Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode we're asking the question, why can't we fire the government? Now this is prompted by an article I read in the Atlantic called the Purge. And this article, I have to say, was pretty one sided. It was looking at the Trump administration and kind of the cleaning house that they've done with the federal government in a negative way. From the perspective of the federal employees who were being fired. You know, President Trump has fired 17 inspector generals. 300,000 federal employees have taken buyouts or kind of forced resignation. Agencies like usaid, the fda, NASA have lost, top, so called top performers. Of course, the Department of Government Efficiency, which at one time was led by Elon Musk, has brought a lot of this. They described a culture of kind of fear and exiting of government employees, not knowing where, kind of, where they were going to be. And they were basically saying, hey, the federal government is losing its best and brightest people and at some point that's going to cost us maybe. But I think the Trump administration's argument is that they weren't the best and the brightest and that the results we were getting just weren't good enough. And if past performance is an indicator of future results, then the past poor performance of the government meant we weren't going to be getting anything promising in the future. And I think the problem with this is that, there's maybe two things, let's call it a practical thing and then a cultural thing practically. Do any of us have positive experiences about working with the federal government? I mean, honestly, when you walk into a government building or you engage a government process, are you overwhelmed with this efficiency, with the logic of it, with the strategy behind it? Do you find employees to be overly kind and, and welcoming and to go the extra mile to help you? Well, the answer is no. You probably laughed when I described that. We all know what working with the government is like. It's inefficient, it's bureaucratic, it makes no sense. It often is engaging people that are not friendly and have no real reason to compete for customer service. The second thing is cultural because as a culture, we have lost the ability to hold anyone accountable. I mean, in any business, in any industry, if you don't get results, eventually you lose your job. Well, why wouldn't that be true in the government? I mean, I don't wish ill, ill on Anybody, of course, I don't want anyone to lose their job. I don't want any family to feel anxiety about what their future might look like. But also, I don't think it's healthy for the government or any organization for people to be mediocre or even less than mediocre, to. To not care and to not be held accountable. You know, 1 Corinthians 4:2. The apostle Paul says it is required for those who have been given a trust to prove faithful. Now he's making a spiritual argument. But the principle holds, anytime someone trusts you with resources, in this case the American taxpayer and the American electorate, you have to prove that you can do what you're doing. We think about the FDA or NASA or USAID or the 300,000 federal employees. I got a question for you. If we can move off of 300,000 employees and continue to function as a government, doesn't that beg a pretty simple question? Did we need all of those positions? You know, we are a country in crippling debt. That's something I know will cost us in the future. How do you begin to aim at that? How do you begin to get more efficient and strategic if you don't leverage accountability as a tool? Now, I'm not pretending the Trump administration has bat a thousand on this or that they've gotten this completely right. Of course, I'm sure they haven't. Positions have been eliminated that shouldn't have been. But isn't it also true that for the last 20 years the federal government has only gotten bigger and bigger? So couldn't I make the argument that the same problem has existed in reverse? That we've gotten it wrong consistently by adding or by not deleting? I'm just saying that when the Atlantic presents this article, they present it as though it's just on its face. True that reduction in the federal government is a terrible idea, and I don't think that is true at all. I am welcoming accountability for me, for you, for the government, for everyone who. Because it means believing people can do better, expecting them to do better, and it means being faithful with the trust that has been given to you. I was disappointed by the one sidedness of this article and I'm encouraging you to think a little more critically about government efficiency and the way leaders lead and what might be necessary to get the job done. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!