Absolutely wonderful as always. Thank you for the interview. Really enjoyed hearing the perspective of someone who worked in a different government and how there are things that could help ours.
Great episode. At the end, you mention tax filing as an example of government working for the public — where people simply review and attest to pre-filled returns, rather than paying third parties to file info the government already has.
This has actually been tried — and blocked — here in the U.S. About 15 years ago, Joseph Bankman (Stanford Law, and Sam Bankman-Fried's father) built a product called ReadyReturn in California. It was tested, worked beautifully, but was ultimately killed by lawmakers after intense lobbying pressure. To me, it's a perfect illustration of what public-interest tech is up against: entrenched corporate interests and well-funded lobbies.
P.S. I'm a federal employee on a data/product team at an HHS agency.
Estonia's been a country of interest to me for the past five years, largely because of what you lay out here: the developmental result not really matched by anyone else. This was a fantastic interview, as always: thank you!
Absolutely wonderful as always. Thank you for the interview. Really enjoyed hearing the perspective of someone who worked in a different government and how there are things that could help ours.
Great episode. At the end, you mention tax filing as an example of government working for the public — where people simply review and attest to pre-filled returns, rather than paying third parties to file info the government already has.
This has actually been tried — and blocked — here in the U.S. About 15 years ago, Joseph Bankman (Stanford Law, and Sam Bankman-Fried's father) built a product called ReadyReturn in California. It was tested, worked beautifully, but was ultimately killed by lawmakers after intense lobbying pressure. To me, it's a perfect illustration of what public-interest tech is up against: entrenched corporate interests and well-funded lobbies.
P.S. I'm a federal employee on a data/product team at an HHS agency.
More on ReadyReturn:
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero
https://priceonomics.com/the-stanford-professor-who-fought-the-tax-lobby/
Estonia's been a country of interest to me for the past five years, largely because of what you lay out here: the developmental result not really matched by anyone else. This was a fantastic interview, as always: thank you!