The Cost of Governance
Friction versus function – and why Americans deserve a government that works like it means it.
There’s a basic truth we rarely acknowledge: government has a cost beyond dollars. Every form, every queue, every duplicative paperwork check, every rejection, appeal, and delay. These are part of the real price that average American’s pay. Not just in budgets, but in time, dignity, and trust.
When people talk about “big government,” they usually mean spending. However, the real issue is often friction. The unnecessary effort required to interact with systems meant to support our nation and its people. And that friction has consequences. It erodes confidence. It fuels a foggy sense of injustice. It drains staff capacity, and it pushes help just out of reach for the people who need it most.
This is fixable if we focus not just on what government provides, but how it provides it.
The Hidden Cost
The United States runs countless public programs, across multiple levels of government, often addressing the same issues from slightly different angles. Each has its own portals, paperwork, eligibility formula, deadlines, and documentation requirements.
Individually, each might seem reasonable. Together, they create a labyrinth. Essential systems like healthcare require paid and volunteer staff with hours of training to be “client advocates” or “system navigators”. Unnecessary walls are built, necessitating ladders be sold to scale them.
But the real inefficiency isn’t the programs. It’s the fragmentation. A dozen different agencies often ask a resident to prove the exact same things: their income, their residency, their disability status, their family size. Citizens repeat themselves because the systems refuse to talk to each other, have differing definitions, and vary in standards for evidence.
That administrative bloat costs the public money. More importantly, it costs them access. The more hoops you require, the fewer people can jump through them. And this impacts those with the lowest bandwidth and resources the most.
Streamlining isn’t about “shrinking government”. It’s about strengthening it by cutting waste that serves nobody.
Interoperability as a Public Good
The private sector treats redundant steps as a design failure. Government should do the same.
A modern public service ecosystem should be built around shared infrastructure. Verifiable data sources, standardized processes, and a single point of truth for a resident’s status. Instead of each agency reinventing the wheel, they should be pulling from the same set of verified facts.
This doesn’t require tearing apart existing agencies or creating massive new systems. It requires something far more practical:
A unified identity and documentation platform for residents
Automatic eligibility checks across programs using the same criteria
Secure data-sharing agreements across agencies
Sunset reviews for redundant processes
A “first touch resolution” mindset that treats every citizen interaction as an opportunity to close the loop
Less paperwork, less waiting, fewer staff-hours consumed by repetitive tasks, and a public that experiences government as a coherent whole, rather than a maze of disconnected silos.
Systems for People, Not Suspects
Many bureaucratic systems exist because systems were built with low trust in citizens. Designed around preventing pedestrian acts of abuse rather than serving people well. When you assume everyone is cheating, you design processes that treat everyone like a suspect.
The data is clear: most people who qualify for assistance never apply. Not because they don’t need it, but because the friction is too high.
High-trust design doesn’t mean ignoring verification. It means verifying once, not fifteen times. It means automatic continuations when circumstances haven’t changed. It means simplifying rather than complicating.
A system that treats people as partners rather than potential liabilities gets more done with fewer obstacles.
The Efficiency Dividend
If we modernize how government works, we unlock a cascade of benefits:
Better outcomes. People get what they qualify for without running a marathon while juggling paperwork.
Reduced operating costs. Staff spend more time solving problems and less time chasing documents.
Higher public trust. When government respects people’s time, people respect the institution.
Faster crisis response. In emergencies, every hour saved matters.
More reliable policymaking. A unified data layer means better decisions for individuals, systems, and policy.
This is the real “efficiency dividend”. Not budget cuts, but more effective service.
A Model for What Comes Next
Fixing governance is not a partisan project. Everyone suffers from friction. Everyone benefits from functionality. In an age of polarization, improving the machinery of public service might be one of the rare places where consensus is possible.
Once we build a more coherent, accessible, and efficient public infrastructure, we can start applying the same logic to our most complex systems. Especially the one where fragmentation costs us the most: healthcare.
That’s the next frontier. And it deserves a full conversation of its own.