The machinery of government, minus the personalities and politics.
Gov Actually sets the personalities and the politics aside to ask how the work of government gets done, and by whom. Its hosts and guests cover the Congressional Review Act, city transit, the National Security Council and the question of why citizens trust government, or don't.
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Gov Actually is a FedScoop Radio Network podcast that takes its own name literally, asking how government functions in practice. Across episodes the same opening lines come back: the hosts want to get beyond the personalities and the politics and talk about how things get done, who does them and what gets in the way. That brief produces conversations about machinery rather than horse races. Regulation is one strand. In the episode with Stuart Shapiro, the discussion covers the Congressional Review Act, its aggressive use at the start of the Trump administration, and the Clean Power regulation. One argument heard there is that opponents of the rule picked the Supreme Court as a more favorable venue than a Congressional Review Act fight, as part of a decades-long project by those who think the state over-regulates. Cities are another strand. The conversation with Maura Brophy, under the title 'The Future of Cities', treats downturns and recoveries as a cycle cities have lived through before. It also insists that density, ridership and mass transit cannot be pulled apart. National security gets its turn in 'Inside the Russia-Ukraine War, with National Security Expert Troy Thomas'. The talk there includes how the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after 9-11 and how the intelligence community is represented when the president convenes the National Security Council. Public trust appears in more than one episode title. The 2021 year-in-review tells of a fire department that had a procedure, followed it and got a household back up and running within hours. It sets that against the waste stories on the nightly news and asks which one shapes a person's view of government more. Another conversation asks whether politics is now swamping good public administration, while noting that someone yelling at a school board is nothing new. The hosts are candid about their limits. Closing the Shapiro episode, one of them says he measures episodes by how much he learns, and that the conversations keep reminding him how much he does not know. There are plenty of tangents: talk of seeing Hamilton, college-era anecdotes about Avril Haines, a neighborly joke about scootering past a house, and a room whose existence cannot be discussed on the podcast. The episode titled 'Episode 58: Gov Actually is Back, ft. Gov. Charlie Baker and a New Fill-In Co-Host' begins with Dan Tangerlini apologizing for a long gap and explaining it: founding co-host Danny Werfel had been confirmed as IRS commissioner. Jen fills in, and Gov. Charlie Baker's book leads to talk of bottom-up change meeting top-down leadership, of evidence and pain points, and of parallels with how good software is built. The DMV and the child welfare system come up as places where people feel the constituent experience directly. What a listener gets is an easygoing tour of how rules, agencies and cities work, from hosts who sound glad to be talking to each other.
Made for: Suits a listener who would rather understand how a regulation gets challenged, why transit matters to a city, or how the intelligence community gets a seat at the National Security Council than hear who won the news cycle. It fits someone who enjoys procedure delivered with easy, joking rapport.
What sets it apart: It skips the horse race and sticks to how things work: the Congressional Review Act, transit density, constituent pain points at the DMV. Its co-host story is unusual too, since founding co-host Danny Werfel was confirmed as IRS commissioner and a fill-in named Jen sat in for him.
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An average can hide a DMV headache; you get the people behind the policy math.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Gov Actually returns with a practical discussion of teams, evidence, and the human pain points behind public-service data.
Gov Actually returns after a long pause, with Dan Tangherlini noting that founding co-host Danny Werfel's nomination and confirmation as IRS commissioner delayed the show's comeback.
A clear, institution-focused look at why federal regulatory fights keep testing Congress's role.
The Supreme Court's role in federal regulation is framed here as a fight over who gets to answer the biggest policy questions: Congress, the executive branch, or the justices.
A clear, accessible tour of the national-security machinery around the Russia-Ukraine war.
Episode 55 looks at the Russian attack on Ukraine through the practical machinery of national security. Troy helps steer the conversation past the org chart and toward how decisions actually get framed, while the hosts sort through the roles of the National Security Council, the…
A measured discussion of how local accountability can sustain public trust when politics feels overpowering.
Dan Tanger and Danny Werfel frame public trust around a practical tension: what happens when politics starts to crowd out the work of public policy and administration.
["GovActually Episode 58 centers on Charlie Baker and Steve Kadish explaining how Massachusetts government tries to turn management ideas into service delivery.", "Dan Tangerlini opens by apologizing for the gap between episodes and notes Danny Werfel's March 9, 2023 confirmation as IRS commissioner.", "Jen Polka, founder of Code for America and a former deputy in the Obama administration's Office of Science Technology Policy, fills in as co-host while Baker and Kadish discuss Results: Getting Beyond Politics to Get Important Work Done.", "They use the Health Connector, the Registry of Motor Vehicles, DCF, and the T to show how service complaints, union rules, and emergency work can be handled differently."]
Stuart Shapiro says West Virginia v.
Maura Brophy says Noma's 1990s redevelopment was an economic recovery strategy, and she cites a Metro station that cost about $100 million and helped generate $1.25 billion in local tax revenue.
GovActually episode 55 brings Troy Thomas, a Boston Consulting Group managing director and former National Security Council official under President Obama, to explain the Russia-Ukraine war.
["GovActually Episode 54, Revisiting Trust's Impact on the Role of Government, asks why trust changes when the conversation moves from federal politics to local service delivery.", "Dan Tanger and Danny Werfel revisit the show's April 2018 mistrust in the U.S.
GovActually Episode 53 uses a 2021 year-in-review format to argue that the biggest government story was trust, not just vaccine supply.
GovActually Episode 52, "Talking Infrastructure," shifts from the passed infrastructure bill to the harder work of project delivery, oversight, and procurement.
Beth Simone Noveck discusses her book Solving Public Problems with GovActually hosts Dan Tangherlini and Danny Werfel.
GovActually marks episode 50 with jokes about Roman numeral L, a diamond milestone, and a cubic zirconium gift before comparing itself to Car Talk.
Steve McMillin argues that deficit warnings still matter even as trillion-dollar borrowing, low Treasury yields, and recent inflation data have muted the old fiscal alarm bells.
Hosts Dan Tanger and Danny Werfel discuss how government actually works with Max Steyer, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service.
Hosts discuss how government actually works, introducing a guest and sharing their personal experiences with Hamilton the musical.
Interview with Cass Sunstein about public policy challenges and how government actually works.
An interview with investigative reporter James Rosen about how the media covers government.