Podcast appearances and mentions of judge glock

Nicole Nosek joins Judge Glock to discuss housing reform legislation spearheaded by Texans for Reasonable Solutions.

Charles Fain Lehman, Jesse Arm, Judge Glock, and Renu Mukherjee discuss President Trump's threat to send National Guard troops to Chicago, Baltimore, and New York; the government's stake in Intel; and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's attempt to bench press 135 pounds. 

Today I'm talking to economic historian Judge Glock, Director of Research at the Manhattan Institute. Judge works on a lot of topics: if you enjoy this episode, I'd encourage you to read some of his work on housing markets and the Environmental Protection Agency. But I cornered him today to talk about civil service reform.Since the 1990s, over 20 red and blue states have made radical changes to how they hire and fire government employees — changes that would be completely outside the Overton window at the federal level. A paper by Judge and Renu Mukherjee lists four reforms made by states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia: * At-will employment for state workers* The elimination of collective bargaining agreements* Giving managers much more discretion to hire* Giving managers much more discretion in how they pay employeesJudge finds decent evidence that the reforms have improved the effectiveness of state governments, and little evidence of the politicization that federal reformers fear. Meanwhile, in Washington, managers can't see applicants' resumes, keyword searches determine who gets hired, and firing a bad performer can take years. But almost none of these ideas are on the table in Washington.Thanks to Harry Fletcher-Wood for his judicious transcript edits and fact-checking, and to Katerina Barton for audio edits.Judge, you have a paper out about lessons for civil service reform from the states. Since the ‘90s, red and blue states have made big changes to how they hire and fire people. Walk through those changes for me.I was born and grew up in Washington DC, heard a lot about civil service throughout my childhood, and began to research it as an adult. But I knew almost nothing about the state civil service systems. When I began working in the states — mainly across the Sunbelt, including in Texas, Kansas, Arizona — I was surprised to learn that their civil service systems were reformed to an absolutely radical extent relative to anything proposed at the federal level, let alone implemented.Starting in the 1990s, several states went to complete at-will employment. That means there were no official civil service protections for any state employees. Some managers were authorized to hire people off the street, just like you could in the private sector. A manager meets someone in a coffee shop, they say, "I'm looking for exactly your role. Why don't you come on board?" At the federal level, with its stultified hiring process, it seemed absurd to even suggest something like that.You had states that got rid of any collective bargaining agreements with their public employee unions. You also had states that did a lot more broadbanding [creating wider pay bands] for employee pay: a lot more discretion for managers to reward or penalize their employees depending on their performance.These major reforms in these states were, from the perspective of DC, incredibly radical. Literally nobody at the federal level proposes anything approximating what has been in place for decades in the states. That should be more commonly known, and should infiltrate the debate on civil service reform in DC.Even though the evidence is not absolutely airtight, on the whole these reforms have been positive. A lot of the evidence is surveys asking managers and operators in these states how they think it works. They've generally been positive. We know these states operate pretty well: Places like Texas, Florida, and Arizona rank well on state capacity metrics in terms of cost of government, time for permitting, and other issues.Finally, to me the most surprising thing is the dog that didn't bark. The argument in the federal government against civil service reform is, “If you do this, we will open up the gates of hell and return to the 19th-century patronage system, where spoilsmen come and go depending on elected officials, and the government is overrun with political appointees who don't care about the civil service.” That has simply not happened. We have very few reports of any concrete examples of politicization at the state level. In surveys, state employees and managers can almost never remember any example of political preferences influencing hiring or firing.One of the surveys you cited asked, “Can you think of a time someone said that they thought that the political preferences were a factor in civil service hiring?” and it was something like 5%.It was in that 5-10% range. I don't think you'd find a dissimilar number of people who would say that even in an official civil service system. Politics is not completely excluded even from a formal civil service system.A few weeks ago, you and I talked to our mutual friend, Don Moynihan, who's a scholar of public administration. He's more skeptical about the evidence that civil service reform would be positive at the federal level.One of your points is, “We don't have strong negative evidence from the states. Productivity didn't crater in states that moved to an at-will employment system.” We do have strong evidence that collective bargaining in the public sector is bad for productivity.What I think you and Don would agree on is that we could use more evidence on the hiring and firing side than the surveys that we have. Is that a fair assessment?Yes, I think that's correct. As you mentioned, the evidence on collective bargaining is pretty close to universal: it raises costs, reduces the efficiency of government, and has few to no positive upsides.On hiring and firing, I mentioned a few studies. There's a 2013 study that looks at HR managers in six states and finds very little evidence of politicization, and managers generally prefer the new system. There was a dissertation that surveyed several employees and managers in civil service reform and non-reform states. Across the board, the at-will employment states said they had better hiring retention, productivity, and so forth. And there's a 2002 study that looked specifically at Texas, Florida, and Georgia after their reforms, and found almost universal approbation inside the civil service itself for these reforms.These are not randomized control trials. But I think that generally positive evidence should point us directionally where we should go on civil service reform. If we loosen restrictions on discipline and firing, decentralize hiring and so forth — we probably get some productivity benefits from it. We can also know, with some amount of confidence, that the sky is not going to fall, which I think is a very important baseline assumption. The civil service system will continue on and probably be fairly close to what it is today, in terms of its political influence, if you have decentralized hiring and at-will employment.As you point out, a lot of these reforms that have happened in 20-odd states since the ‘90s would be totally outside the Overton window at the federal level. Why is it so easy for Georgia to make a bipartisan move in the ‘90s to at-will employment, when you couldn't raise the topic at the federal level?It's a good question. I think in the 1990s, a lot of people thought a combination of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act — which was the Carter-era act that somewhat attempted to do what these states hoped to do in the 1990s — and the Clinton-era Reinventing Government Initiative, would accomplish the same ends. That didn't happen.That was an era when civil service reform was much more bipartisan. In Georgia, it was a Democratic governor, Zell Miller, who pushed it. In a lot of these other states, they got buy-in from both sides. The recent era of state reform took place after the 2010 Republican wave in the states. Since that wave, the reform impetus for civil service has been much more Republican. That has meant it's been a lot harder to get buy-in from both sides at the federal level, which will be necessary to overcome a filibuster.I think people know it has to be very bipartisan. We're just past the point, at least at the moment, where it can be bipartisan at the federal level. But there are areas where there's a fair amount of overlap between the two sides on what needs to happen, at least in the upper reaches of the civil service.It was interesting to me just how bipartisan civil service reform has been at various times. You talked about the Civil Service Reform Act, which passed Congress in 1978. President Carter tells Congress that the civil service system:“Has become a bureaucratic maze which neglects merit, tolerates poor performance, permits abuse of legitimate employee rights, and mires every personnel action in red tape, delay, and confusion.”That's a Democratic president saying that. It's striking to me that the civil service was not the polarized topic that it is today.Absolutely. Carter was a big civil service reformer in Georgia before those even larger 1990s reforms. He campaigned on civil service reform and thought it was essential to the success of his presidency. But I think you are seeing little sprouts of potential bipartisanship today, like the Chance to Compete Act at the end of 2024, and some of the reforms Obama did to the hiring process. There's options for bipartisanship at the federal level, even if it can't approach what the states have done.I want to walk through the federal hiring process. Let's say you're looking to hire in some federal agency — you pick the agency — and I graduated college recently, and I want to go into the civil service. Tell me about trying to hire somebody like me. What's your first step?It's interesting you bring up the college graduate, because that is one recent reform: President Trump put out an executive order trying to counsel agencies to remove the college degree requirement for job postings. This happened in a lot of states first, like Maryland, and that's also been bipartisan. This requirement for a college degree — which was used as a very unfortunate proxy for ability at a lot of these jobs — is now being removed. It's not across the whole federal government. There's still job postings that require higher education degrees, but that's something that's changed.To your question, let's say the Department of Transportation. That's one of the more bipartisan ones, when you look at surveys of federal civil servants. Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, they tend to be a little more Republican. Health and Human Services and some other agencies tend to be pretty Democrat. Transportation is somewhere in the middle.As a manager, you try to craft a job description and posting to go up on the USA Jobs website, which is where all federal job postings go. When they created it back in 1996, that was supposedly a massive reform to federal hiring: this website where people could submit their resumes. Then, people submit their resumes and answer questions about their qualifications for the job.One of the slightly different aspects from the private sector is that those applications usually go to an HR specialist first. The specialist reviews everything and starts to rank people into different categories, based on a lot of weird things. It's supposed to be “knowledge, skills, and abilities” — your KSAs, or competencies. To some extent, this is a big step up from historical practice. You had, frankly, an absurd civil service exam, where people had to fill out questions about, say, General Grant or about US Code Title 42, or whatever it was, and then submit it. Someone rated the civil service exam, and then the top three test-takers were eligible for the job.We have this newer, better system, where we rank on knowledge, skills, and abilities, and HR puts put people into different categories. One of the awkward ways they do this is by merely scanning the resumes and applications for keywords. If it's a computer job, make sure you say the word “computer” somewhere in your resume. Make sure you say “manager” if it's a managerial job.Just to be clear, this is entirely literal. There's a keyword search, and folks who don't pass that search are dinged.Yes. I've always wondered, how common is this? It's sometimes hard to know what happens in the black box in these federal HR departments. I saw an HR official recently say, "If I'm not allowed to do keyword searches, I'm going to take 15 years to overlook all the applications, so I've got to do keyword searches." If they don't have the keywords, into the circular file it goes, as they used to say: into the garbage can.Then they start ranking people on their abilities into, often, three different categories. That is also very literal. If you put in the little word bubble, "I am an exceptional manager," you get pushed on into the next level of the competition. If you say, "I'm pretty good, but I'm not the best," into the circular file you go.I've gotten jaded about this, but it really is shocking. We ask candidates for a self-assessment, and if they just rank themselves 10/10 on everything, no matter how ludicrous, that improves their odds of being hired.That's going to immensely improve your odds. Similar to the keyword search, there's been pushback on this in recent years, and I'm definitely not going to say it's universal anymore. It's rarer than it used to be. But it's still a very common process.The historical civil service system used to operate on a rule of three. In places like New York, it still operates like that. The top three candidates on the evaluation system get presented to the manager, and the manager has to approve one of them for the position.Thanks partially to reforms by the Obama administration in 2010, they have this category rating system where the best qualified or the very qualified get put into a big bucket together [instead of only including the top three]. Those are the people that the person doing the hiring gets to see, evaluate, and decide who he wants to hire.There are some restrictions on that. If a veteran outranks everybody else, you've got to pick the veteran [typically known as Veterans' Preference]. That was an issue in some of the state civil service reforms, too. The states said, “We're just going to encourage a veterans' preference. We don't need a formalized system to say they get X number of points and have to be in Y category. We're just going to say, ‘Try to hire veterans.'” That's possible without the formal system, despite what some opponents of reform may claim.One of the particular problems here is just the nature of the people doing the hiring. Sometimes you just need good managers to encourage HR departments to look at a broader set of qualifications. But one of the bigger problems is that they keep the HR evaluation system divorced from the manager who is doing the hiring. David Shulkin, who was the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), wrote a great book, It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Serve Your Country. He was a healthcare exec, and the VA is mainly a healthcare agency. He would tell people, "You should work for me," they would send their applications into the HR void, and he'd never see them again. They would get blocked at some point in this HR evaluation process, and he'd be sent people with no healthcare experience, because for whatever reason they did well in the ranking.One of the very base-level reforms should be, “How can we more clearly integrate the hiring manager with the evaluation process?” To some extent, the bipartisan Chance to Compete Act tries to do this. They said, “You should have subject matter experts who are part of crafting the description of the job, are part of evaluating, and so forth.” But there's still a long road to go.Does that firewall — where the person who wants to hire doesn't get to look at the process until the end — exist originally because of concerns about cronyism?One of the interesting things about the civil service is its raison d'être — its reason for being — was supposedly a single, clear purpose: to prevent politicized hiring and patronage. That goes back to the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883. But it's always been a little strange that you have all of these very complex rules about every step of the process — from hiring to firing to promotion, and everything in between — to prevent political influence. We could just focus on preventing political influence, and not regulate every step of the process on the off-chance that without a clear regulation, political influence could creep in. This division [between hiring manager and applicants] is part of that general concern. There are areas where I've heard HR specialists say, "We declare that a manager is a subject matter expert, and we bring them into the process early on, we can do that." But still the division is pretty stark, and it's based on this excessive concern about patronage.One point you flag is that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is the body that thinks about personnel in the federal government, has a 300-page regulatory document for agencies on how you have to hire. There's a remarkable amount of process.Yes, but even that is a big change from the Federal Personnel Manual, which was the 10,000-page document that we shredded in the 1990s. In the ‘90s, OPM gave the agencies what's called “delegated examining authorities.” This says, “You, agency, have power to decide who to hire, we're not going to do the central supervision anymore. But, but, but: here's the 300-page document that dictates exactly how you have to carry out that hiring.”So we have some decentralization, allowing managers more authority to control their own departments. But this two-level oversight — a local HR department that's ultimately being overseen by the OPM — also leads to a lot of slip ‘twixt cup and lip, in terms of how something gets implemented. If you're in the agency and you're concerned about the OPM overseeing your process, you're likely to be much more careful than you would like to be. “Yes, it's delegated to me, but ultimately, I know I have to answer to OPM about this process. I'm just going to color within the lines.”I often cite Texas, which has no central HR office. Each agency decides how it wants to hire. In a lot of these reform states, if there is a central personnel office, it's an information clearinghouse or reservoir of models. “You can use us, the central HR office, as a resource if you want us to help you post the job, evaluate it, or help manage your processes, but you don't have to.” That's the goal we should be striving for in a lot of the federal reforms. Just make OPM a resource for the managers in the individual departments to do their thing or go independent.Let's say I somehow get through the hiring process. You offer me a job at the Department of Transportation. What are you paying me?This is one of the more stultified aspects of the federal civil service system. OPM has another multi-hundred-page handbook called the Handbook of Occupational Groups and Families. Inside that, you've got 49 different “groups and families,” like “Clerical occupations.” Inside those 49 groups are a series of jobs, sometimes dozens, like “Computer Operator.” Inside those, they have independent documents — often themselves dozens of pages long — detailing classes of positions. Then you as a manager have to evaluate these nine factors, which can each give points to each position, which decides how you get slotted into this weird Government Schedule (GS) system [the federal payscale].Again, this is actually an improvement. Before, you used to have the Civil Service Commission, which went around staring very closely at someone over their typewriter and saying, "No, I think you should be a GS-12, not a GS-11, because someone over in the Department of Defense who does your same job is a GS-12." Now this is delegated to agencies, but again, the agencies have to listen to the OPM on how to classify and set their jobs into this 15-stage GS-classification system, each stage of which has 10 steps which determine your pay, and those steps are determined mainly by your seniority. It's a formalized step-by-step system, overwhelmingly based on just how long you've sat at your desk.Let's be optimistic about my performance as a civil servant. Say that over my first three years, I'm just hitting it out of the park. Can you give me a raise? What can you do to keep me in my role?Not too much. For most people, the within-step increases — those 10 steps inside each GS-level — is just set by seniority. Now there are all these quality step increases you can get, but they're very rare and they have to be documented. So you could hypothetically pay someone more, but it's going to be tough. In general, the managers just prefer to stick to seniority, because not sticking to it garners a lot of complaints. Like so much else, the goal is, "We don't want someone rewarding an official because they happen to share their political preferences." The result of that concern is basically nobody can get rewarded at all, which is very unfortunate.We do have examples in state and federal government of what's known as broadbanding, where you have very broad pay scales, and the manager can decide where to slot someone. Say you're a computer operator, which can mean someone who knows what an Excel spreadsheet is, or someone who's programming the most advanced AI systems. As a manager in South Carolina or Florida, you have a lot of discretion to say, "I can set you 50% above the market rate of what this job technically would go for, if I think you're doing a great job."That's very rare at the federal level. They've done broadbanding at the Government Accountability Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The China Lake Experiment out in California gave managers a lot more discretion to reward scientists. But that's definitely the exception. In general, it's a step-wise, seniority-based system.What if you want to bring me into the Senior Executive Service (SES)? Theoretically, that sits at the top of the General Service scale. Can't you bump me up in there and pay me what you owe me?I could hypothetically bring you in as a senior executive servant. The SES was created in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. The idea was, “We're going to have this elite cadre of about 8,000 individuals at the top of the federal government, whose employment will be higher-risk and higher-reward. They might be fired, and we're going to give them higher pay to compensate for that.”Almost immediately, that did not work out. Congress was outraged at the higher pay given to the top officials and capped it. Ever since, how much the SES can get paid has been tightly controlled. As in most of the rest of the federal government, where they establish these performance pay incentives or bonuses — which do exist — they spread them like peanut butter over the whole service. To forestall complaints, everyone gets a little bit every two or three years.That's basically what happened to the SES. Their annual pay is capped at the vice president's salary, which is a cap for a lot of people in the federal government. For most of your GS and other executive scales, the cap is Congress's salary. [NB: This is no longer exactly true, since Congress froze its own salaries in 2009. The cap for GS (currently about $195k) is now above congressional salaries ($174k).]One of the big problems with pay in the federal government is pay compression. Across civil service systems, the highest-skilled people tend to be paid much less than the private sector, and the lowest-skilled people tend to get paid much more. The political science reason for that is pretty simple: the median voter in America still decides what seems reasonable. To the median voter, the average salary of a janitor looks low, and the average salary of a scientist looks way too high. Hence this tendency to pay compression. Your average federal employee is probably overpaid relative to the private sector, because the lowest-skilled employees are paid up to 40% higher than the private sector equivalent. The highest-paid employees, the post-graduate skilled professionals, are paid less. That makes it hard to recruit the top performers, but it also swells the wage budget in a way that makes it difficult to talk about reform.There's a lot of interest in this administration in making it easier to recruit talent and get rid of under-performers. There have been aggressive pushes to limit collective bargaining in the public sector. That should theoretically make it easier to recruit, but it also increases the precariousness of civil service roles. We've seen huge firings in the civil service over the last six months.Classically, the explicit trade-off of working in the federal government was, “Your pay is going to be capped, but you have this job for life. It's impossible to get rid of you.” You trade some lifetime earnings for stability. In a world where the stability is gone, but pay is still capped, isn't the net effect to drive talent away from the civil service?I think it's a concern now. On one level it should be ameliorated, because those who are most concerned with stability of employment do tend to be lower performers. If you have people who are leaving the federal service because all they want is stability, and they're not getting that anymore, that may not be a net loss. As someone who came out of academia and knows the wonder of effective lifetime annuities, there can be very high performers who like that stability who therefore take a lower salary. Without the ability to bump that pay up more, it's going to be an issue.I do know that, internally, the Trump administration has made some signs they're open to reforms in the top tiers of the SES and other parts of the federal government. They would be willing to have people get paid more at that level to compensate for the increased risks since the Trump administration came in. But when you look at the reductions in force (RIFs) that have happened under Trump, they are overwhelmingly among probationary employees, the lower-level employees.With some exceptions. If you've been promoted recently, you can get reclassified as probationary, so some high-performers got lumped in.Absolutely. The issue has been exacerbated precisely because the RIF regulations that are in place have made the firings particularly damaging. If you had a more streamlined RIF system — which they do have in many states, where seniority is not the main determinant of who gets laid off — these RIFs could be removing the lower-performing civil servants and keeping the higher-performing ones, and giving them some amount of confidence in their tenure.Unfortunately, the combination of large-scale removals with the existing RIF regs, which are very stringent, has demoralized some of the upper levels of the federal government. I share that concern. But I might add, it is interesting, if you look at the federal government's own figures on the total civil service workforce, they have gone down significantly since Trump came in office, but I think less than 100,000 still, in the most recent numbers that I've seen. I'm not sure how much to trust those, versus some of these other numbers where people have said 150,000, 200,000.Whether the Trump administration or a future administration can remove large numbers of people from the civil service should be somewhat divorced from the general conversation on civil service reform. The main debate about whether or not Trump can do this centers around how much power the appropriators in Congress have to determine the total amount of spending in particular agencies on their workforce. It does not depend necessarily on, "If we're going to remove people — whether for general layoffs, or reductions in force, or because of particular performance issues — how can we go about doing that?" My last-ditch hope to maintain a bipartisan possibility of civil service reform is to bracket, “How much power does the president have to remove or limit the workforce in general?” from “How can he go about hiring and firing, et cetera?”I think making it easier for the president to identify and remove poor performers is a tool that any future administration would like to have.We had this conversation sparked again with the firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. But that was a position Congress set up to be appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and removable by the President. It's a separate issue from civil service at large. Everyone said, “We want the president to be able to hire and fire the commissioner.” Maybe firing the commissioner was a bad decision, but that's the situation today.Attentive listeners to Statecraft know I'm pretty critical, like you are, of the regulations that say you have to go in order of seniority. In mass layoffs, you're required to fire a lot of the young, talented people.But let's talk about individual firings. I've been a terrible civil servant, a nightmarish employee from day one. You want to discipline, remove, suspend, or fire me. What are your options?Anybody who has worked in the civil service knows it's hard to fire bad performers. Whatever their political valence, whatever they feel about the civil service system, they have horror stories about a person who just couldn't be removed.In the early 2010s, a spate of stories came out about air traffic controllers sleeping on the job. Then-transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, made a big public announcement: "I'm going to fire these three guys." After these big announcements, it turned out he was only able to remove one of them. One retired, and another had their firing reduced to a suspension.You had another horrific story where a man was joking on the phone with friends when a plane crashed into a helicopter and killed nine people over the Hudson River. National outcry. They said, "We're going to fire this guy." In the end, after going through the process, he only got a suspension. Everyone agrees it's too hard.The basic story is, you have two ways to fire someone. Chapter 75, the old way, is often considered the realm of misconduct: You've stolen something from the office, punched your colleague in the face during a dispute about the coffee, something illegal or just straight-out wrong. We get you under Chapter 75.The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act added Chapter 43, which is supposed to be the performance-based system to remove someone. As with so much of that Civil Service Reform Act, the people who passed it thought this might be the beginning of an entirely different system.In the end, lots of federal managers say there's not a huge difference between the two. Some use 75, some use 43. If you use 43, you have to document very clearly what the person did wrong. You have to put them on a performance improvement plan. If they failed a performance improvement plan after a certain amount of time, they can respond to any claims about what they did wrong. Then, they can take that process up to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and claim that they were incorrectly fired, or that the processes weren't carried out appropriately. Then, if they want to, they can say, “Nah, I don't like the order I got,” and take it up to federal courts and complain there. Right now, the MSPB doesn't have a full quorum, which is complicating some of the recent removal disputes.You have this incredibly difficult process, unlike the private sector, where your boss looks at you and says, "I don't like how you're giving me the stink-eye today. Out you go." One could say that's good or bad, but, on the whole, I think the model should be closer to the private sector. We should trust managers to do their job without excessive oversight and process. That's clearly about as far from the realm of possibility as the current system, under which the estimate is 6-12 months to fire a very bad performer. The number of people who win at the Merit Systems Protection Board is still 20-30%.This goes into another issue, which is unionization. If you're part of a collective bargaining agreement — most of the regular federal civil service is — first, you have to go with this independent, union-based arbitration and grievance procedure. You're about 50/50 to win on those if your boss tries to remove you.So if I'm in the union, we go through that arbitration grievance system. If you win and I'm fired, I can take it to the Merit Systems Protection Board. If you win again, I can still take it to the federal courts.You can file different sorts of claims at each part. On Chapter 43, the MSPB is supposed to be about the process, not the evidence, and you just have to show it was followed. On 75, the manager has to show by preponderance of the evidence that the employee is harming the agency. Then there are different standards for what you take to the courts, and different standards according to each collective bargaining agreement for the grievance procedure when someone is disciplined. It's a very complicated, abstruse, and procedure-heavy process that makes it very difficult to remove people, which is why the involuntary separation rate at the federal government and most state governments is many multiples lower than the private sector.So, you would love to get me off your team because I'm abysmal. But you have no stomach for going through this whole process and I'm going to fight it. I'm ornery and contrarian and will drag this fight out. In practice, what do managers in the federal government do with their poor performers?I always heard about this growing up. There's the windowless office in the basement without a phone, or now an internet connection. You place someone down there, hope they get the message, and sooner or later they leave. But for plenty of people in America, that's the dream job. You just get to sit and nobody bothers you for eight hours. You punch in at 9 and punch out at 5, and that's your day. "Great. I'll collect that salary for another 10 years." But generally you just try to make life unpleasant for that person.Public sector collective bargaining in the US is new. I tend to think of it as just how the civil service works. But until about 50 years ago, there was no collective bargaining in the public sector.At the state level, it started with Wisconsin at the end of the 1950s. There were famous local government reforms beginning with the Little Wagner Act [signed in 1958] in New York City. Senator Robert Wagner had created the National Labor Relations Board. His son Robert F. Wagner Jr., mayor of New York, created the first US collective bargaining system at the local level in the ‘60s. In ‘62, John F. Kennedy issued an executive order which said, "We're going to deal officially with public sector unions,” but it was all informal and non-statutory.It wasn't until Title VII of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act that unions had a formal, statutory role in our federal service system. This is shockingly new. To some extent, that was the great loss to many civil service reformers in ‘78. They wanted to get through a lot of these other big reforms about hiring and firing, but they gave up on the unions to try to get those. Some people think that exception swallowed the rest of the rules. The union power that was garnered in ‘78 overcame the other reforms people hoped to accomplish. Soon, you had the majority of the federal workforce subject to collective bargaining.But that's changing now too. Part of that Civil Service Reform Act said, “If your position is in a national security-related position, the president can determine it's not subject to collective bargaining.” Trump and the OPM have basically said, “Most positions in the federal government are national security-related, and therefore we're going to declare them off-limits to collective bargaining.” Some people say that sounds absurd. But 60% of the civilian civil service workforce is the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security. I am not someone who tries to go too easy on this crowd. I think there's a heck of a lot that needs to be reformed. But it's also worth remembering that the majority of the civil service workforce are in these three agencies that Republicans tend to like a lot.Now, whether people like Veterans Affairs is more of an open question. We have some particular laws there about opening up processes after the scandals in the 2010s about waiting lists and hospitals. You had veterans hospitals saying, "We're meeting these standards for getting veterans in the door for these waiting lists." But they were straight-up lying about those standards. Many people who were on these lists waiting for months to see a doctor died in the interim, some from causes that could have been treated had they seen a VA doctor. That led to Congress doing big reforms in the VA in 2014 and 2017, precisely because everyone realized this is a problem.So, Trump has put out these executive orders stopping collective bargaining in all of these agencies that touch national security. Some of those, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seem like a tough sell. I guess that, if you want to dig a mine and the Chinese are trying to dig their own mine and we want the mine to go quickly without the EPA pettifogging it, maybe. But the core ones are pretty solid. So far the courts have upheld the executive order to go in place. So collective bargaining there could be reformed.But in the rest of the government, there are these very extreme, long collective bargaining agreements between agencies and their unions. I've hit on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as one that's had pretty extensive bargaining with its union. When we created the TSA to supervise airport security, a lot of people said, "We need a crème de la crème to supervise airports after 9/11. We want to keep this out of union hands, because we know unions are going to make it difficult to move people around." The Obama administration said, "Nope, we're going to negotiate with the union." Now you have these huge negotiations with the unions about parking spots, hours of employment, uniforms, and everything under the sun. That makes it hard for managers in the TSA to decide when people should go where or what they should do.One thing we've talked about on Statecraft in past episodes — for instance, with John Kamensky, who was a pivotal figure in the Clinton-Gore reforms — was this relationship between government employees and “Beltway Bandits”: the contractors who do jobs you might think of as civil service jobs. One critique of that ‘90s Clinton-Gore push, “Reinventing Government,” was that although they shrank the size of the civil service on paper, the number of contractors employed by the federal government ballooned to fill that void. They did not meaningfully reduce the total number of people being paid by the federal government. Talk to me about the relationship between the civil service reform that you'd like to see and this army of folks who are not formally employees.Every government service is a combination of public employees and inputs, and private employees and inputs. There's never a single thing the government does — federal, state, or local — that doesn't involve inputs from the private sector. That could be as simple as the uniforms for the janitors. Even if you have a publicly employed janitor, who buys the mop? You're not manufacturing the mops.I understand the critique that the excessive focus on full-time employees in the 1990s led to contracting out some positions that could be done directly by the government. But I think that misses how much of the government can and should be contracted out. The basic Office of Management and Budget (OMB) statute [OMB Circular No. A-76] defining what is an essential government duty should still be the dividing line. What does the government have to do, because that is the public overseeing a process? Versus, what can the private sector just do itself?I always cite Stephen Goldsmith, the old mayor of Indianapolis. He proposed what he called the Yellow Pages test. If you open the Yellow Pages [phone directory] and three businesses do that business, the government should not be in that business. There's three garbage haulers out there. Instead of having a formal government garbage-hauling department, just contract out the garbage.With the internet, you should have a lot more opportunities to contract stuff out. I think that is generally good, and we should not have the federal government going about a lot of the day-to-day procedural things that don't require public input. What a lot of people didn't recognize is how much pressure that's going to put on government contracting officers at the federal level. Last time I checked there were 40,000 contracting officers. They have a lot of power. In the most recent year for which we have data, there were $750 billion in federal contracts. This is a substantial part of our economy. If you total state and local, we're talking almost 10% of our whole economy goes through government contracts. This is mind-boggling. In the public policy world, we should all be spending about 10% of our time thinking about contracting.One of the things I think everyone recognized is that contractors should have more authority. Some of the reform that happened with people like [Steven] Kelman — who was the Office of Federal Procurement Policy head in the ‘90s under Clinton — was, "We need to give these people more authority to just take a credit card and go buy a sheaf of paper if that's what they need. And we need more authority to get contract bids out appropriately.”The same message that animates civil service reform should animate these contracting discussions. The goal should be setting clear goals that you want — for either a civil servant or a contractor — and then giving that person the discretion to meet them. If you make the civil service more stultified, or make pay compression more extreme, you're going to have to contract more stuff out.People talk about the General Schedule [pay scale], but we haven't talked about the Federal Wage Schedule system at all, which is the blue-collar system that encompasses about 200,000 federal employees. Pay compression means those guys get paid really well. That means some managers rightfully think, "I'd like to have full-time supervision over some role, but I would rather contract it out, because I can get it a heck of a lot cheaper."There's a continuous relationship: If we make the civil service more stultified, we're going to push contracting out into more areas where maybe it wouldn't be appropriate. But a lot of things are always going to be appropriate to contract out. That means we need to give contracting officers and the people overseeing contracts a lot of discretion to carry out their missions, and not a lot of oversight from the Government Accountability Office or the courts about their bids, just like we shouldn't give OPM excess input into the civil service hiring process.This is a theme I keep harping on, on Statecraft. It's counterintuitive from a reformer's perspective, but it's true: if you want these processes to function better, you're going to have to stop nitpicking. You're going to have to ease up on the throttle and let people make their own decisions, even when sometimes you're not going to agree with them.This is a tension that's obviously happening in this administration. You've seen some clear interest in decentralization, and you've seen some centralization. In both the contract and the civil service sphere, the goal for the central agencies should be giving as many options as possible to the local managers, making sure they don't go extremely off the rails, but then giving those local managers and contracting officials the ability to make their own choices. The General Services Administration (GSA) under this administration is doing a lot of government-wide acquisition contracts. “We establish a contract for the whole government in the GSA. Usually you, the local manager, are not required to use that contract if you want computer services or whatever, but it's an option for you.”OPM should take a similar role. "Here's the system we have set up. You can take that and use it as you want. It's here for you, but it doesn't have to be used, because you might have some very particular hiring decisions to make.” Just like there shouldn't be one contracting decision that decides how we buy both a sheaf of computer paper and an aircraft carrier, there shouldn't be one hiring and firing process for a janitor and a nuclear physicist. That can't be a centralized process, because the very nature of human life is that there's an infinitude of possibilities that you need to allow for, and that means some amount of decentralization.I had an argument online recently about New York City's “buy local” requirement for certain procurement contracts. When they want to build these big public toilets in New York City, they have to source all the toilet parts from within the state, even if they're $200,000 cheaper in Portland, Oregon.I think it's crazy to ask procurement and contracting to solve all your policy problems. Procurement can't be about keeping a healthy local toilet parts industry. You just need to procure the toilet.This is another area where you see similar overlap in some of the civil service and contracting issues. A lot of cities have residency requirements for many of their positions. If you work for the city, you have to live inside the city. In New York, that means you've got a lot of police officers living on Staten Island, or right on the line of the north side of the Bronx, where they're inches away from Westchester. That drives up costs, and limits your population of potential employees.One of the most amazing things to me about the Biden Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was that it encouraged contracting officers to use residency requirements: “You should try to localize your hiring and contracting into certain areas.” On a national level, that cancels out. If both Wyoming and Wisconsin use residency requirements, the net effect is not more people hired from one of those states! So often, people expect the civil service and contracting to solve all of our ills and to point the way forward for the rest of the economy on discrimination, hiring, pay, et cetera. That just leads to, by definition, government being a lot more expensive than the private sector.Over the next three and a half years, what would you like to see the administration do on civil service reform that they haven't already taken up?I think some of the broad-scale layoffs, which seem to be slowing down, were counterproductive. I do think that their ability to achieve their ends was limited by the nature of the reduction-in-force regulations, which made them more counterproductive than they had to be. That's the situation they inherited. But that didn't mean you had to lay off a lot of people without considering the particular jobs they were doing now.And hiring quite a few of them back.Yeah. There are also debates obviously, within the administration, between DOGE and Russ Vought [director of the OMB] and some others on this. Some things, like the Schedule Policy/Career — which is the revival of Schedule F in the first Trump administration — are largely a step in the right direction. Counter to some of the critics, it says, “You can remove someone if they're in a policymaking position, just like if they were completely at-will. But you still have to hire from the typical civil service system.” So, for those concerned about politicization, that doesn't undermine that, because they can't just pick someone from the party system to put in there. I think that's good.They recently had a suitability requirement rule that I think moved in the right direction. That says, “If someone's not suitable for the workforce, there are other ways to remove them besides the typical procedures.” The ideal system is going to require some congressional input: it's to have a decentralization of hiring authority to individual managers. Which means the OPM — now under Scott Kupor, who has finally been confirmed — saying, "The OPM is here to assist you, federal managers. Make sure you stay within the broad lanes of what the administration's trying to accomplish. But once we give you your general goals, we're going to trust you to do that, including hiring.”I've mentioned it a few times, but part of the Chance to Compete Act — which was mentioned in one of Trump's Day One executive orders, people forget about this — was saying, “Implement the Chance to Compete Act to the maximum extent of the law.” Bring more subject-matter expertise into the hiring process, allow more discretion for managers and input into the hiring process. I think carrying that bipartisan reform out is going to be a big step, but it's going to take a lot more work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

As Zohran Mamdani's rise reshapes New York politics, is democratic socialism becoming the Democratic Party's new base? Host Charles Fain Lehman sits down with Reihan Salam, Judge Glock, and John Ketcham to dissect the political and cultural currents pushing the party left—from Instagram primaries and “free stuff” populism to the ideological split between AOC and the Ezra Klein crowd. Along the way, they dig into anti-institutionalism, social media as a news engine, and the strange allure of David Goggins.

Charles Fain Lehman, Neetu Arnold, Judge Glock, and Carolyn Gorman unpack Trump's border pageantry at “Alligator Alcatraz,” exposing the left's silence on illegal immigration. They break down the One Big Beautiful Bill, $1 trillion in spending cuts, tax policy in the balance, and a fight for fiscal sanity.

On this episode of Future of Freedom, host Scot Bertram is joined by two guests with different viewpoints about zoning laws and America's housing supply. First on the show is Tobias Peter, a senior fellow at AEI and the codirector of the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center. Later, we hear from Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal. You can find Tobias on X @TobiasPeterAEI and Judge at @JudgeGlock.

Charles Fain Lehman, Judge Glock, Rafael Mangual, and John Sailer discuss the House tax bill, California governor Gavin Newsom's model ordinance on homelessness, and summer vacation plans.

Charles Fain Lehman, Heather Mac Donald, Judge Glock, and Rafael Mangual discuss the Trump-Harvard fight, the New York City Council's lawsuit against Mayor Eric Adams, and transit crime.

Charles Fain Lehman, Judge Glock, Rafael Mangual, and Daniel Di Martino discuss what's next for Trump's tariffs, the latest in the deportation saga of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, and what people are getting up to with corpses on the New York City subway.

Before the Trump administration started blitzing the civil service six weeks ago, decades have passed since the last major attempt to reform the federal personnel system. Congress has done little to change federal workforce rules. At the same time, the Manhattan Institute Research shows state governments have demonstrated that changing public sector workforce rules comprehensively is not only possible, but can lead to more successful mission outcomes for possible federal lessons. Federal News Network's Jason Miller spoke with the institute'sSenior fellow, Judge Glock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before the Trump administration started blitzing the civil service six weeks ago, decades have passed since the last major attempt to reform the federal personnel system. Congress has done little to change federal workforce rules. At the same time, the Manhattan Institute Research shows state governments have demonstrated that changing public sector workforce rules comprehensively is not only possible, but can lead to more successful mission outcomes for possible federal lessons. Federal News Network's Jason Miller spoke with the institute's Senior fellow, Judge Glock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Judge Glock joins Jordan McGillis to discuss the history of 30-year mortgages and the future of the housing market in America. 

The EPA routinely uses punitive regulation on local water systems, and the costs are sometimes crippling for local governments. The benefits are less than clear. The Manhattan Institute's Judge Glock makes a case for ending federal control over municipal water systems just as a new fight over water fluoridation is set to emerge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Murray chats with Judge Glock, who is the Director of Research and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rod and Greg Show Daily Rundown – Wednesday, December 18, 20244:20 pm: Judge Glock, Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Manhattan Institute joins the program to discuss his recent piece for the City Journal on why the working class rejected “Bidenomics.”4:38 pm: James Agresti, President of Just Facts, joins the show to discuss his recent piece about how the Constitution does not grant birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.6:20 pm: Ingrid Jacques, a columnist with USA Today, joins Rod and Greg to discuss her piece on why we shouldn't expect media bias against conservatives to end despite ABC's $15 million settlement with Donald Trump.

With housing - including rent control and development policies – and homelessness key issues for voters across California this election year, we present an expanded version of our recent conversation between the Manhattan Institute's Judge Glock and our Steven Greenhut of PRI's Free Cities Center.  The two discuss government housing mandates, NIMBY-ism, free market housing policy solutions, rent control and more.  Plus, Ro and Tim discuss the latest developments in California and national politics including the controversy over Kamala Harris' “60 Minutes” interview and a major refinery announcing its closure just days after Gov. Newsom signs gas price supply legislation.

Judge Glock joins Brian Anderson to discuss economic strategy and the consequences of government regulation on American productivity.

Rod Arquette Show Daily Rundown – Tuesday, July 2, 2024:38 pm: Brett Tolman former U.S. Attorney and Executive Director of Right on Crime joins the program to discuss the Supreme Court decision that says former presidents can't be prosecuted for official actions taken while in the White House.5:05 pm: John Goodman, President of the Goodman Institute, joins the show to discuss his piece for Townhall.com on why the country is so polarized.6:05 pm: Derek Monson, Public Policy Director at the Sutherland Institute joins Rod to discuss his piece in the Deseret News about how the results of the primary elections in Utah raise questions about the caucus convention system.6:20 pm: Charles Lipson, Professor of International Politics at the University of Chicago and a contributor to The Spectator joins Rod for a conversation about the hard choice Joe Biden faces if he stays in the presidential race.6:38 pm: Judge Glock, Senior Fellow and Director of Research for the Manhattan Institute joins Rod to discuss the Supreme Court's decision to uphold a Grants Pass, Oregon law that that essentially bans homeless people from sleeping in public areas.6:50 pm: Steve Cortes, Founder of the League of American Workers joins the program for a conversation about his piece for Real Clear Politics on how swing state voters place the blame for high food prices squarely on Joe Biden.

In this episode, Susan Pendergrass speaks with Judge Glock, the Director of Research and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor at City Journal, about the ongoing attempts to address homelessness through housing policy. They explore the effectiveness of current housing initiatives, the challenges in implementing effective policy solutions, innovative approaches to reduce homelessness, and more. Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

0:00 - THE GREAT DISINTEGRATION: BLM Brandon's beauty spending   13:33 - SPORTS & POLITICS: Caitlin Clark Olympic snub   32:24 - Mayorkas on Biden's phony border EO   49:45 - Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute, chews over his recent article How Debt Ate Chicago. Judge is also the author of The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913–1939   01:04:46 - Steven Bucci, visiting fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, on the "moral bankruptcy" of the media's reporting on the Israeli hostage rescue   01:25:54 - American College of Pediatricians ED Dr. Jill Simons calls on major median associations to stop promoting transing kids   01:40:07 - Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University, Wilfred Reilly, delves into his new book Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me: Debunking the False Narratives Defining America's School Curricula. Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me is available in stores tomorrow!   01:56:44 - President of the Crime Prevention Research Center & former senior advisor for research and statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy, John Lott, points out the irony with policies that make it difficult on law enforcement and for citizens to protect themselves. John is also the author of  Gun Control Myths and More Guns, Less CrimeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We welcome back Dr. Judge Glock of the Manhattan Institute to discuss his latest in City Journal on the debt crisis facing major cities. Given the seemingly insurmountable debt they face, is it wrong to ask whether the municipal budgets were designed to fail?   Show Notes How Debt Ate Chicago | City Journal U.S. Debt Clock World Debt Clocks Debate: 75 Years after A-Bomb - Did Welfare Cause Detroit's Decline and Lack of It Cause Hiroshima's Rise? - Frank Report Hiroshima vs. Detroit: Then and Now Another Look at School Choice (Dr. Corey DeAngelis) 8/9/23 Read Fr. McTeigue's Written Works! Listen to Fr. McTeigue's Preaching! | Herald of the Gospel Sermons Podcast on Spotify Visit Fr. McTeigue's Website | Herald of the Gospel Questions? Comments? Feedback? Ask Father!

Join my conversation with Dr. Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, on the latest Let People Prosper Show podcast.  We explore:

“I'm from the government and I'm here to help.” Ronald Reagan described those as the most dangerous words in the English language. I generally agree with the Gipper who I have fond memories of extending back to the 1980 presidential election that I watched with interest as a kindergartener. When the government gets too big, […] The post 415: Tax and Return: Judge Glock appeared first on Wealth Formula.

Scott discusses government benefits with Judge Glock from the Manhattan Institute, Denise Driehaus from the Hamilton County Commission breaks down the funding approval for convention center, and Tiff Potter in for Allie and Jason Nathanson get you ready for the weekend.

Twenty Percent of U.S. households receiving benefits, pay taxes to receive those benefits. Judge Glock from the Manhattan Institute joins Scott to discuss what is going on with these benefits.

Twenty Percent of U.S. households receiving benefits, pay taxes to receive those benefits. Judge Glock from the Manhattan Institute joins Scott to discuss what is going on with these benefits.

Scott discusses government benefits with Judge Glock from the Manhattan Institute, Denise Driehaus from the Hamilton County Commission breaks down the funding approval for convention center, and Tiff Potter in for Allie and Jason Nathanson get you ready for the weekend.

Join Tom Wheelwright and his guest, Judge Glock, as they explore how the government uses a "Tax and Return" scheme and how the government benefits you receive are null after all the taxes you pay. Judge is a director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal. He writes about the intersection of economics, finance, and housing with a perspective informed by his work in economic history. Glock's work has been featured in National Affairs, Tax Notes, the Journal of American History, NPR, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among other places. Discover how the "Tax and Return" scheme affects you, how your tax dollars are circulated in the system, and the importance of taking control of your taxes, your life, and your future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sloan discusses the fallout from a school janitor being falsely accused of child molestation with attorney Jason Phillabaum. Also the condition of Cincinnati roads with vice mayor Jan Michelle Lemon-Kearny, and Judge Glock asks why you have to pay taxes to get benefits from the government.

Sloan discusses the fallout from a school janitor being falsely accused of child molestation with attorney Jason Phillabaum. Also the condition of Cincinnati roads with vice mayor Jan Michelle Lemon-Kearny, and Judge Glock asks why you have to pay taxes to get benefits from the government.

Scott discusses falling ACT scores with testing expert David Dillard, ending racial preferences in contracting with Judge Glock from the Manhattan Institute, and White House columnist Niall Stanage tells us if the US is going to war with Iran.

Joe Selvaggi discusses the challenges posed by homeless encampments, like Boston’s Mass and Cass, with Dr. Judge Glock, the director of research at the Manhattan Institute. They also explore policy alternatives aimed at addressing the needs of both the community and the unsheltered individuals. Guest: Dr. Judge Glock is the director of research and a […]

Joe Selvaggi discusses the challenges posed by homeless encampments, like Boston's Mass and Cass, with Dr. Judge Glock, the director of research at the Manhattan Institute. They also explore policy alternatives aimed at addressing the needs of both the community and the unsheltered individuals.

(You can watch this conversation on Vimeo or Twitter!) Judge Glock is the director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, as well as the author of Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913-1939. Manhattan Institute  Judge's Twitter  Judge's Book __________________ @bradswail austincitycouncilman.com Support the show on Patreon!

Judge Glock joins Brian C. Anderson to discuss states' and cities' efforts to remove homeless encampments from public spaces.

The modern mortgage: fixed-rate, low interest, 30-year term, 80% loan-to-value, amortizing. It wouldn't exist without the backing of the federal government, but how and why was it created? And what were the consequences for the housing market and broader economy? Judge Glock joins us to share the surprising history of the modern home mortgage, the strange bedfellows who fought for its creation, and its relationship to a century of bank bailouts.

0:00 - Dan & John Kass react to yesterday's arraignment of former president Trump 10:27 - Transcripts of Devon Archer testimony released yesterday 30:37 - Dan & John look into the divide between republicans and democrats  50:00 - CAMPUS BEAT: McHenry College's “Talk Dirty” class 01:00:51 - Former Chief Asst. U.S. Attorney & Contributing Editor at National Review, Andrew McCarthy, calls Trump's latest indictment "A Political Scheme to Influence the Next Election" Check out Andy's still timely book Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency 01:22:01 - Judge Glock, contributing editor of City Journal and author of  The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913–1939, on the End of the Encampments? 01:34:46 - Founder, CIO Perry International Capital Partners, LLC., Jim Perry, pours over the July jobs numbers 01:50:27 - Open Mic Friday!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's conversation Paul sits down with Judge Glock to discuss the homelessness crisis. Glock is a researcher and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He was also in Albuquerque recently to speak at a Rio Grande Foundation luncheon.  Paul and Glock discuss homeless policy nationwide and especially in New Mexico's largest city, Albuquerque. What factors are worsening the situation and what cities/states are doing to improve or worsen the situation? 

We welcome back Dr. Stephen Eide of the Manhattan Institute to discuss homelessness via his article in City Journal. Why do so many government programs fail, and are there any organizations getting it right? Father finishes with Timely Thoughts.   The Encampment State | City Journal Snapcrap — Why I built an app to report poop on the streets of San Francisco | by Sean Miller | Medium Equal Opportunity vs Affirmative Action (Dr. Judge Glock) 5/23/23 At New Chicago Walgreens, You Can Only Browse 2 Aisles — The Rest Of The Store Is Locked Away The owner of two major San Francisco hotels STOPS making payments on its $725 million loan | Daily Mail Online This is where all those abandoned RVs and trailers go to die | HeraldNet.com Read Fr. McTeigue's Written Works! Visit Fr. McTeigue's Website | Herald of the Gospel Questions? Comments? Feedback? Ask Father!

We welcome back Dr. Judge Glock of the Manhattan Institute and City Journal to discuss the effects of applying the policies of affirmative action to government contracting. What is Minority Contracting, and why does it end up doing more harm than good?   Welcome to the World of Minority Contracting | City Journal Baltimore faces $30M suit over contracts Effects of federal socioeconomic contracting preferences | SpringerLink Read Fr. McTeigue's Written Works! Visit Fr. McTeigue's Website | Herald of the Gospel Questions? Comments? Feedback? Ask Father!

We welcome back Dr. Judge Glock of the Manhattan Institute and City Journal to discuss the Federal Reserve's often-questionable allocation of financial resources and their bizarre willingness (or even eagerness) to bail out megabanks at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. The Fed Goes Underwater (City Journal) Bizarro Supply-Side Economics (City Journal) Read Fr. McTeigue's Written Works! Questions? Comments? Feedback? Ask Father!

Adam White and Jace Lington talk with Judge Glock, director of research and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, about how progressive reformers designed independent regulatory commissions to replace the function of juries, the subject of his new article in Regulation magazine. Glock argues that the original approach to staffing regulatory commissions during the Progressive Era focused on... Source

0:00 - 99 Luftballons vs Up, up and away   12:08 - THE GREAT DISINTEGRATION: Chicago crime   28:02 - Disney+ cartoon “Proud Family” scene…BIPOC girls performing at a school function…”slaves built this country” poetry slam-ish   48:52 - Fake meat is what's not for dinner   01:05:05 - Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, Lt Col James Carafano: These 5 China intelligence failures are even more dangerous than the Chinese spy balloon. For more from Jim @JJCarafano   01:22:22 - CJR Russiagate review   01:41:38 - Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Heather MacDonald, breaks down  Tyre Nichols and the new black-cop white supremacyBe sure to check out Heather's most recent books  The War on Cops and The Diversity Delusion   01:59:22 - Judge Glock, contributing editor of City Journal, previews what happens when The Fed Goes Underwater. For more from Judge, get his book  The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913–1939See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a recent Planetizen article titled, “Is Exclusionary Zoning a Good Thing?” author Michael Lewyn examines a theoretical argument presented by Judge Glock in the American Affairs Journal: that because people move to places that have zoning laws, zoning must be good. In this Upzoned episode, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn unpack the zoning debate between these two authors and how zoning is truly impacting cities. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Is Exclusionary Zoning a Good Thing?” by Michael Lewyn, Planetizen (January 2023). “Two Cheers for Zoning,” by Judge Glock, American Affairs (Winter 2022). Abby Kinney (Twitter). Chuck Marohn (Twitter). Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

Economic historian Judge Glock talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about zoning and the housing market. Glock argues the impact on zoning on housing affordability is small and that we should learn to love property taxes as long as they're administered properly. The conversation includes a discussion of the environmental impact of urban sprawl--Glock argues sprawl has certain environmental benefits.

Judge Glock joins Matt Salmon, in for Mike Broomhead, to discuss the problems and potential solutions for homelessness.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an abbreviated version of The Michael Medved Show. To get the full program, plus premium content, become a subscriber at MichaelMedved.com

Across the country homeless issues are critical. At a recent national conference Paul met Judge Glock, Senior Director of Policy Research at the Austin, TX - based Cicero Institute, a think tank that among other issues focuses on solutions to homelessness. Paul and Judge discuss the challenge we face and real-world solutions for the problem. You don't want to miss this conversation!   

We welcome Dr. Judge Glock of the Cicero Institute and City Journal to discuss the unhelpful and sometimes backwards methods government programs use to try and cure the epidemic of homelessness and addiction. Is anyone doing it right? Subsidizing Addiction Texas's Camping Bans Will Help the Homeless Can Pain Be A Near Occasion of Sin? Questions? Comments? Feedback? Ask Father!

0:00 - Dan responds to critics of recent Play by the Rules mailings that criticize Pritkzer and Democrats who supported HB 3653   33:35  - A call for COVIDian interventions by the sensible   45:40 - Project Veritas: U.S. Senate Candidate Krystle Matthews [D-SC]: "Treat them[white people] like sh*t”   59:30 - Republican candidate for Illinois governor, Darren Bailey: Our state is being destroyed from the inside out and lives are at risk.For more on Darren's run for governor visit  baileyforillinois.com   01:18:46 - Chicago businessman and candidate for mayor, Willie Wilson, explains why he has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. For more on Dr. Wilson's run for mayor visit electwilliewilson.com   01:36:12 - Judge Glock, chief policy officer at the Cicero Institute and contributing editor of City Journal, on  Subsidizing Addiction. Check out Judge's book  The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913–1939    01:51:58 - Republican congressional candidate for IL-13, Regan Deering, illustrates the importance of agribusiness in Illinois and how she will fight to make it thrive. For more on Regan's run for IL-13 visit regan4congress.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of the Unsupervised Learning podcast, Razib talks to Dr. Judge Glock about the case for optimism in America in 2022. An economic historian by training, Glock is a Chief Policy Officer at the Cicero Institute. Though public polling shows that 80% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the nation, Glock really doesn't share the sentiment, and he puts forward a case for sunny optimism in the historical and geographical context. In short, it turns out that for the vast majority of human history our species was living at the Malthusian level, and today Americans pursuing the consumer lifestyle never consider simple subsistence sufficient. Glock's contention is that we live like kings, and we should appreciate this. In fact, the poorest Americans have access to miraculous technologies that would have amazed Henry VIII. Glock also points out that China, and much of the developed world, has lower fertility than the US, and we are the world's number one magnet for skilled immigrants. In the great positional game of power, Glock reckons that the US has a good shot purely due to its demographic profile. Moving beyond economics and onto culture, Razib and Glock discuss the differences between the present and past of American society and argue about whether the US is quite as decadent as many argue. After all, rates of teen pregnancy are down, and crime is nothing like it was in the 1970's, so perhaps our best days aren't behind us?  

Judge Glock is the Director of Research and Policy at the Cicero Institute and an expert on housing and homelessness in the U.S. In this episode, Glock dissects the root causes of America's affordable housing shortage and explains how the right incentives can jumpstart development and bring down home costs for working-class families. He also exposes how policies like “Housing First” encourage the homeless to live and die on the streets while waiting for free and permanent housing, which won't solve the root of their problems: addiction and mental illness. Instead, Glock explains how cities like San Diego combine bridge shelters with treatment and accountability to reduce homelessness -- a recipe that other state leaders can use to save lives and bring healing to hundreds of thousands of people.

Today Will & Amala react to clips from PragerU's NEW documentary “Homelessness: The Reality and the Solution” and interview two men who were featured in the documentary. The first is Tom Wolf, a former drug addict and homeless person turned advocate, who shares his incredible story of recovery and explains what it really takes to get people off the streets. Next, we speak to Judge Glock, an author, researcher, and Chief Policy Officer at the Cicero Institute who debunks the “housing first” approach to solving homeless used by progressive cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. Stay tuned for the end of the show where Will & Amala face Reddit's toughest moral dilemmas from a sub called “Am I The A-Hole?”

 Counter-University Classroom - Class 2: Big Tech Censorship and Monopoly PowerIn this episode... A panel on Big Tech Censorship and Monopoly Power featuring Rachel Bovard, Judge Glock, Jennifer Hudleston, and Zach Graves and moderated by Saagar Enjeti. This panel was held at the ISI “Future of American Political Economy” conference. This conference brought together thinkers from many perspectives on the right to debate the future of Political Economy in America. Links: The Future of American Political Economy on YouTubeBecome a part of ISI:Download the ISI App for AppleDownload the ISI App for AndroidBecome a MemberSupport ISIUpcoming ISI Events

Judge Glock is an economic historian, a scholar at the Cicero Institute, and a returning guest to the podcast. Judge rejoins Macro Musings to talk about the origins of the US mortgage market as detailed in his new book, *The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913-1939*. David and Judge also discuss the emergence and evolution of the national US mortgage market, the price parity movement, the history of federal land banks, and more.   Transcript for the episode can be found here: https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/tags/macro-musings   Judge’s Twitter: @judgeglock Judge’s blog: https://judgeglock.medium.com/    Related Links:   *The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913-1939* by Judge Glock https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-dead-pledge/9780231192538   *The “Riefler-Keynes” Doctrine and Federal Reserve Policy in the Great Depression* by Judge Glock https://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-abstract/51/2/297/137129/The-Riefler-Keynes-Doctrine-and-Federal-Reserve?redirectedFrom=fulltext   *Housing Finance at a Glance* by the Urban Institute https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/housing-finance-policy-center/projects/housing-finance-glance-monthly-chartbooks   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Banks, bankers, and busted mortgages, oh my. The Cicero Institute’s Judge Glock drops by the virtual studio to weave tales of desperate financial times from his latest book, “The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913-1939.” Pull up a parcel of land, sit back, and listen in as Anthony Comegna and Judge Glock discuss the matter on Ideas in Progress.