Karl Zinsmeister, former chief domestic policy adviser to President George W. Bush, joined Chicago’s Morning Answer to offer a candid assessment of the federal government’s resistance to reform and how today’s efforts, including Elon Musk’s Doge initiative, face the same entrenched opposition he encountered nearly two decades ago.
Zinsmeister’s remarks echoed concerns about the federal bureaucracy’s ever-growing size and unwillingness to change. Drawing from his newly released memoir, My West Wing, Zinsmeister argued that “gentle” conservative approaches no longer work when government dysfunction has become institutionalized.
“When I left office in 2009, the federal budget was about $3 trillion,” he said. “Today, it’s nearly $7 trillion. We’re dealing with a runaway train.”
He likened the federal bureaucracy to a blob of inertia that smothers reform efforts with delay tactics, passive resistance, and political stonewalling. In his view, even a charismatic disruptor like Elon Musk — with the support of a reform-minded administration — faces steep odds against a system designed to outlast reformers.
Zinsmeister, who praised the innovative premise behind the Doge initiative to identify and eliminate waste, argued that real change requires much more than clever branding.
“It can’t just be Doge,” he said. “Every department head and every member of this administration needs to own the responsibility of breaking up the logjam.”
He described how his own political philosophy had evolved. Once a traditional conservative wary of government overreach, Zinsmeister now believes a more aggressive approach is required to counter the systemic dysfunction that conservative policies have unintentionally protected by default.
“If you’re a gentle conservative in this environment, all you’re doing is conserving dysfunction,” he said.
Zinsmeister praised Trump’s current cabinet for being more vocal and confrontational, especially in the face of criticism from legacy media and left-wing activists. He argued that strong communicators willing to challenge conventional wisdom are essential to pushing reform forward.
He cited the Department of Education as an example of how overreach can inadvertently fuel support for reform.
“Biden’s administration used the Education Department to push radical race and gender ideologies in schools and to unilaterally forgive trillions in student debt. That woke up parents and shifted public opinion,” he said. “Now there’s momentum to rein in the department.”
One of the most egregious failures Zinsmeister highlighted was the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He pointed to a series of near-miss airline incidents, outdated technology still relying on binoculars and voice radio, and billions spent with little progress on long-promised modernization projects like “NextGen.”
“In 2008, they told me they were rolling out NextGen,” he said. “It’s 2025, and we’re still waiting. Meanwhile, 37% of flights were delayed or canceled last year.”
Despite a near doubling of the FAA budget — from $14 billion in 2008 to $27 billion today — systemic problems remain. Zinsmeister argued that the solution is not more funding, but structural reform.
He advocated for removing air traffic control from direct federal management and instead shifting to the model used by Canada, the UK, and Germany, where air traffic is run by independent nonprofits or public-private partnerships that answer to both customers and regulators.
“We’re the only ones who let the same agency run the system and oversee itself,” he said. “That’s a clear conflict of interest.”
Zinsmeister also emphasized the need for bold tax reform. Instead of fiddling with deductions and rates, he proposed eliminating the income tax altogether or drastically cutting it, arguing that starving Washington of excess revenue might finally force fiscal discipline.
“These tax-eater politicians always talk about how much new revenue their plans will generate. That’s bad news — you already have too much money.”
While he acknowledged that transformative change will take time, Zinsmeister closed on an optimistic note, suggesting that continued pressure, communication, and patience can still yield results.
“You won’t get the full glass, but if you don’t settle for nothing and have the stamina to keep going, you can fill it halfway and then keep pouring.”
Karl Zinsmeister’s new book, My West Wing: A Very Personal Account of Work in the White House and How to Solve Washington’s Perpetual Resistance to Reform, is now available.