Managers or Statesmen?

What is the proper role of our elected officials?

Let’s say you own a McDonald’s franchise and you’re looking for a new manager. What sort of person would you like to hire — the candidate who knows how to efficiently run the tried-and-true McDonald’s system, or the one who wants to change everything? The former, obviously. McDonald’s has spent many years perfecting their system, and it is not likely that one managerial candidate will improve upon it.

Our political system, however, is not a McDonald’s franchise, yet many of our lawmakers and executives see themselves as managers of the existing system rather than statesmen elected to reform it. Conservatives are often frustrated with a lack of decisive action by our elected leaders and representatives. We send them to Boise or to Washington DC expecting them to change what we see as a broken system, but more often than not they are subsumed by that very system instead.

A recent tweet by Congressman Mike Simpson perfectly demonstrated this mentality:

This is farcical on multiple levels. First, we know that our federal government is doing nothing to secure the border; rather they are facilitating the invasion. Second, the idea that our government is reducing spending is equally ridiculous. Much of the debate over the continuing resolution was about how much money we’re giving to Ukraine, not to mention the myriad nonsense our federal government spends our tax dollars on.

However, at a deeper level, observe how Simpson views his own role within our political system. He believes the job of Congress is to keep the money flowing rather than make any significant changes to where it’s going. He is a manager of a McDonald’s, not a reform-minded statesmen. He does not seem to care what the government spends our money on, so long as the machine keeps churning.

Lest you think I am too harsh on Congressman Simpson, I think most elected representatives see things this way. I remember Raùl Labrador telling the story of going to Congress as a Tea Party long shot in 2010, only for incoming House Speaker John Boehner to tell the new freshman that they campaigned one way but would have to vote another. The frustration of millions of conservatives that powered the Tea Party revolution fizzled as the system swallowed most of the representatives that rode its wave.

This is why the system reacted so strongly to Donald Trump. Here was a man who, love him or hate him, bucked the system. During his first impeachment, Alexander Vindman and former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified that Trump was not following State Department policy. They, and their friends in politics and media, truly believe that the role of the President of the United States is to manage the system that is in place rather than rocking the boat. The president manages the restaurant, but corporate HQ sets policy.

We see the same paradigm in Idaho as well. Consider Governor Brad Little. Is he a manager, or a reforming statesman? He came from a family of sheep ranchers and was on the board of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI) for twenty years, including some time as its chairman. He was appointed to a vacant seat in the Senate in 2001, was appointed to fill the vacant lieutenant governor position in 2009, and then elected governor in 2018. Everything he achieved came because of the existing system, so why would we expect him to change it?

Indeed, like a good manager, Little’s tenure has been all about making small improvements to the system. Before his infamous Stay at Home Order in 2020, Governor Little was happily making his name by streamlining regulations and cutting taxes. Though I am forever grateful that he signed two abortion bans and the ban on child genital mutilation, he did not lead on either issue. Instead, he spent all his political capital last session on Idaho LAUNCH, a handout of tax dollars to his big business friends that uses high school graduates as bagmen.

He doesn’t see it that way, of course. From the governor’s perspective, LAUNCH is a great idea that uses government to make things better for workers and businesses. What’s not to like?

The two competing views of governance are evident in the Joint Finance - Appropriations Committee (JFAC) as well. While members such as Senator Scott Herndon and Rep. Josh Tanner attempted to use every tool at their disposal to defeat leftism and stop growing government, most of the other members simply rubber stamped whatever budget requests came out of the bureaucracy.

Indeed, my own state senator Scott Grow, co-chair of JFAC, pushed back when Tanner and Herndon attempted to defeat diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI) programs at Idaho state universities by zeroing out their budgets. It’s not JFAC’s job to make policy, he told me.

So what exactly is their job then? Why not just streamline the budget process further by cutting JFAC and the Legislature out of it entirely, if they’re only going to rubber stamp it anyway? Our system is still ostensibly set up to give the people’s elected representatives oversight over budgets, taxes, and regulations, but how much does it matter if they continue to let the bureaucracy spend like a drunken sailor?

Idaho’s state bureaucracy is out of control, with the Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW) being the most egregious example. The Legislature appropriated a $6 million federal grant for IDHW, but said it could not be used for woke pre-K programs. IDHW did it anyway. The Legislature told IDHW they couldn’t keep subsidizing LGBTQ+ pride events, but they found some loopholes to pass the money through. Yet members of JFAC and the Legislature continue funneling money into IDHW and other state agencies, because they think their job is to move money from point A to point B.

The state of Idaho is set to spend around $14 billion in the next year. $4.6 billion of that is for Medicaid alone, with another $4 billion going to public education. Governor Little has been able to oversee these massive increases while still cutting taxes only because 40% of the budget comes from federal money. Federal money still comes from the taxpayer, of course, either due to direct taxation or the hidden tax of inflation that comes from expanding the money supply.

To circle back to the original analogy, if we are a McDonald’s franchise, we are hemorrhaging money while doing a subpar job of providing customers with quick meals. It has also been subject to some serious mission creep, trying to be everything from a bank to a doctor’s office to a daycare rather than focusing on its core mission of preparing tasty burgers. Hiring a competent manager to run this system will not change the deep structural problems we face.

Our system needs to be completely reformed, not simply managed. But that requires electing representatives and executives who see reform as their mission. I know they exist, because we have some in the Legislature now — Scott Herndon, Josh Tanner, Brian Lenney, and more. But the system is like a giant ship sailing the sea — it cannot turn on a dime. We the people must continue electing statesmen committed to reform, and then we must hold them accountable.