresses Congress, unemployed men work on relief jobs,...

archive.org

Bay Area people: I'll be in SF on June 24th and would love to see you at Mannys! www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening...

"I no longer believe that incremental fixes are enough." I get very excited when leaders like Seemay make big, bold moves like this. More of this, please!

Seemay Chou@seemaychou.bsky.social · last yr.

We're excited to take this step, and to talk to other folks who are interested in experimenting. If you have something you're excited to try, reply here -- and we might even fund it. asterainstitute.substack.com/p/scientific...

This is an excellent explanation of the politics of Abundance, and how it relates to the populist left. Must read. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/o...

Opinion | The Abundance Agenda Has Its Own Theory of Power

nytimes.com

"San Francisco’s municipal code runs about the same length...as 75 “Moby Dick"s and counting. No lawyer, or even a team of them, could ever muck out all the redundant and outdated sections contained in it. So City Attorney David Chiu is calling in Stanford’s AI experts to help him out."