Gordon Chaffin: Andrew Yang’s dumb idea for DC

I’ve studied and worked around transportation and infrastructure for 10 years. I’m an expert. But the more I investigate our infrastructure as a daily reporter, the more I realize how much I don’t know about the systems that get people from A to B or deliver utility services to their doors.

I know about transportation, but really only surface transportation. Even then, really only street planning. Even then, really only above-ground stuff excluding the giant utility networks below each road. Even then, really only bike and pedestrian designs. I know electric vehicles, kilowatts and regenerative braking. But ask me to explain an electrical transformer — well, to me, it’s a robot in disguise.

I know a tiny bit about planes, but I can’t remember what the hell “yaw” means. I don’t know a damn thing about boats. I know that “port” is “left” only because it has the same number of letters as left. I have no freaking idea how freight trucks in DC are able to get through alleys and around corners, or how they back into loading docks. I’m getting better at taking sharp corners on a bike, but I don’t know why bowing out my inside knee through the corner seems to help. I can’t even change a bike tube myself when I get a flat tire. And I’m still not sure if I’m lubricating my chain properly.

The point is, I’ve realized I’m an expert in a very narrowly defined area and an ignorant fool elsewhere. That’s not a sad realization; it’s important self-knowledge that directs my inquiries as a reporter. The best leaders are those who can muster enough depth of knowledge in a variety of areas to challenge the real subject matter experts and play midwife to innovative ideas conceived by those who really know how things work.

Unfortunately, Andrew Yang, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, doesn’t seem to know how the federal government works. He tweeted earlier this month about his idea to “relocate federal agencies that don’t need to be in DC to other parts of the country. [The moves] would save tons of money too as DC is one of our most expensive cities.” He added that this was his “Distribute the Swamp” plan meant to address the way in which “Washington DC feels very detached from the daily lives of most Americans.”

If Mr. Yang is serious about this idea, he should join my book club. We’re reading Michael Lewis’ latest, The Fifth Risk, which narrates behind-the-scenes details on how the Trump administration is systematically destroying the little-known yet critical functions of federal agencies like the departments of Energy and Agriculture. (In short, Energy does a lot more than regulate utility companies, and USDA is almost entirely — at least by budget — a food provider and nutritionist to America’s poor families and children.)

After he’s done with Lewis, Yang should talk with folks from the Partnership for Public Service. It’s a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to recognizing and rewarding excellence in the public service jobs that Yang believes can be easily moved to Topeka and Temecula. The Partnership would tell him that 79% of the federal government workforce already works outside the DC area. Leaders there could also share with him extensive research they do on the skills and well-being of the federal workforce. To quote a federal government staffer I spoke with recently — 20 years served in intelligence agencies — “morale is very low.”

Andrew Yang is an extremely smart person with some interesting ideas, such as trying to use direct government subsidies — rather than indirect tax breaks — to provide a safety net to every American. So far in the 2020 primary campaign, he’s the only one seriously addressing the potential impact of robotics and computer automation and drafting countermeasures. Artificial intelligence and machine learning may be popular buzzwords, but they’re also very real forces.

But Andrew Yang is way out of his depth when it comes to the structure of the federal government he hopes to run. One might say, “Who cares how and why things are like this? The federal government is a duplicative morass of red tape. We should start from scratch!” That is, unfortunately, not how human institutions work. And in this democratic republic, public policy is a human institution. In order to fundamentally change government systems to achieve superior results for citizens, you have to understand how they work now, and why they work.

I like Andrew Yang a lot. We need more men and women with entrepreneurial or non-governmental backgrounds like his to run for office. At least he’s championed a few important issues and he’s not another random, ambitious current or former elected official. However, Yang needs to lean into his ignorance. He’s got a policy proposal list a mile long, addressing the concerns of Mixed Martial Arts fans as well as numismatists against the penny. But he can’t let his mastery of one subject — venture capital — make him think he understands enough of the backstory to remake all the other policy areas at play in the primary.

The underlying problem with Yang’s “Distribute the Swap” idea is that it seems to come from an ignorance of the 700,000 or so people who live in Washington, DC, regardless of the person living at the White House or the party controlling Congress. Yang supports DC statehood, but his use of the campaign trope of big, bad Washington doesn’t jibe with the statehood push. Is DC the real place with permanent residents totaling “a population larger than two states,” or is it the Capitol Building and White House depicted in black and white on TV as scary music plays in the background?

I prefer an alternative proposal, tweeted out by the DC Council: “Move all Americans to DC. Because DC has no vote in Congress, that would eliminate Congress. Think of the savings then!” DC resident Jim Malone replied to Yang’s idea with similar skepticism: “DC resident here (20yrs), also 100% #YangGang. DC has a huge local population totally separate from the feds. I love that [you] support statehood but can [you] also not lump us in with the feds?”

I’m empathetic to Andrew Yang because I, too, am a bomb-throwing, turn-the-tables-over, question-all-assumptions advocate. But my experience as a human with increasing life experience and reporter covering the subject I know best leads me to hesitate more when my first instinct is to move fast and break things. With human institutions, you really gotta know the how, why, who, when and where of the status quo. Once you have those blueprints and a leadership position, you can effectively dismantle and remake a policy, an agency, or a whole government. If you rage against the status quo machine without the requisite understanding, you’ll just end up with a broken system — as our current president demonstrates.

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Gordon Chaffin is a reporter for Street Justice, a daily email newsletter covering transportation and infrastructure throughout the Washington region.