The Book I Wish Every Policymaker Would Read
b'My pitch for this episode is simple: Jennifer Pahlka has written one of the best policy books I\\u2019ve ever read.\\n\\nPahlka served as deputy chief technology officer in the Obama White House, and she\\u2019s the founder and a former executive director of Code for America, a nonprofit that works to enhance government digital services. Over the course of her career, Pahlka has become obsessed with an area of policy that is too often ignored by policymakers: implementation. She was part of the effort to rescue HealthCare.gov in 2013 and was tapped by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 to help fix California\\u2019s unemployment insurance system as it buckled under the weight of the Covid response.\\n\\nIt has become a common refrain that the U.S. government is often terrible at delivering even basic services. But Pahlka\\u2019s new book \\u2014 \\u201cRecoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better\\u201d \\u2014 puts forward a deeper theory of why government services are so awful, how policy implementation so often goes awry and what it would take to fix those systems so that government could better live up to its promises. It\\u2019s an argument that anyone who cares about government in the 21st century needs to take seriously.\\n\\nBook Recommendations:\\n\\nImplementation by Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky\\n\\nRadical Help by Hilary Cottam\\n\\n\\u201cMandate for Leadership\\u201d (chapter 3), edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves\\n\\nListen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at\\xa0nytimes.com/audioapp\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\nThis episode of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d was produced by Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Our production team is Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Roge Karma and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Isaac Jones and Kristina Samulewski.'