Opinion | The Book I Wish Every Policymaker Would Read
06/06/2023
Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’
The New York Times Audio app includes podcasts, narrated articles from the newsroom and other publishers, and exclusive new shows — including this one — which we’re making available to readers for a limited time. Download the audio app here.
My pitch for this episode is simple: Jennifer Pahlka has written one of the best policy books I’ve ever read.
Pahlka served as deputy chief technology officer in the Obama White House, and she’s the founder and a former executive director of Code for America, a nonprofit that works to enhance government digital services. Over the course of her career, Pahlka has become obsessed with an area of policy that is too often ignored by policymakers: implementation. She was part of the effort to rescue HealthCare.gov in 2013 and was tapped by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 to help fix California’s unemployment insurance system as it buckled under the weight of the Covid response.
[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]
It has become a common refrain that the U.S. government is often terrible at delivering even basic services. But Pahlka’s new book — “Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better” — puts forward a deeper theory of why government services are so awful, how policy implementation so often goes awry and what it would take to fix those systems so that government could better live up to its promises. It’s an argument that anyone who cares about government in the 21st century needs to take seriously.
You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Our production team is Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Roge Karma and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Isaac Jones and Kristina Samulewski.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | The Book I Wish Every Policymaker Would Read
Opinion | The Book I Wish Every Policymaker Would Read
Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’
The New York Times Audio app includes podcasts, narrated articles from the newsroom and other publishers, and exclusive new shows — including this one — which we’re making available to readers for a limited time. Download the audio app here.
My pitch for this episode is simple: Jennifer Pahlka has written one of the best policy books I’ve ever read.
Pahlka served as deputy chief technology officer in the Obama White House, and she’s the founder and a former executive director of Code for America, a nonprofit that works to enhance government digital services. Over the course of her career, Pahlka has become obsessed with an area of policy that is too often ignored by policymakers: implementation. She was part of the effort to rescue HealthCare.gov in 2013 and was tapped by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 to help fix California’s unemployment insurance system as it buckled under the weight of the Covid response.
[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]
It has become a common refrain that the U.S. government is often terrible at delivering even basic services. But Pahlka’s new book — “Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better” — puts forward a deeper theory of why government services are so awful, how policy implementation so often goes awry and what it would take to fix those systems so that government could better live up to its promises. It’s an argument that anyone who cares about government in the 21st century needs to take seriously.
You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Our production team is Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Roge Karma and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Isaac Jones and Kristina Samulewski.
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