"I'm From the Government, and I'm Here to Help"

People don’t hate government. They’re just tired of being let down by it.

Let me tell you about my Tuesday night.

It wasn’t glamorous. There were no campaign banners, no podiums, no catered sandwiches with toothpicks in them. Just about 25 to 30 folks gathered in a classroom at Tillamook Bay Community College for a town hall. That’s what democracy looks like when it's not dressed up for television. Ordinary people, folding chairs, fluorescent lights, and a lot of opinions.

And boy, did they have opinions.

One guy read me a list—an actual list—of 30 different bills that had him stressed out. He didn’t just wave it around for dramatic effect. He read them. One by one. You’ve got to admire that level of commitment, even if it makes you consider the merits of term limits for public comment.

Some folks were upset about President Donald Trump’s tariffs or executive orders. Some were worried about Medicaid cuts from the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Still others wanted to know why education funding felt like a round of musical chairs where the music stopped back in 2008.

And almost everyone—regardless of their politics—was tired. Tired of gridlock. Tired of excuses. Tired of watching politicians bicker while roads crumble and kids wait for services that never come.

Afterward, a man came up to me and asked, earnestly, “Why didn’t more people come tonight?”

I don’t think he was really asking about parking or the time of day. I think he was asking why people don’t show up anymore—why they tune out, log off, and go back to watching reruns of The Great British Bake Off instead of engaging with their own government.

Here’s what I told him: People don’t trust the government because they haven’t had a good experience with it. That’s it. That’s the ballgame.

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DMV, Dialysis, and Drainage Pipes

Think about it. You work hard. You pay taxes. You follow the rules.

And what do you get in return?

You wait an hour at the DMV only to be told you’re missing the one document you didn't know you needed. You lose your job and apply for unemployment insurance, and the check comes months later (after you’ve spent 40 hours on hold, listening to elevator music that haunts your dreams). Your kid needs mental health care, but there’s a six-month waitlist. Your dialysis clinic shuts down for months because the Oregon Health Authority needs to reissue a license, and their red tape has more layers than a wedding cake.

One guy, who emailed, told me about a busted drainage pipe that’s been flooding his business property and had also created a sink hole in another woman’s yard that she fell into. The city was even sued over it. Still not fixed. And let’s not even start on the foster care system, where kids are shuffled around like afterthoughts and sometimes handed their belongings in a trash bag.

Government, in theory, is supposed to be the grown-up in the room. The problem-solver. The backstop when everything else breaks down.

But too often, government shows up late, brings the wrong tools, and makes you fill out a form before it tells you it can’t help.

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Reagan Was Right (But Not for the Reason You Think)

Ronald Reagan once said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

People still quote that line today—not just because it’s funny, but because it’s true. Not true in the sense that government should never help. True in the sense that when government shows up, it often brings bureaucracy instead of solutions.

That line doesn’t land because Americans hate the idea of help. It lands because they’ve experienced what that “help” usually looks like: a maze of phone trees, missing documents, and a permit that takes longer to process than a mortgage. What Reagan understood—what we should all understand—is that the real problem isn’t government trying to help. It’s that too often, it can’t help. Or worse, it tries and makes things worse.

If you’ve ever dealt with an agency that gave you five phone numbers, four of which went to voicemail and one that said “this mailbox is full,” you get it.

And this is where the conservative critique still holds water: government should know its limits. It should do fewer things, and do them well. Pave the roads. Issue the permits. Show up on time. Answer the phone.

The problem isn’t just government overreach. It’s government underperformance.

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Bureaucracy: The Final Boss

Now, here's the punchline that isn’t funny: most of the frustration people feel isn’t even directed at their elected officials.

It’s the agencies. The alphabet soup of acronyms that no one voted for, but everyone has to deal with. They’re the ones who say “no” without ever explaining “why.” Who lose paperwork, then make you start over. Who have more process than purpose.

And the kicker? They don’t answer to voters.

Sure, the Legislature funds them. In theory, they’re accountable to the executive branch. But in practice? Good luck. These are the folks who can hold up your building permit for months while claiming they're “streamlining operations.” It's not malevolence. It’s inertia. It’s bureaucracy as lifestyle.

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The Trust Formula: Competence + Accountability

So, how do we fix it?

How do we restore trust in a system that so often feels like it was designed by Kafka on a bender?

Here’s my radical idea: Let government do less, but do it better.

Instead of sprawling programs that promise everything and deliver little, let’s focus on the things government must do—and then do those things with ruthless efficiency. Roads. Public safety. Basic services. Education. Health care access.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not calling for some libertarian utopia where we abolish everything except the Post Office and call it good. I’m saying we need to rethink our relationship with the concept of “governing.”

We should expect results.

We should demand accountability.

And we should stop pretending that failure is okay as long as the intentions were noble.

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The Real Work Is Boring

The irony is that restoring trust isn’t flashy. It’s not a speech or a press release or a viral video. It’s making sure the dialysis clinic opens on time. It’s fixing the drainage pipe. It’s funding special ed without forcing districts to choose between textbooks and therapy. It’s a lot of unsexy stuff that no one wants to campaign on but everyone expects.

Trust isn’t built in town halls. It’s built in outcomes.

And right now, too many people are walking away from the system because they’ve done everything they were supposed to do—and they got ghosted by their own government.

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The Point of It All

At that Tillamook town hall, I heard a lot of anger, a lot of fear, and a little bit of hope. People showed up. That matters.

But the biggest thing I took away is this: we don’t need to convince people to love government. We need to convince them that it works.

Start there. The rest will follow.

If you’ve ever walked away from a government office muttering to yourself, “It shouldn’t be this hard”—you’re not alone. I hear it every day. But I still believe it can get better.

And if we want people to trust the system again, we’ve got to make sure the system earns it.