Bold Action on Evictions, But Also A Reminder That Governing is Very Hard

Bold Action on Evictions, Need To Learn From What Happened Here– We applaud the President for stepping up and crafting an important interim fix for the lapse in the eviction moratorium, particularly given the return of COVID here throughout the US.  But the Administration and the Democrats need to learn from what happened here, and make sure it informs our work in the coming months.  

The ACA, a program at its core that has brought health insurance to 30m people, took years of work to get right after it launched.  There was time built in to prepare the states and get HHS ready before it launched.  There was adequate funding to make it work.  It was a smart and well-designed bill – but even with that time, money and intelligent design it struggled in its early years.  Not everything worked as intended, and adjustments needed to be made to get it right.  Law suits challenged it, and knocked out key parts.  But in part because its well designed and went through months of Congressional deliberation, it has worked as intended and done extraordinary good for the country as a whole. 

What President Biden is attempting to do now could be seen as trying to launch 4 or 5 ACAs all at the same time, some with far less Congressional deliberation and time to prepare for implementation.  Not surprisingly, we are starting to see design and implementation problems emerge.  States have not spent allocated American Rescue Plan rental relief funds, nor have they spent tens of billions of child care funds.  Expanded unemployment insurance saw historic and unacceptable levels of fraud.  The child tax credit as good as it is, is struggling to reach those most in need.  Supply chain disruptions could go well into next year.  The flow at the border remains worse than anticipated. Governing is hard on a normal day, and it is really hard when working in the midst of a global pandemic and we are trying to do so much all at the same time.  

So, we should be up front and honest about the struggle in making all this work and put in place mechanisms to make it more likely our well intentioned programs are successful.   During the crafting of reconciliation, we should make sure as much of it goes through regular order and the committees of jurisdiction as possible.  We should look at institutionalizing and expanding the American Rescue Plan oversight capacity being spearheaded by Gene Sperling.  We should consider creating some kind of support system for states to improve their capacity to absorb allocated monies and implement new and sometimes complex programs.  We should consider launching a “reinventing government” program which takes a once every generation look across government and recommend ways it can “work better, cost less,” reinforcing that we neither want big or small government but a modern, smart and effective one that delivers every day for the American people.  Annie Lowry’s excellent new article in The Atlantic is a powerful reminder of how much work there is to do to make government do better in serving those it is trying to serve.  And this will be particularly true as it attempts to do a lot more, quickly. 

In any institution there are practical limitations to how fast you can grow or change.  Right now the Biden Administration is pushing the limits of what our legislature and federal and state governments can do.  We need to be honest about this, and take prudent steps to make sure that all that we are doing is not just well intentioned but successful.  The American people should expect nothing less from us.