Restore faith in government
…by subjecting it to the rigor and disciplines of the private sector.
Last year I spent several hours on hold with the IRS. Not minutes — hours. When I finally reached someone, I was told it would take four months to process a fax confirming my authority to act on an estate. At any private financial institution, that is handled while you are on the phone. That experience is not unusual. It is the norm.
Public confidence in government has eroded for a simple reason: performance consistently falls short of what Americans experience in competitive markets. You cannot walk into a post office or a DMV without this becoming obvious. It is not an ideological claim. It is measurable.
Private firms compete on cost, speed, reliability, and customer experience. Government agencies operate with limited competitive pressure, weak feedback loops, and little consequence for failure. The result is predictably inferior service at higher cost.
To fix this, we must recruit qualified private-sector executives and give them the political protection and latitude necessary to upgrade service quality to competitive levels.
The performance gap is real
The gap shows up in data and in daily life.
Telephone wait times at agencies such as the IRS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) routinely run tens of minutes during peak periods. Independent watchdog testing has documented IRS callers waiting 15 to 80 minutes, even as the agency's own metrics reported much shorter averages.
The National Taxpayer Advocate has reported that IRS processing of inbound correspondence averaged multiple months, forcing taxpayers to repeatedly call just to confirm their documents were received.
Federal IT modernization projects routinely run years behind schedule and billions over budget. Comparable private-sector technology projects — often more complex, with tighter security requirements — are delivered faster and cheaper because failure carries real consequences.
Direct comparisons where they exist
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) delivers care at the scale of the largest private hospital systems. Yet independent evaluations have found that many VHA facilities fail to meet appointment scheduling standards. Government audits continue to document systemic challenges in scheduling, care coordination, and access.
Private hospital systems operating at similar scale compete on wait times, outcomes, and patient satisfaction because reimbursement and market share depend on performance. When private systems fail persistently, leadership changes. When public systems fail, responsibility diffuses.
The U.S. Postal Service operates a nationwide delivery network comparable in scope to the largest private carriers, yet has recorded annual losses of roughly $9–10 billion in recent fiscal years. In the private sector, losses of that magnitude trigger restructuring. In the public sector, they are tolerated indefinitely.
The numbers confirm what we experience
The American Customer Satisfaction Index, which benchmarks public and private services on the same scale, scores federal government service at approximately 70 out of 100 — well below typical private-sector benchmarks for basic customer-facing services. Broader surveys show that fewer than half of Americans report positive experiences with federal government interactions.
The same pattern holds at the state and local level. DMV wait times in many states run hours, not minutes. City 311 systems absorb millions of recurring complaints about sanitation, street maintenance, and housing conditions — with limited consequence. In competitive markets, problems at that scale force operational change.
Structure, not incompetence
These outcomes are not the result of bad intentions. They are the predictable product of structure.
Government services lack competition. Without the threat of losing customers, performance benchmarks erode. Process compliance crowds out results.
Leadership turnover compounds the problem. Cabinet secretaries and senior appointees often serve short tenures, selected for political alignment rather than domain expertise. They are expected to manage organizations with budgets and workforces rivaling Fortune 50 companies, often without experience running comparable enterprises.
Incentive structures are misaligned. Pay, promotion, and tenure in government are weakly tied to service quality, cost control, or innovation. Failure rarely carries personal consequence.
One final prerequisite
Seasoned private-sector executives will have every reason to decline public service. They will forego competitive compensation. They will have no patience for the political theater that passes for oversight in Congress.
A recent example makes the point. In 2025, President Trump appointed Frank Bisignano to lead the SSA. Mr. Bisignano has deep experience in high-volume transaction processing and is among the most qualified people in the country for this role. During his confirmation hearing, senators repeatedly accused him of planning to cut Social Security benefits — a charge they knew to be false, since that authority belongs to Congress, not the executive branch. Not one serious question was asked about leadership approach, operational diagnosis, or team-building.
Both parties are guilty of this. It has to stop if we are serious about recruiting the talent needed to fix what is broken.
Conclusion
Public trust is not restored by rhetoric. It is restored by experience. When citizens can reach agencies promptly, receive accurate information, and obtain services on predictable timelines, confidence follows.
Subjecting government to private-sector discipline is not about ideology or privatization. It is about applying proven management principles — competition where possible, professional leadership, aligned incentives, and accountability — to institutions that exist to serve the public. Without those disciplines, service will continue to lag, costs will rise, and trust will continue to fall.
Sources
Partnership for Public Service, State of Trust in Government 2024.
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), IRS Toll-Free Telephone Access and Wait Times, FY2024.
National Taxpayer Advocate, 2024 Annual Report to Congress.
U.S. Government Accountability Office, Veterans Health Administration: Appointment Scheduling Timeliness.
American Customer Satisfaction Index, Federal Government Satisfaction Scores.
Social Security Administration, Commissioner Frank Bisignano.