Making Government Work: Amanda Renteria
July 28th, 2022
“We need to get back to a place where people believe government can do things.”
Amanda Renteria the CEO of Code for America, an organization of people-centered problem solvers working to improve government in a meaningful way. We discuss making government work better for everyday people by design.
Good governance starts with getting the basics right, such as delivering clean water to all communities. Making government simple and accessible is also key. Currently, it’s so complicated that many people have lost trust in the government's ability to respond to crises. Modernizing systems so that the government reaches folks where they are is an incredibly powerful tool to reimagining trust and rebuilding a government for, and by, us all.
Follow Amanda on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AmandaRenteria
Follow Mila on Twitter:
Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/
Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!
http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=standard
Want to support the show and get it early?
https://patreon.com/futurehindsight
Check out the Future Hindsight website!
Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: Amanda Renteria
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham
-
Amanda Renteria Transcript
Mila Atmos: [00:00:05] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas about civic life and democracy and turns them into action items for you and me. I'm Mila Atmos.
Ronald Reagan: [00:00:21] I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Mila Atmos: [00:00:32] People quote this all the time. And it's just crazy because clearly these are not the nine most terrifying words we can all think of. There are many, many more terrifying words, but its persistent force in American politics is undeniable. And yet we all -- every single one of us -- rely on the government to deliver dozens of essential services to us and our loved ones. Education, roads and highways, safe water, air, food, vaccines in a pandemic, and benefits for the most vulnerable. Our guest today has been focused on turning those words, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" into something else: a call to action to improve the systems undergirding our frayed social safety net, to make them more accessible and equitable and to thereby improve people's lives. Amanda Renteria is CEO of Code for America, an organization of people-centered problem solvers working to improve government in a meaningful way. Amanda has incredibly deep experience, and I hope she'll forgive me for a rundown of her career so far. This is a summarized bio, but it's still pretty jam packed. Amanda started out in the financial industry, moving to education as a teacher in her small hometown community, and finally spending the majority of her career in public service. She has served as a chief of operations at the California Department of Justice, overseeing 1,000 public servants and an $850 million budget. National political director for Secretary Clinton managing the political and outreach strategy for the 2016 presidential campaign and as a chief of staff in the United States Senate during one of the most productive periods in our country's history. She was named one of the most influential staffers by Roll Call and received a number of awards as the first Latina chief of staff in the history of the U.S. Senate. In addition to her policy work, she has also run for congressional office in 2014 and governor in 2018, believing that empowering others is at the heart of public service. Amanda, welcome to Future Hindsight. Thank you for joining us.
Amanda Renteria: [00:02:42] It is fantastic to be here and thank you for this conversation and really making sure that we can talk about government in a new way. This is what I wake up every day thinking about doing. And so it's fantastic to be with you.
Mila Atmos: [00:02:55] Thank you. Last year we did a whole season focusing on the social contract and it really highlighted, I think, how frayed it is and in some ways how hard it is to talk about it and contemporary American politics. And I think it might be useful place to kick off our conversation. How do you view the social contract in the United States?
Amanda Renteria: [00:03:16] So this is what I think is fundamental to what we are experiencing right now, because there's a question about the social contract. I think we are having questions about what government can and can't do. I am the daughter of an immigrant father who came to this country with this idea that this is the place if you work hard enough, you can succeed. And partly my definition of social contract is we need to be in that place where that is still true and that is still possible. And that does mean you have to have a strong social safety net. That does mean that when people run out of options in the private market, when people run out of options in their own lives, that there's a place that you can go where government still holds, humanity still holds a basic level of service for folks.
Mila Atmos: [00:04:01] So what's your personal experience of the social safety net or lack thereof in this country?
Amanda Renteria: [00:04:07] I grew up in actually the lowest income congressional district in the state of California and among the poorest congressional districts across the country. And so I grew up in a place that largely feels left out and at the same time largely feels like some of your only options are government in a place where you have income levels at the rates there are, where you have education levels and air and water quality in the bottom of the list. And so the way I grew up was thinking government, and I don't think I thought about social contract at the time, but the way I thought about government is it was either invisible to me growing up or it was punitive. I didn't at the time particularly see it as a place where I should go when I needed help. On the other
hand, as I said, I grew up with an immigrant father who believed anything was possible if you worked hard enough. So I did grow up with these two different theories of government, and I want one to be more true, which is that it's an empowering force.
Mila Atmos: [00:05:01] So I'm going to ask you another kind of biographical question before we get to the nuts and bolts of what you do at Code for America. 2016 changed so much for so many of us. You were in the thick of one of the most consequential presidential campaigns in history, and I'm wondering how that experience changed you and your approach to public service.
Amanda Renteria: [00:05:24] You know, it was two years before that that I think I had a window into the realities of what was happening on the. When I was working in the United States Senate and then ran for Congress. And all of a sudden I'm knocking on doors in my hometown. And when I opened the door, I started talking about all these things we had done in Washington, D.C., and got a blank stare on the other end. Life hadn't necessarily gotten better or easier or more hopeful. The connection had been lost and so had the hope with what was happening at the highest levels of government, with what was happening on the ground for real people. That to me was my experience in 2014 and two years later, as a national political director traveling to 33 different states and territories. That same story kept popping up in different places. And it really did remind me that you can't forget not only the roots of where you come from, but forget what is happening at the doors in communities around the country. As these big ideas and big policies are happening in D.C. If there's not that connection, we really do lose trust in institutions. And so it shaped me in that it wasn't just my hometown that was feeling forgotten and lost, but that there were communities all around the country that that had happened to as well.
Amanda Renteria: [00:06:36] For me, the most memorable experience, unfortunate memorable experience was being the person who was sent to Flint during the water crisis and walking in and talking to the mayor for the first time about what had happened. Going to lunch in downtown Flint and having a waitress put water on my table. And I stared at it and she looked at me and said, I don't know if it's okay either. The grounding of that right, the understanding of what people are going through really led me to this idea that we've got to get the basics right. If we want to do big things in this country, we got to make sure that we are taking care of people at their moment of
crisis. We've got to make sure that government isn't seen as poisoning kids. We got to make sure that government is getting those very, very key areas of welcoming of connecting us again in the right place in order to do the big things in the world.
Mila Atmos: [00:07:31] All right. Yeah. Well, Flint does feel like such a tragic inflection point in terms of, as you said, the basics of the government caring for people. So what does it actually mean to make the social safety net accessible?
Amanda Renteria: [00:07:48] It's the simple things, right? We know over the course of our research of of Code for America doing this for 11 years, that there are four basic things you need to do. Number one, you need to meet people where they are. What we know about the clients we're trying to serve is many of them are online on their phone, not in a computer, not on a desktop computer. So applications should be online, mobile friendly. That's one easy one. Second, we need to talk to folks when their language not only I mean, in their actual language of English, Spanish, Mandarin, but in their language of simple terms like and I could we could go through the list. There are usually like 150 questions for an application. Maybe there should be three simple ones. So simple, easy, easy application process. Third is we need to make sure that where we can we can streamline efforts for people. So instead of making people walk into one building for this benefit and then another building for that benefit, how do we make sure we make it easy for folks? And we have one intake process and then the last piece is really understanding what's going on the back end. So we have amazing public servants who are on the front lines trying to help people, but they're working with systems that are outdated, complicated to use. How do we actually update that so that we can help public servants do what they love to do, which is serve people, too? Those are simple tools we know in technology. We know in the business sector that can be deployed in government, too. And that's really the basis of what we're trying to do, if you can make those things simple. When somebody walks into government, it just works well.
Mila Atmos: [00:09:23] You're so right. There are so many tools that we don't use and government could work better, basically. One of our previous guests are Chang. He ran for mayor last year in New York City. He really opened my eyes to this when he talked about an obvious way to deliver better governance in New York City. He said, you know, almost everyone in the city files a tax return and that information could be used to automatically connect folks with the benefits to which they're entitled, whether that's
SNAP or housing vouchers. But instead, we require that people file all of that separately. And your organization, I know, has tackled similar issues in Minnesota. Can you tell me about what you did there?
Amanda Renteria: [00:10:04] Yeah. So in Minnesota, we were looking to work with the state on what we call integrated benefits. So they have nine different benefits housing, health care, child care. And what they were trying to do is how do you make sure people come in and apply all at once for those nine different benefits? We work through algorithms, partnering with folks, different agencies, bringing them in the room to say, What questions do you need? What questions do you need? How do we get this from a 45 minute process? To a 14 minute process. And not only were we creating an integrated approach, but the process to get there was also integrated with thinking about the client, the person we were serving at the very center of the kind of questions we ask and the kind of steps we ask people to take in order to do that application. So that really was a different model in that we weren't trying to be the vendor, we weren't trying to do it ourselves. We were actually trying to partner with government, not only teaching them a process of human centered government, but now we're in the process of embedding it so Minnesota themselves can do that kind of thing in different agencies that can do that kind of thing when they think about different ways of advancing there or doing different kind of outreach, those are the kinds of relationships that we're trying to build so that it's lasting change, not just for one program, but nine different programs forever for a new generation.
Mila Atmos: [00:11:24] So do you think that's really going to happen in Minnesota, that they're just going to keep going with the new improved, streamlined system?
Amanda Renteria: [00:11:31] It is up and running and we are in the adoption process now. We've worked with their engineers. They're data scientists right now, but they are actually hiring to bring people on board to keep hold of this work. So I feel extremely confident that they're in that space. One of the things that happened over the pandemic is states realized they had to do it differently. And so we with Minnesota, we were right in that moment where they knew they had to do it differently. We could help partner in a period of time. And now we're working on that adoption so that they can actually keep it and run it themselves.
Mila Atmos: [00:12:02] Tell us about how the pandemic changed the way government was willing to innovate on making benefits accessible, and has that willingness continued in this next phase of the pandemic that we find ourselves in?
Amanda Renteria: [00:12:14] So for a long time, Code for America, for the last 11 years, or at least nine years, was trying to convince governments that it was important to have digital delivery and that people needed to have an online option. And it was a "nice to have" for a lot of folks. The pandemic actually flipped that around where people realized in some cases that was the only way, right? Everything shut down. It wasn't easy to get places. And all of a sudden we got the calls where people started asking, states started asking, "Now how do you do that? I remember you running the pilot and now we actually need to figure this out." So it switched very, very quickly, but also in a moment of urgency where you had an entire country figuring out what kind of policies do we need to change so this can happen faster? What do we need to do as an organization to get people in a room to make it work? What kinds of administrative burdens can we push off of public servants who keep bumping into the same problems? How can we move that rock, that kind of style and way? It wasn't just a cultural belief that we can do it differently, but it was actually an operational change as well, where all of a sudden we started to clean up data and data match and figure out what are the best community organizations out there that are trusted in the community.
Amanda Renteria: [00:13:27] And we can start to work with them to help deliver the news and actually help people through an application process. It was those kinds of changes that really showed what was possible, not just in a crisis, but still today we are having those conversations to say, okay, we did this in a crisis. How do we now make this a lasting change going forward? Not only because we saw that it reached people who hadn't been reached before, but because on the inside it actually helped move things through a smoother process. Now, what I will say to your question about is it now still changing? I have to say public servants are tired. You know, they have been through a lot in trying to figure out how to do things differently, in working with higher volumes. And so a lot of what we are doing now is how do we help create the conditions within government so that we help with some of those things that are big barriers so that they can actually make some lasting change. And that kind of partnership is what I have hoped for now, is that people are working on those big case studies or the the blockers
and saying, how do we permanently now move those so that we can do the kind of work that is proactive and outreach? A lot of what we did during the crisis.
Mila Atmos: [00:14:39] Yeah, I think that's one of the things that is maybe not mentioned enough is it doesn't only help the end user, the citizen, it also helps the people who work in government. So because they're working on the front lines and they can be hopefully less frustrated. I'm also thinking a little bit about citizens, different responses to the pandemic as well. You know, there's a proliferation of apps that seem to go nowhere in the US but were central to the response in other places like Canada, the U.K. and Germany. Just off the top of my head, apps that pinged you. If you had been in contact with someone who tested positive or apps or reporting the results of a rapid test or informing your contacts of your positive tests. And a lot of the reluctance here in the United States, I think, is around privacy concerns. How do you balance those legitimate concerns about our personal. Data with a desire to deliver more of a one stop shop of good governance.
Amanda Renteria: [00:15:37] So there's a lot of things that you can do on the back end just to share to share data that really is just kind of stuck. So there's a couple of things. One is making sure to clean the data. So before you even start sharing, one of the things we learned as we were trying to help schools reach kids was we had to just get clean data, which means for all of you Excel users is the right data in the right column, right? Just that simple notion. So then you can share it. But the second thing was then what really is preventing the data sharing? It can already happen. It is, in some cases it was already happening, just wasn't working well. So it wasn't necessarily sending it out externally in any kind of way. It was just helping inter agencies work with the same data they had but that so can speak to each other. And so when we hear about these privacy concerns, it really hasn't affected the work that we've done because we're either on the back end where you can already do that kind of work. It isn't external. One of the things that's really important for us when we interact with clients is to tell them we don't share their data, is to make sure that for governments that we are working within the system of data sharing. Now what I will say is you're pointing to something, though, which is a lack of trust that a lot of folks have with government. And we do bump up against that all the time. It is why, when I mentioned earlier in this conversation how important it was during the pandemic that we were reaching and working with communities who are trusted all across the country, because we know that when government shows up, there's a matter
of skepticism there, right. But when we show up as that community organization that you have trusted on the ground that you see and you know, and you know the building and the sign, that's different and the relationship starts in a different kind of way. And so that part has been imperative to us. So part of the reason why I think we don't have the same concerns about data privacy is because we do work with our partners to make sure we have the right legalities in place, to make sure that we're providing the right metrics and language, and then working in conjunction with folks who are trusted on the ground to deliver services that we know people need, want. And it does belong to the folks on the ground. And that's one of the pieces here, too, which is that when people come to government for benefits, it isn't about them pulling and pushing to get their benefits. Those benefits are theirs. And how do we just make that connection?
Mila Atmos: [00:17:57] When we come back, we're going to talk about this gap between policy and implementation, the ways in which good intentions can lead to impossible systems that fail the most vulnerable. And Amanda is going to walk us through some of the super smart ways Code for America is connecting people with the services they need. But first.
Daily Beans: [00:18:19] Daily Beans... For the most important news of the day. "Massive news dump, handwritten contemporaneous notes. The Treasury needs to hand over Trump's taxes." With the most compelling interviews. "Please welcome Congressman Adam Schiff; Molly JONG-FAST; Mike McFall, Andrew Weissma; Barb McQuade; Glenn Kirshner; Colonel Alexander Vindman; former Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch." And all the appropriate profanity. "Lawsuit to block that ... Immigration Executive Order. Anyone not stupid should not be in Congress. Renowned cowardly face. Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the douche crew." "And Mary Trump agrees." Join this binders full of women curating the news from the left with appropriate profanity. Listen weekday mornings to the Daily Leans, left leaning news from a woman's perspective. We make the news bearable by making it's swearable. So put some beans on it with Dana Goldberg, Aimee Carrero, and me, Allison Gill. "And who doesn't like that?"
Mila Atmos: [00:19:23] Now let's return to my conversation with Amanda Renteria of Code for America.
Mila Atmos: [00:19:28] Well, I use that example about New York City tax returns, but there are, of course, a lot of people who don't file. You know, the American tax system is its own whole labyrinthine, confusing system that we can perhaps attack another day, but without an entire overhaul of the tax code. How can apps like, for example, your Get CTC project help?
Amanda Renteria: [00:19:52] So the Child Tax Credit was an interesting moment for us in the pandemic in that we had been working for some period of time on tax benefits, creating a mobile app that can help on tax benefits when the pandemic hit. Volunteer organizations all across the country called Vida had in-person clinics. All of a sudden, you couldn't go in person. And so we immediately jumped on the idea of how do we help vital sites in this moment when people couldn't come in? So we created tool kits. We created a mobile app so that it would be easier for Vida volunteers to help people through the process. That's when then the child tax credit came into play and we started to look at the policy and say, "Wait a second, are people going to be able to file?" And what we had known from our work in seeing how Vida help people through and seeing all the work you have to do to help people through a tax form is we knew we could also build an app on the front end to help people with the child tax credit. Now, what I will say is one of the things that probably didn't get the headlines is the child tax credit for many folks who had never filed before. We were able to do in a very simplified fashion so people could report kids, they could report income, they could do it in a very simplified, what's called simplified filing, in a very simple way that allowed our mobile application to be easy to make it through. And frankly, I have to say, in the early days of testing the normal tax forms to non-filers, we did a study of how many people could make it through. We had one person make it through and it was wrong. The form ended up being wrong. And so when you think about that, right, and when when politicians, policymakers pass policies, how are we making sure that on the implementation side that it can actually work on the back end? And so we spend a lot of time focused on now when we see policies that are close to being passed, how do we make sure there's a voice about implementation from the lessons that we've learned so that on the back end it can work for people? So I am excited that we now have a mobile application in Spanish and in English where we worked with the White House and Treasury and IRS to really be able to link into a system that also spoke to communities and communities were able to understand what it was. And I have to say the process itself was different. We actually were iterating in real time, talking to stakeholders and community groups
and the White House and Treasury and saying, "here's where people are getting stuck. Can we change this or can we say it like this instead?" That iteration has not just made the product better, but really has helped with understanding the non-filers, the folks who have never filed before. And that to me is really some of the lasting change that we were able to make in just that short period of time.
Mila Atmos: [00:22:39] That's amazing. I mean, this basically grassroots work. First of all, that you are able to funnel it back to the top and say this is the stuff that's not working. But, you know, as you've just discussed, it's as though all of these benefits are designed explicitly to be inaccessible. And you said that these are people's benefits. They're entitled to them. You know, they're just waiting to be claimed. It shouldn't be some impossible treasure hunt. I mean, for you to say that only one person was able to figure it out but then actually did it wrong. I think that's really important to remember that it's our money and it's how we've decided already to budget it for this purpose.
Amanda Renteria: [00:23:19] I'd even say it's worse than that because the process of actually applying for the very first question is almost like a gotcha game, right? "What did you get last year or what was your income level last year?" Right. I mean, that's one of the entry questions and it's already information the IRS knows. Right. So how about turning that question into "is this correct? Is this number correct?" I mean, just that little change has an impact on millions of people filing their application process. And for someone that's never filed before or is now filing just for the second time, it's a game of gotcha. And what's on the line is your benefits. And that's the part that when we think about government with a heart or we think about government and humanity, how are we making sure that we're leading with that kind of heart as opposed to a gotcha game?
Mila Atmos: [00:24:11] Yeah. What has surprised you here in your work about the inner workings of government?
Amanda Renteria: [00:24:17] You know, the piece that has been wonderfully surprising. So I'll start on the positive has been that in this crisis, people really did move quickly. They tried new things in ways that I don't think I would have ever imagined when I was a chief of operations in the Department of Justice, when I remember hearing, like, "there's no way people can take home computers. Everything must be here," right? I mean, just what was unlocked and unleashed during that period of time
and how quickly it all happened was pretty remarkable. On the other side of it, though, there is a real reality about we are stuck in some bureaucratic systems that are really difficult to undo and unlock. And so before we can even talk about how do we share data from your tax filings or from the IRS with the Social Services Administration? Right before we even do that, both agencies need some modernization. And it's not just understanding the tools and infrastructure they're using, but making sure we have the kind of talent that can bring in that technology and that new way of thinking. I think it's 6% of the federal government is under the age of 30 and we're on tipping points of retirement, massive tipping points of retirement. And so we are at this moment where you can look at that and say, "I'm surprised that we don't have it," or you can say, "ha, it's coming, how do we get there?" And we've got to sort of unlock a lot of different tangles here in a short period of time as we begin to transition a federal and state workforce.
Mila Atmos: [00:25:49] Let's talk about how you unroll these projects, Get CTC and what you did in Minnesota. How much of that work has grown out of Code for America's Safety Net Innovation Lab? Can you tell us more about that?
Amanda Renteria: [00:26:05] Sure. So our Safety Net Innovation Lab is actually new. We've always done work in food assistance, but we've now done enough pilots across the country where we've been able to learn different aspects of food assistance, housing assistance, how you integrate benefits. All of those key questions. What we saw in the pandemic, though, is the power and value of doing things in a cohort fashion. So when we were trying to get food to kids, when schools were closed, the idea that we were working with nine, ten different states together at the same time identifying the big barriers and then being able to solve for and create best practices, so that we can move faster and quicker and really pull out. What worked, we realized that cohort was an incredibly powerful way of doing this kind of work. And so our Safety Net Innovation Lab is really about that. We are very fortunate to have received $100 million in funding from the Audacious Project and Blue Meridian Partners, giving us not just a cohort fashion but some time to also bring it together. One of the things that we have been doing is it's every year, it's every pilot. But to say we are committed for the long term to figure this out is as important as bringing the cohort together as well. And so that's what our Safety Net Innovation Lab will be doing. We will be looking at food assistance, integrated benefits, work that has come online in the last 12 months and saying, "how do we now
help states do this in a modernized way?" And really the art of meeting states where they are and then sharing those best practices with 15 states across the country to unlock $30 Billion in benefits for 13 million people is really our goal, our target here.
Mila Atmos: [00:27:51] 15 states, one five? Amanda Renteria: [00:27:54] One five.
Mila Atmos: [00:27:54] One five! So what are your plans to make it go nationwide in all 50 states? What's the pathway to get there?
Amanda Renteria: [00:28:00] So we're we're very excited that we just launched our first states. So Colorado, California, Louisiana, and Connecticut. So we've got our first early adopters. We have really great relationships with them. But even the idea that states together said "We want to work on this project together with you. We want to figure it out together" is a first big step. I cannot underscore enough how hard it is to take risks in government, how much you are held to the line if you get it wrong. And so to be able to have a team of states is what we like to say, say we're going to try and figure this out together is in itself a first big step. But then practically we are looking at what does each state need? In some cases, it's research to understand what their barriers are. In other cases, it's they need to build a product or a platform or a service. In other cases, it's, they figured out that these two different services can work. How do they combine them? And the beauty of it is that is what folks are bringing to the table together and then working it on as a group.
Amanda Renteria: [00:29:04] And so the first four are out there. We'll be naming our fifth one this summer and then as we move forward, it will be a total of 15 states. Our idea, though, is not just to focus on the states, is that we will be sharing best practices more broadly. And we've learned that some of our coding that we're doing, some of the ways that we talk about the kind of questions you should be asking and the way you should be asking on application. All of that is universal across states, but to be able to have a group of states working on it together, we know we're all going to be smarter for it. We know we're going to learn the kind of lessons that really do push best practices across the industry and I know will have implications for how you do tax benefits, how
the court systems work, all those other systems that are also not only moving online but trying to figure out how do you modernize for a new time in a new age?
Mila Atmos: [00:29:53] So you mentioned earlier that you work with partners on the ground in addition to government agencies. Who else are your partners?
Amanda Renteria: [00:30:00] So a big partner for our Get CTC work was United Way. All their different chapters were quite engaged. So during the moment of child tax credit, everybody was really excited. Now we had a tool, it was great. And then you go, "How are we going to get it to people" and "how are you going to do that fast?" And the truth is, there's fantastic community organizations out there. So we built toolkits, we held workshops so that we could help people through the application. I think that's a model that we need to do more of across the country in all kinds of different benefits. And we know it works because for health care, for the Affordable Care Act, navigators were a key success story in helping communities to apply for health care. But now, how do we build the tools where you have multiple applications at once and really bringing in those community groups to do that kind of work? In the food assistance world we work with Share Our Strength. A lot of community food banks have great relationships on the ground to be able to say, you know, "you come into the office. By the way, have you also filled out this application for SNAP or this integrated benefits application?" And so it's just at the beginning of starting that kind of work more and more at scale nationally. But then the other piece is state partners. We work with, for instance, social services in Virginia to say, all right, "we have this tool. How do we reach all of your clients that come in to your door and make sure that they are applying for these new federal programs?" So this part is what I'm most excited about, because I think there's so much potential for technology to be able to link and connect the groups who are already on the ground. And how do you now centralize that to be able to link to new programs that exist or as things get updated, to be able to educate the the new process that should be simpler, easier, more human centered.
Mila Atmos: [00:31:46] Most of your work is in making government benefits more accessible. And as we've been talking about this, you know, I'm also wondering about what your larger vision is. I've heard you say that you would like this to extend to all of government. What exactly is human centered government writ large? Can you lay out that vision for us?
Amanda Renteria: [00:32:09] So human centered is really making sure that you're building around the person you're trying to serve. And as we looked at government, we looked at where were the biggest gaps and where were the most effective programs, and how do we start there to build this idea of centering around the client? That really is the very simple notion, right? So there was an executive order on customer service that's getting to the point, right? That's getting to understanding how do we make a government of the people, by the people, for the people? Well, people is at the center of that. I think largely government has existed in the buildings and people come to it. We need to flip that now, where government is actually reaching folks where they are. And the reason we talk about the vision of every single agency should have this is because we haven't updated our systems for a new age and a new time where you have a majority of our folks out there who are mobile first. My kids know nothing, but that's how they get information today. Right. And when you think about what kind of government do we need for the future, it's one that's ready for that kind of population, for that kind of thinking.
Amanda Renteria: [00:33:19] And so for us, we are starting with some of the hardest problems because we know if we can start with the hardest problems, we can actually use those same lessons across the board. The example a lot of folks use is sidewalks were originally really moved for folks with disabilities. Right, so that wheelchairs can get around. And now we use sidewalks to walk your kid to school, right? We use sidewalks so that you can sit and watch a parade come by. And so when we think about really serving folks that really are vulnerable or we're trying to figure out how to make the world better for truly everyone, I think there are some lessons that are actually applicable to all folks. If we can automatically fill income levels for the IRS, for low income folks, perhaps we could do that for everyone. Right. But let's start with where we can make the biggest difference in people's lives and figure that out. And then see if we can apply that across the board. And I believe we can.
Mila Atmos: [00:34:15] Oh, I agree. Definitely we can. I mean, I think the technology is here. We just haven't done it for a plethora of reasons. So your work, as you've described, human centered, is very solutions-oriented and you've described some tangible, practical steps here. But a lot of that is downstream from policy challenges. What, if anything, does Code for America want to change upstream about policy?
Amanda Renteria: [00:34:40] Ha. Honestly, there's so much, but I...
Mila Atmos: [00:34:44] Pick one.
Amanda Renteria: [00:34:44] Having been policy wonk in my life. So I'll. I'll give you this. You know, one of the things and I want to sort of take a step back because I do think a honest policy implementation conversation is very difficult right now and has been for a long time when you think about policymakers and then agencies who have to actually execute those policies. Oftentimes that conversation is a little bit contentious. Policymakers are saying, "this is what I want you to do." And agencies are saying, "wait a second, you're unclear about this." And what Code for America can do is actually come in with data driven analysis, right, to say this is what your intention was of your policy; this is how it worked or didn't work. And agencies, this is how you executed it. What if you did it in this way instead of this way? Because this would unlock X benefits versus Y benefits. I think there's a closing the loop that Code for America has a chance to do. And we saw this when I talked about an iterative approach to the child tax credit. It was in real time when we said, can you change this question about what is your salary? And instead, how much do you make an hour and do the calculation for someone as opposed to asking someone their annual salary? Something as simple as that is administrative policy, right? Being able to go back and say, "hey, if we want to run the child tax credit again, let's do a study on non-filers so that we understand a little bit more about how we approach them, where we approach them, and maybe let's add policy to have navigators help people through it," right? So as I think about policy, we haven't broached this subject in a way. What we've done is we mostly have taken the system that exists. We try and help policymakers now at the front end right policy, but I think there is so much more we can do. And certainly the pandemic has given us case studies after case study about what policies we can unlock in order to actually reach people that didn't affect fraud, that just had positive outcomes, or that could point out long written policies that kind of don't exist anymore. About why you should ask, as an example, criminal intent in a question like should the first question be, you know, have you committed a crime before or are you going to use these benefits for a crime? Right. Things like that. Some of them are codified. Some of them are not. So when we talk about policy, we do mean both legislative and administrative policy. But I'll end with this, which is the most important change I would make to policy, is to have people at the
table who are focused on implementation from the very beginning, that that would change not only what is passed, but then how we can actually get to those successful goals at the end.
Mila Atmos: [00:37:29] I like that. I think it's always very good to have, you know, the the question about implementation because so much, I think, gets lost in translation even as we watch TV and see policy getting passed and we're like, well, what does that mean downstream? You know, what does it mean for us? Like when we actually have to use it or do it or whatever it is. So this is kind of a side question, but what do you think are the chances of another crack at the child tax credit? Because that, of course, had a huge impact, but it's not been made permanent. So many were hopeful that was possible. What do you think?
Amanda Renteria: [00:38:03] So I think it's politically tough right now if I were to try and figure it out. On the other hand, I think what people really did understand during the pandemic is the importance of taking care of our kids and not only how expensive it is, but the help people needed when kids were home, the understanding that how much is put on schools and what our kids need today. I think the lifting up of the expenses around it was actually a really important conversation that we all rallied around. So I would say this, What it turns into or transitions into, I am hopeful. I don't think the idea of providing resources for child care is going away. I think it just might happen in a different form. And one of our goals at Code for America is to be ready for when that happens. And I do hope it's permanent, because if we are serious about making sure we can take care of kids, it can't be just in crises or just when something bad happens. It needs to be a true investment in making sure that folks have child care, that they have the ability to really give kids what they need.
Mila Atmos: [00:39:14] Mm hmm. What you do is very specialized, and really, not everybody can do this. Right. But what are two things an everyday person can do to make this kind of government possible?
Amanda Renteria: [00:39:26] Ahh. Thank you for the question because I actually believe for true transformation we need to win the hearts and minds of everyone out there. We need to get back to a place where people believe government can do things and so, one is really talking about it in that way. Actually, the headlines often tell you
about all the bad things that happen, but man, we've got to talk about what's not in the headlines that is working right. The idea that you can now apply to get COVID tests and all of a sudden they're there. That's a story. That's a positive story. The fact that child tax credit actually reduce child poverty by 40%. Not only was that stated at the beginning as a goal, but that it worked. We got to tell that story and be proud of it. And so I know, been in campaigns enough that campaigns are focused on what doesn't work and damning government seems to be a thing that works for getting elected, unfortunately. So it's up to us who aren't running to say, "Hold on a second, there are ways that this works and we need to be in that space again and find pride that in this country we were able to push a vaccine as quickly as possible." We are able to send out covid tests. We do have policy makers who have actually put something on the table that had real implications and made people's lives better. And that part is important. But the second is join government. And I don't mean running for office necessarily, although that's great, too. But what about joining that commission or in your hometown when there's a volunteer day or a city council that's going to talk about the tree planting? We need more of that kind of engagement, not just when we're mad, not just when we're upset about something, but how can you be a part of the solution? Because that's how we're going to get back to building a government for, and by, us all.
Mila Atmos: [00:41:17] Totally agree. So looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
Amanda Renteria: [00:41:23] Well, you know, I spent a lot of time, as you said before, in politics and policy. And part of what I had lost is I wasn't sure we could win hearts and minds in those venues. But what I do know and what we see at Code for America every day is that changing systems to work is incredibly powerful tool to reimagining hope and trust in government again. We have a weekly meeting at Code for America where we often, somebody will often, put the quotes of our clients. And that is what I wake up to every day. Because if we can just start one by one having people believe that government can work in their lives, then we can get to that bigger picture of being proud of this government again and really being able to unlock the potential that we have in this country.
Mila Atmos: [00:42:20] That's awesome. Amanda Renteria is not from the government, but she's here to help. Thank you for your work and for urging listeners towards civic
engagement. That's what we think about and are working toward all the time here on Future Hindsight. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Amanda Renteria: [00:42:37] Thank you for having me.
Mila Atmos: [00:42:38] Amanda Renteria is CEO of Code for America, an organization of people centered problem solvers working to improve government in a meaningful way.
Mila Atmos: [00:42:53] Next week on future hindsight, we're joined by Elizabeth Yeampierre. She's an internationally recognized Puerto Rican attorney and environmental and climate justice leader of African and indigenous ancestry, a national leader in the climate justice movement, and the co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance. She's also the executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community based organization.
Elizabeth Yeampierre: [00:43:16] We can either have people in our communities who believe in the extractive American dream and are replicating a lot of the problems that we've inherited. Or we can have people in our communities that understand that everything is at stake and that it's only our relationship with each other that is going to help us be able to thrive and survive in the midst of climate disruption.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:40] That's next time on future hindsight. This episode was produced by Zack Travis and Sara Burningham. Until next time, stay engaged.
The Democracy Group: [00:43:59] This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.