Business leaders keep saying what politicians refuse to learn: fixing broken policy beats raising taxes, and the price of ignoring that lesson is wasted money and stalled projects.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently made a blunt point about government: officials do not always need to raise taxes and spend more money, they need to sit down and fix existing policies so they actually work. That idea is simple and practical, and it challenges the reflexive political answer of throwing more money at a problem. Too often, leaders promise new programs instead of pruning the failures that clog the system.
Politicians, especially on the left, trot out promises of efficiency while also demanding higher taxes and bigger budgets. The real problem is not just that programs fail, but that failed programs keep piling up, creating layers of red tape and wasted funds. When you stack new schemes on top of broken ones, outcomes get worse, not better.
“I think good good policy is free,” Dimon said. “I feel like telling the politicians: Don’t try to raise more taxes or spend more money. Sit down and fix policy. And I think you can grow 1 percent faster I literally believe that. And the public knows you can’t get certificates of occupancy. You can’t get roads, build bridges. The Baltimore Bridge was supposed to be built by now its another five years. I go on and on and on.”
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The private sector runs on accountability and results; government too often runs on intentions and press conferences. If businesses managed projects the way bureaucracies do, customers would walk away and companies would fail. That gap between how things should work and how they actually work explains why average citizens end up footing higher bills for poorer service.
Look at the promises made to solve everyday problems: universal childcare, tenant protections, and affordable housing are repeated with new labels and fresh spending. In many cases the policies being touted today are minor variations of existing programs that never delivered. Politicians crow about plans but rarely dismantle the ones that already failed, so the public gets more complexity, not more housing or lower costs.
California offers a clear example of money not translating into results: the state carries some of the highest fuel taxes in the country yet ranks near the bottom on road quality. That mismatch shows the money isn’t reaching the intended projects, and yet leaders keep pushing tax hikes rather than demanding accountability for outcomes. The same instinct to tax more and tinker less is on full display in cities where policy churn replaces clear, measurable fixes.
“It’s frustrating. It hurts It’s embarrassing and it always hurts the the civilians of our country,” Dimon continued.
Dimon also recounted a private meeting with New York’s mayor, calling it polite and earnest but saying he had said everything he wanted to say. “He was very polite. It was very earnest. We had a very good conversation, but I said everything I wanted to say,” Dimon said. “I got to talk about affordable housing and child care. Most people want it. If you do it badly, it would be a disaster… Do it right. There are studies that can tell you how to do it right. Get people who know what they’re doing and implement proper policies.”
“I’ve seen mayors grow into the job. I mean he’s running the city of 300,000 employees now. He’s never had a job like that I’ve seen mayors who just they feel abysmally because they can’t admit themselves out of a paper bag or Ideology blinds them to practical realistic real-world policy and so we’ll see,” he added. “And you know if I can help do the good stuff, I’d be happy to do that.”
Meanwhile, some local leaders present plans that sound new but read like rebranded versions of long-standing failed ideas. New initiatives sometimes promise not to seize property or redistribute wealth, then propose mechanisms that look worryingly similar to the things they said they would avoid. That mismatch between rhetoric and design undercuts public trust and creates more legal and administrative messes.
Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.
