An Informed Citizenry

We have the most powerful government in the world. Nearly every citizen has strong opinions about it. And almost no one knows the first thing about it.

Ask an American what “the government” is, and you’ll hear slogans, outrage, or applause. Ask how many Cabinet agencies make it up, and the answers stop. Ask what those agencies actually produce—food safety, hurricane tracking, cancer research, patent protection—and the silence deepens.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about government—the infrastructure of collective survival that keeps 330 million people fed, safe, connected, and solvent.

Politics vs. Government: The Distinction That Changes Everything

Politics is the fight over what government should do:
Should taxes be higher or lower?
Should regulations be tighter or looser?
Should government grow or shrink?

Government is what happens after those arguments end:
Inspectors examine meat so you don’t get salmonella.
Economists measure inflation so businesses can plan.
Meteorologists forecast hurricanes so families can evacuate.
Nurses treat veterans who once fought the wars we funded.

Politics gets the airtime. Government does the work.

You can despise “big government” or praise it. But you can’t evaluate it—can’t even have an honest argument about it—without understanding what it actually does.

Understanding the difference is essential for any informed citizen.

Most Americans can name the President, their senators, maybe their representative. They know which party controls Congress. They have strong opinions about partisan fights, but they can't name the cabinet agencies that make up the heart of the government.

My book, An Informed Citizenry, examine one Cabinet agency through three lenses:

The Human Story: A career professional facing an impossible choice that reveals how the agency actually functions. These aren't politicians or political appointees—they're civil servants who remain regardless of which party controls the White House, trying to serve the public while navigating inadequate resources, political pressure, and systemic constraints.

Failure and success stories: A case study where the agency failed spectacularly, revealing systemic problems that persist. Hurricane Katrina killed 1,800 people while FEMA sat by. The opioid crisis killed 500,000 Americans after FDA approved OxyContin on weak evidence. Family separation traumatized 5,500 children when DHS implemented policy without adequate systems. These aren't partisan talking points—they're documented disasters with body counts, and the successes, stunning and unbelievable get equal airtime.

The Hidden Production: What the agency produces daily that affects your life in ways you probably never realized. This is the book's core insight: Government produces tangible goods and services that citizens depend on but rarely recognize.

The conventional wisdom says "government doesn't produce anything—markets produce, government just regulates and redistributes." This is fundamentally wrong.

A Sample of What Government Produces:

• Food safety inspection (USDA: 37 billion pounds of meat examined annually)

• Medical research breakthroughs (HHS: Human Genome Project, mRNA vaccines, cancer immunotherapy)

• Weather forecasts (Commerce: NOAA satellites that make GPS work and predict hurricanes)

• Border security (DHS: Coast Guard rescues, customs inspection of $2.8 trillion in trade)

• Economic intelligence (Commerce: GDP numbers that move global markets within minutes)

• Patent protection (Commerce: 750,000 American inventions protected annually)

• Debt management (Treasury: $34 trillion portfolio preventing economic catastrophe)

• Air traffic control (Transportation: preventing planes from colliding)

• Nuclear weapons stewardship (Energy: maintaining arsenal, preventing proliferation)

• Veterans healthcare (VA: 9 million enrolled, patient satisfaction equal to private sector for physical care)

These are some of the measurable outputs produced by government. Remove any one of these production systems and American life would be severely impacted within days or weeks.

The book's central argument: Before debating whether government should be bigger or smaller, citizens need to understand what government actually produces. Then we can have informed debates about whether that production is efficient, whether it should be expanded or contracted, whether private alternatives would work better.

But those debates can't be productive when citizens don't even know what agencies do.