Accountability collapses when systems protect positions instead of performance.
State and local governments increasingly model the kind of practical problem-solving Washington avoids.
A governing revival will require rediscovering human judgment as a public value, not a liability.
Edwin Eisendrath, host of Lincoln Square’s It’s the Democracy, Stupid, and author and attorney Philip K. Howard meet at a hard truth: a government obsessed with process loses the ability to act, and a government that fears discretion loses the ability to trust itself. Their examples — from Chicago’s permit politics to America’s 4,000-rule nursing homes — point toward a system that confuses compliance with competence, creating a culture where inertia masquerades as fairness.
In Philip’s new book, Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America, Philip pushes that critique further, arguing that the “legal operating structure” has calcified so thoroughly that authority itself has been buried under decades of risk-aversion, leaving states and cities to model the kind of decisiveness the federal system now resists. And while he and Edwin differ on how prepared the public is for a reform movement, they share a conviction that getting things done — not litigating every inch of civic life — is the only way to restore democratic legitimacy.
Tune in to the full conversation with Edwin and Philip Howard, now!
