Reflections on Code for America Summit 2024

Last week, I attended the Code for America Summit in Oakland, California. With over a thousand attendees, the turnout exceeded my expectations. This gathering of tech elites reminded me of the vast ecosystem of government contractors. Washington's spending alone is roughly one-third of the U.S.'s total Gross Domestic Product. This fact is reflected in the diversity and scale of the Summit’s attendees.

An old sales adage reads, “You can’t shoot the moose from the lodge.” I believe this is true. To test an idea, it's best to meet, mingle, and breathe the air of those who might someday want to adopt that idea. In short, I traveled to Oakland because I am obsessed with the truth. Like anyone, I hate rejection, but I'd rather not pursue an idea that few are interested in.

I wanted to know if the Needs Monitor and the 90-Degree Turn philosophy resonated with government and contractor techies or if I was “off in left field,” as my dad would say. At 71, my time is precious, and I need to make the most of its shrinking supply. I'm perfectly okay with not chasing a bad thing.

Bias is a powerful force. After years of observing, reading, thinking, researching, writing, and investing, an idea becomes an obsession. The more time and money we put into something, the more convinced we are of its merit. But it could be a farce. To break from this bias, one must seek out rejection. It's for this reason, primarily, that I traveled from Europe to California (including an 11-hour stretch from Amsterdam to Los Angeles). Approaching this crossroads was not something I did calmly. It's a bit like asking your partner if s/he still loves you. The truth may set you free, but it may also hurt.

Pros

The Forum: Founded by Jennifer Pahlka in 2009, Code for America has established itself as a leading forum for bringing together digital problem-solvers. It lives up to its mission statement: “We’re people-centered problem solvers working to improve government in meaningful ways.”

Need Monitor Feedback: While I had set my expectations low, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many liked the Needs Monitor and agreed with the need for streamlining government. There was some resistance, but this was good. It reminded me of the challenges of introducing a new approach into a world of legacy systems held together by bubble gum and rubber bands.

Comprehensive: Whether a workshop the scoping of AI system solutions, procurement, or the workings of Boston’s impressive 311 solution, the 2024 Code for America Summit covered a wide range of important topics.

Engaging: The atmosphere was open and engaging. Most seemed to like the Needs Monitor concept, except perhaps for a few researchers who, in their effort to be unbiased, seemed to place more importance on quantifying things than measuring them. The Oeste Bar mixer, hosted by Nava PBC, was also a great opportunity to mingle and schmooze. Meeting so many interesting people was uplifting. It also reminded me that I’m an old man, an outlier in a crowd of effervescent techie do-gooders half my age.

Cons

Government Has It Backwards: Despite its best intentions, our government undermines technology’s ability to perform its magic by treating software like hardware and specifying everything in detail before taking a single step. In manufacturing, it could be said you can’t specify enough. However, the digital world is manufacturing’s opposite. Solutions can start off being far from perfect, but through the iterative process, evolve to perfect. Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Salesforce, and thousands of other successful tech firms didn’t start off writing extensive specifications. They started by acting on intuition, hiring smart people, putting something in front of people, and measuring. That’s inclusiveness!

Many attribute today’s approach to the government’s risk-averse mentality. I attribute it to institutionalized bureaucracy, where projects are driven for the purpose of spending and not producing solutions.

Research: Research is necessary, but a mentality of research is an opportunity to burn cash. Many research grants and small business SBIRs are nothing but cash-burners. I had one at the NIH; it was good for me and my tiny team of three, but of zero benefit to the country. NIH does care about research and talks about translational medicine (where medical research is applied to mainstream medicine). But first comes spending and emptying budgets. When I circled back to our NIH program manager, about 6 months into our 12-month project, and asked about getting our solution into the hands of practitioners, the reply was that they were too busy issuing new grants to help. During the course of our project, only one question was asked: has anyone reported sexual harassment? Never did the NIH ask for a demo to see what we were developing. We could have just invoiced and collected without doing a thing, I don’t think NIH would have ever known. It’s for this reason that we have an economy of small firms that feed off the NIH. These virtual “Beltway Bandits” have made their way through the mote of government’s red tape to a pot of gold. With every opportunity, they forward grant proposals to the NIH. Millions are made by private individuals while providing nothing of value to the country.

It is the government way. A legacy of spending untethered from benefit or value to the country.

The elephant-size unasked question in the room is always, “How much of this ‘research’ was actually applied to a solution?” If the metrics stated by the Inspectors General Office at oversight.gov are any indication, I think the answer is, “We don’t know.” In the government’s massively massive body, answers are plentiful but solutions are scarce.

Perspective: Of the many young and enthusiastic individuals I met, few seemed aware of the U.S.'s old age and that government processes have rarely been curated or simplified over the past 235 years. The government’s history of never cleaning house but always taking in stuff has enabled our tax code to grow from half an inch to over nine feet! In exchange, we have created a tax-preparation industry that adds $150 billion in costs to taxpayers every year. This is just one example in a thousand, but one we’re all familiar with. I pay taxes in Europe too. It’s one page, online, and takes 30 seconds. In contrast, I pay $2000 per year to have my U.S. taxes done. For 2023, my return was 41 pages.

Action vs. Motion: Speaking of taxes… the announcement at the Summit’s plenary session on Thursday morning about uploading tax PDF forms drew loud applause and the hooting and hollering of a winning touchdown. In my view, it was a farce. We shouldn’t pretend that any real benefit is derived from uploading PDFs when tax code complexity is the real issue. The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), an independent team within the IRS, has been reporting the effects of this to Congress for two decades. Nothing has changed other than more tax code. TAS has explained the burden our antiquated tax code places on the country, particularly the poor who cannot afford to pay enough to get the right tax advice. Even though they may pay, the poor are more likely to be advised by tax hacks who, despite good intentions, don’t know what they’re doing. This is the kind of mess legacy government creates, and it’s a complete waste of time and money.

If we want inclusion, we must look beyond uploading forms. It is delusional to think that uploading forms solves anything when the real problem affecting the poor and disadvantaged is tax code complexity. I understand politicians pumping the air over nothing, but if our civil servants are doing the same, I have to ask: what is your mission? One of action or one of motion. As Franklin warned, we should never confuse the two.

Solutions vs. Overhead: Delivering solutions within the matrix of governmental red tape adds mind-blowing overhead, which I estimate at between 90 to 99.5%. This means that for every dollar spent by the government, as little as half a penny of value is actually realized. We need to pivot from thinking about what agencies do to thinking about what agencies achieve. We need to shift from institutional processes to operational effectiveness.

The Future

Civil servants and those servicing the government should consider the limitations ahead. We don't imagine the U.S. Government coming to an end simply because we haven't experienced it before. But history teaches us that all empires eventually end. What if the government radically redefines itself? What if we did a massive reboot of our bureaucracy and political system to create a USA Version 2.0? What if we heed Thomas Jefferson's advice about government changing to address the current times, and not yesterday?

Would this not be an approach for extending the life of our democratic republic by another 50 years or more?

In his research, hedge fund guru Ray Dalio paints a sobering picture of the U.S. future in "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order." Looking at the rise and fall of the Dutch and British empires, Dalio sees many parallels to the United States. In the case of the Dutch and British, those empires lasted about 250 years.

While we should be working to slow down the aging process to extend the life of our democracy, the opposite is happening. According to Dalio, as an empire nears its end, its existing downward trend accelerates. We see the same in the U.S. Instead of trying to stop the aging process, during the past 20 years, we have only sped it up, while having little to show for it aside from a $34 trillion debt and annual interest payments of $1 trillion. That’s more than the entire Defense budget. Our debt has climbed 500% since 2000, as has campaign financing. This trend needs to be reversed. Time is running out.

Fred  Eberlein, Author of the 90-Degree Turn