America’s “Do More With Less” Era Is Over
The FAA’s post-MAX crackdown is a reminder that speed is optional, but process discipline isn’t. Modern stress demands big, boring competence again.
By TheMurrow Editorial
February 22, 2026
Key Points
- 1Recognize the failure mode: thin staffing plus high turnover plus complex missions produces brittle execution—and shifts risk onto the public.
- 2Follow the aviation lesson: the FAA’s slowdown-and-audit posture shows safety depends on disciplined processes, not speed or rhetoric.
- 3Demand capacity, not slogans: stable appropriations, training pipelines, on-site oversight, and modern IT are the unglamorous foundations of competence.
A door plug blows out mid-flight at 16,000 feet, and the Federal Aviation Administration’s first instinct is not to soothe the public with reassurances. It is to slow the machine down.
After the Alaska Airlines 737-9 MAX incident on January 5, 2024, the FAA announced it would not allow Boeing to expand MAX production until quality-control issues were addressed. The message was blunt by regulatory standards: speed is negotiable; process discipline is not.
That posture—halt, audit, verify, repeat—sounds almost quaint in an era that treats government as an obstacle course and administration as dead weight. Yet it points to a larger and increasingly unavoidable reality: the long-running American bargain of a lean state is failing under modern stress.
For a generation, the political incentives were clear. Cap headcount. Outsource capacity. Call it “efficiency.” When things break, reach for emergency funding and “innovation.” The bill is arriving now, in domains where thin staffing, high turnover, and complex missions don’t produce streamlined performance. They produce brittle execution.
“A lean government can look like discipline in calm years. In turbulent years, it becomes risk transfer.”
— — TheMurrow Editorial
The lean-state model: efficiency on paper, fragility in practice
The operating model is familiar even to people who dislike politics. Keep agencies small. Treat administration as overhead. Hire contractors for surge needs. Rely on new technology to smooth rough edges. In stable times, the approach can appear prudent, especially when budgets are tight and voters demand restraint.
Volatile times expose what the model quietly offloads. “Do more with less” is not only a management slogan; it is a way of shifting risk into the future. Pandemic-scale public health demands, extreme weather disasters, supply shocks, cyber threats, and aging infrastructure all create the same condition: a need for trained people, repeatable processes, and redundancy.
Watchdog work and recent reporting highlight a recurring failure mode across multiple domains: thin staffing + high turnover + complex missions = brittle execution. The failures rarely look like villainy. They look like normal human limits. When experienced staff burn out or leave, institutional knowledge walks out with them. When funding lurches from crisis to crisis, hiring and training pipelines seize up. When oversight is expected to happen “virtually,” corners get rounded until they resemble gaps.
The resulting system is not necessarily smaller. It is simply less capable where capability matters most: delivery, safety, compliance, and enforcement.
Volatile times expose what the model quietly offloads. “Do more with less” is not only a management slogan; it is a way of shifting risk into the future. Pandemic-scale public health demands, extreme weather disasters, supply shocks, cyber threats, and aging infrastructure all create the same condition: a need for trained people, repeatable processes, and redundancy.
Watchdog work and recent reporting highlight a recurring failure mode across multiple domains: thin staffing + high turnover + complex missions = brittle execution. The failures rarely look like villainy. They look like normal human limits. When experienced staff burn out or leave, institutional knowledge walks out with them. When funding lurches from crisis to crisis, hiring and training pipelines seize up. When oversight is expected to happen “virtually,” corners get rounded until they resemble gaps.
The resulting system is not necessarily smaller. It is simply less capable where capability matters most: delivery, safety, compliance, and enforcement.
Risk doesn’t disappear—it relocates
Lean administration tends to convert preventable problems into expensive ones:
- Missed inspections become incidents and investigations.
- Delayed benefits administration becomes appeals, rework, and backlogs.
- Under-maintained infrastructure becomes emergency procurement at premium cost.
- Staff shortages turn routine work into triage.
A political culture that applauds austerity often ends up paying more—only later, and in more painful forms.
- Missed inspections become incidents and investigations.
- Delayed benefits administration becomes appeals, rework, and backlogs.
- Under-maintained infrastructure becomes emergency procurement at premium cost.
- Staff shortages turn routine work into triage.
A political culture that applauds austerity often ends up paying more—only later, and in more painful forms.
What “big, boring competence” actually means (and what it doesn’t)
“Big, boring competence” is not a demand for maximal government or ideological expansion. It is a claim about capacity: whether the institutions we already rely on can execute their missions predictably under stress.
Competence is not glamorous. It shows up as the absence of catastrophe, the steadiness of service, and the quiet confidence that systems will function on their worst days—not merely their best.
“Boring” is a feature, not a bug. It means standardized processes, maintenance culture, and repeatable training. “Big” does not mean bloated; it means adequately resourced for the mission’s scale.
Operational experts and watchdogs tend to converge on the same elements:
- Staffing levels that match workload, rather than optimistic budgets.
- Training pipelines with enough instructors, modern curricula, and throughput.
- Institutional knowledge retention, through lower churn and succession planning.
- On-site oversight where the work requires it, not a digital substitute.
- Modern IT that reduces “failure demand”—errors that create more calls, appeals, and rework.
- Stable appropriations, because stop-start funding and shutdowns disrupt hiring and training, creating shortages that linger.
Competence is not glamorous. It shows up as the absence of catastrophe, the steadiness of service, and the quiet confidence that systems will function on their worst days—not merely their best.
“Boring” is a feature, not a bug. It means standardized processes, maintenance culture, and repeatable training. “Big” does not mean bloated; it means adequately resourced for the mission’s scale.
Operational experts and watchdogs tend to converge on the same elements:
- Staffing levels that match workload, rather than optimistic budgets.
- Training pipelines with enough instructors, modern curricula, and throughput.
- Institutional knowledge retention, through lower churn and succession planning.
- On-site oversight where the work requires it, not a digital substitute.
- Modern IT that reduces “failure demand”—errors that create more calls, appeals, and rework.
- Stable appropriations, because stop-start funding and shutdowns disrupt hiring and training, creating shortages that linger.
The quiet cost of treating administration as overhead
Administration is often spoken of as if it were decorative. In practice, it is the connective tissue between laws and lived reality. Agencies enforce standards, process claims, manage contracts, and keep safety systems running.
When politics frames those functions as waste by default, the incentive is to cut until something breaks. Then, the public is told the failure proves government can’t work.
When politics frames those functions as waste by default, the incentive is to cut until something breaks. Then, the public is told the failure proves government can’t work.
“Competence isn’t a press release. It’s staffing, training, and systems that hold when pressure spikes.”
— — TheMurrow Editorial
Aviation as a case study: slowing down to restore the basics
Aviation is one of the clearest arenas in which “boring competence” has a measurable public payoff: safety. The system depends on an unromantic chain—inspection, documentation, compliance, maintenance, and oversight—performed relentlessly, not heroically.
After the Alaska Airlines 737-9 MAX door-plug blowout on January 5, 2024, the FAA’s subsequent statements read like an argument for institutional seriousness. On January 24, 2024, the agency said it would not permit Boeing to expand MAX production until quality-control issues were addressed. On January 12, 2024, the FAA outlined heightened oversight, including audits of Boeing and suppliers, investigation into manufacturing compliance, and consideration of reducing risks around delegated authority—up to exploring independent third-party oversight of Boeing inspections and quality systems. On May 30, 2024, the FAA said it had identified non-compliance issues in manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control, and would continue aggressive oversight.
Those are not abstract bureaucratic moves. They are an explicit rebuke to the “move fast” ethos when applied to safety-critical manufacturing. Production velocity becomes the wrong metric when quality systems are strained.
After the Alaska Airlines 737-9 MAX door-plug blowout on January 5, 2024, the FAA’s subsequent statements read like an argument for institutional seriousness. On January 24, 2024, the agency said it would not permit Boeing to expand MAX production until quality-control issues were addressed. On January 12, 2024, the FAA outlined heightened oversight, including audits of Boeing and suppliers, investigation into manufacturing compliance, and consideration of reducing risks around delegated authority—up to exploring independent third-party oversight of Boeing inspections and quality systems. On May 30, 2024, the FAA said it had identified non-compliance issues in manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control, and would continue aggressive oversight.
Those are not abstract bureaucratic moves. They are an explicit rebuke to the “move fast” ethos when applied to safety-critical manufacturing. Production velocity becomes the wrong metric when quality systems are strained.
Multiple perspectives: safety culture versus production demands
The case also illustrates a real tension. Aerospace manufacturing operates in a competitive environment with supply-chain pressure, investor expectations, and airline demand for aircraft. From that angle, regulators face criticism whenever oversight is seen as slowing output.
Yet the FAA’s posture underscores a basic truth: the public does not experience “efficiency” as quarterly output. The public experiences it as trust that aircraft are built and maintained within strict tolerances, and that oversight is real rather than performative.
Yet the FAA’s posture underscores a basic truth: the public does not experience “efficiency” as quarterly output. The public experiences it as trust that aircraft are built and maintained within strict tolerances, and that oversight is real rather than performative.
When oversight goes “virtual,” the state’s guarantees weaken
Oversight is a staffing problem before it is a policy problem. Rules can be stringent on paper while enforcement weakens in practice.
An audit by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General—covering May 2024 through December 2025—found gaps in FAA oversight of United Airlines maintenance. Reporting on February 21, 2026 described how FAA monitoring was compromised by staffing shortages and high turnover, and that virtual inspections replaced required in-person reviews in some instances.
That sentence contains a decade of governance in miniature. A system designed for in-person verification ends up relying on remote substitutes, not because leaders suddenly believe screens are equivalent to hangar floors, but because the staffing reality forces the compromise.
An audit by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General—covering May 2024 through December 2025—found gaps in FAA oversight of United Airlines maintenance. Reporting on February 21, 2026 described how FAA monitoring was compromised by staffing shortages and high turnover, and that virtual inspections replaced required in-person reviews in some instances.
That sentence contains a decade of governance in miniature. A system designed for in-person verification ends up relying on remote substitutes, not because leaders suddenly believe screens are equivalent to hangar floors, but because the staffing reality forces the compromise.
Why staffing shortages change the meaning of regulation
Regulation without capacity becomes a promise the government cannot keep. When inspector roles are unfilled or churn is high, oversight becomes intermittent. Intermittent oversight changes incentives across an industry: compliance can drift toward paperwork, and the probability of catching problems drops.
None of this requires bad intent. It requires only the mundane pressures of understaffing and turnover. The result is still serious: the state’s ability to guarantee baseline safety standards erodes, and the public is asked to absorb the added risk.
None of this requires bad intent. It requires only the mundane pressures of understaffing and turnover. The result is still serious: the state’s ability to guarantee baseline safety standards erodes, and the public is asked to absorb the added risk.
“A safety system that depends on inspections can’t be ‘optimized’ into existence. Someone has to show up.”
— — TheMurrow Editorial
Air traffic control: a long pipeline meets years of constraint
Air traffic control makes the staffing problem even more concrete because the pipeline is inherently long. Controllers are not interchangeable labor; the job requires training, certification, and experience. When hiring is constrained for years, the shortage arrives later—and lingers.
A June 18, 2025 release from the National Academies linked controller shortages to past hiring constraints and misallocation, compounded by scheduling inefficiencies. The report urged Congress to provide the resources the FAA needs for hiring, training, and scheduling improvements.
The scale of what that workforce supports is enormous. The FAA employs about 14,000 controllers across 313 facilities, supporting about 45,000 daily commercial flights and around 3 million passengers per day, according to the same National Academies release.
Those figures function as a kind of civic math problem. The public expects an extraordinarily complex system to work every day, in all weather, across hundreds of facilities. Doing so requires staffing margins and training capacity—exactly the kinds of “boring” investments that are easiest to postpone until the postponement becomes visible.
A June 18, 2025 release from the National Academies linked controller shortages to past hiring constraints and misallocation, compounded by scheduling inefficiencies. The report urged Congress to provide the resources the FAA needs for hiring, training, and scheduling improvements.
The scale of what that workforce supports is enormous. The FAA employs about 14,000 controllers across 313 facilities, supporting about 45,000 daily commercial flights and around 3 million passengers per day, according to the same National Academies release.
Those figures function as a kind of civic math problem. The public expects an extraordinarily complex system to work every day, in all weather, across hundreds of facilities. Doing so requires staffing margins and training capacity—exactly the kinds of “boring” investments that are easiest to postpone until the postponement becomes visible.
14,000
Approximate number of FAA air traffic controllers, supporting a safety-critical system that can’t be rebuilt quickly once understaffed.
313
FAA facilities where controllers work—underscoring the geographic and operational scale that requires staffing margins and training capacity.
45,000
Approximate daily commercial flights supported—efficiency is experienced as reliability and safety, not output speed alone.
3 million
Approximate passengers per day affected by controller staffing and training pipelines; small shortages can ripple across the entire system.
The hidden lag: why “just hire more” isn’t a quick fix
Shortages in such roles are not repaired on a quarterly cycle. Even when funding and political will materialize, training and certification take time. Misallocation and scheduling inefficiencies can worsen the strain, but they often sit atop a simpler constraint: insufficient staffing to begin with.
A lean-state mindset tends to interpret staffing as a discretionary cost. Air traffic control treats staffing as part of the safety architecture itself. The difference is not ideological; it is operational.
A lean-state mindset tends to interpret staffing as a discretionary cost. Air traffic control treats staffing as part of the safety architecture itself. The difference is not ideological; it is operational.
Appropriations and instability: the bureaucratic hangover of stop-start governance
Stable appropriations are not a niche concern. They are the substrate that makes hiring, training, and system modernization possible. When funding becomes unpredictable—through recurring shutdown threats or stopgap budgeting—agencies defer commitments, freeze hiring, and lose candidates to more predictable employers.
The research framing here is straightforward: stop-start funding disrupts hiring and training, creating long-tail shortages. The public then encounters the downstream effects as delays, backlogs, and safety pressure.
The political irony is that even leaders who want better performance can end up undermining it through volatility. Hiring pipelines require planning horizons. Training programs need instructors and updated curricula. Modern IT projects require sustained funding and governance. None of that thrives under a permanent continuing-resolution mindset.
The research framing here is straightforward: stop-start funding disrupts hiring and training, creating long-tail shortages. The public then encounters the downstream effects as delays, backlogs, and safety pressure.
The political irony is that even leaders who want better performance can end up undermining it through volatility. Hiring pipelines require planning horizons. Training programs need instructors and updated curricula. Modern IT projects require sustained funding and governance. None of that thrives under a permanent continuing-resolution mindset.
Modern IT as capacity, not a vanity project
Modern IT is often pitched as a cost-saver, and it can be. The deeper point is capacity: well-designed systems reduce “failure demand”—the avoidable workload created by errors, confusion, and rework.
When IT is outdated, staff spend time correcting problems that should never have occurred. That work crowds out inspections, customer service, and enforcement. Lean staffing then tightens the vise: fewer people are left to manage rising complexity.
“Big, boring competence” treats modernization as part of keeping promises, not as a headline-grabbing innovation campaign.
When IT is outdated, staff spend time correcting problems that should never have occurred. That work crowds out inspections, customer service, and enforcement. Lean staffing then tightens the vise: fewer people are left to manage rising complexity.
“Big, boring competence” treats modernization as part of keeping promises, not as a headline-grabbing innovation campaign.
What readers should take from this: competence is a public good
The evidence here is not a single scandal; it is a pattern. In aviation, the FAA’s post-incident actions emphasize audits, compliance, and limits on production expansion until quality improves. In oversight staffing, watchdog findings describe shortages, turnover, and “virtual” substitutions that undercut on-site verification. In air traffic control, an expert body points to past hiring constraints and calls for resources to repair the pipeline.
The practical implication is larger than aviation. The same dynamics appear wherever the public expects safety, reliable service, or fair administration:
- If staffing is treated as a cost center, experience drains away.
- If oversight is under-resourced, enforcement becomes sporadic.
- If training pipelines are neglected, shortages become structural.
- If funding is unstable, modernization becomes perpetually unfinished.
Multiple perspectives deserve respect. Skeptics of larger public payrolls worry about waste and bureaucracy, and those concerns are real. The counterargument is not that government should grow for its own sake. The counterargument is that cutting capacity without reducing obligations doesn’t shrink the mission—it weakens execution.
A functioning state is not self-indulgence. It is a form of risk management, and the risk is shared.
The practical implication is larger than aviation. The same dynamics appear wherever the public expects safety, reliable service, or fair administration:
- If staffing is treated as a cost center, experience drains away.
- If oversight is under-resourced, enforcement becomes sporadic.
- If training pipelines are neglected, shortages become structural.
- If funding is unstable, modernization becomes perpetually unfinished.
Multiple perspectives deserve respect. Skeptics of larger public payrolls worry about waste and bureaucracy, and those concerns are real. The counterargument is not that government should grow for its own sake. The counterargument is that cutting capacity without reducing obligations doesn’t shrink the mission—it weakens execution.
A functioning state is not self-indulgence. It is a form of risk management, and the risk is shared.
Practical takeaways and implications
For readers trying to translate this into something concrete:
- Watch for capacity metrics, not slogans. Staffing levels, turnover, training throughput, and inspection completion rates reveal more than rhetoric about efficiency.
- Treat “virtual” substitutions in safety roles as a warning sign. Remote tools can supplement work, but replacing required in-person oversight should trigger scrutiny.
- Pay attention to funding stability. Stop-start budgeting is not neutral; it has operational costs that show up later as delays and shortages.
- Reward boring fixes. Audits, process controls, and maintenance rarely trend online, but they are what keep systems reliable.
The strongest lesson may be psychological. Americans often debate government as ideology—big versus small—when the lived experience is competence versus fragility. The next era of public management will be shaped less by what we think about government in the abstract and more by whether our institutions can perform under pressure.
- Watch for capacity metrics, not slogans. Staffing levels, turnover, training throughput, and inspection completion rates reveal more than rhetoric about efficiency.
- Treat “virtual” substitutions in safety roles as a warning sign. Remote tools can supplement work, but replacing required in-person oversight should trigger scrutiny.
- Pay attention to funding stability. Stop-start budgeting is not neutral; it has operational costs that show up later as delays and shortages.
- Reward boring fixes. Audits, process controls, and maintenance rarely trend online, but they are what keep systems reliable.
The strongest lesson may be psychological. Americans often debate government as ideology—big versus small—when the lived experience is competence versus fragility. The next era of public management will be shaped less by what we think about government in the abstract and more by whether our institutions can perform under pressure.
Key Insight
The debate that matters most isn’t “big vs. small government.” It’s whether institutions have the staffing, training, oversight, and systems to perform under stress.
Editor’s Note
In safety-critical domains, “virtual” oversight can be a useful supplement—but replacing required in-person verification should be treated as an operational warning sign.
What to watch (capacity metrics)
- ✓Staffing levels relative to workload
- ✓Turnover and vacancy rates
- ✓Training throughput and instructor capacity
- ✓Inspection completion rates
- ✓Backlog levels and rework volume
- ✓Funding stability (shutdown threats, continuing resolutions)
T
About the Author
TheMurrow Editorial is a writer for TheMurrow covering opinion.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “big, boring competence” mean in plain English?
“Big, boring competence” means government functions have enough people, training, and reliable systems to do their jobs predictably. “Boring” refers to standardized processes, audits, and maintenance—work that prevents crises rather than producing flashy announcements. “Big” means capacity matched to the scale of the mission, not an ideological preference for expansion.
How did the FAA respond after the Alaska Airlines 737-9 MAX incident?
After the January 5, 2024 door-plug blowout, the FAA said on January 24, 2024 it would not permit Boeing to expand MAX production until quality-control issues were addressed. The agency also described heightened oversight actions, including audits and manufacturing compliance investigation, and later cited non-compliance issues in multiple manufacturing control areas.
What’s the evidence that staffing affects aviation oversight?
A U.S. DOT Inspector General audit covering May 2024 through December 2025 found gaps in FAA oversight of United Airlines maintenance. Reporting described oversight compromised by staffing shortages and high turnover, with virtual inspections replacing required in-person reviews in some cases. The issue is structural: rules require people to carry them out.
Why is air traffic control staffing so hard to fix quickly?
Air traffic control requires specialized training and certification, so shortages can’t be solved instantly by hiring. The National Academies (June 18, 2025) tied shortages to past hiring constraints and misallocation, also noting scheduling inefficiencies. Even with resources, training pipelines take time to rebuild and staff appropriately.
How big is the air traffic control system the FAA operates?
According to the National Academies release, the FAA employs about 14,000 controllers across 313 facilities, supporting about 45,000 daily commercial flights and around 3 million passengers per day. Those numbers underscore why staffing margins and training capacity matter: small shortages can ripple across a huge system.
Isn’t “lean government” just fiscal responsibility?
Lean staffing can be responsible when missions are stable and risks are low. The problem arises when obligations remain large and conditions are volatile. Under those circumstances, cutting capacity tends to shift costs into failures: delays, safety lapses, emergency spending, and rework. Fiscal responsibility can mean funding the unglamorous basics to avoid expensive breakdowns.
