good summary of many core ideas: https://www.recodingamerica.us/concepts

best external review I found: https://modernpower.substack.com/p/recoding-america-a-rallying-cry-for

rigid requirements and risk aversion are big drivers of government dysfunction (not actually about code, more about process)

Waterfall development: directives go top down and are never reconsidered, even as you learn stuff or important ground-level practical considerations are realized

Between 2001 and 2012, the tax code changed 4,680 times, an average of once per day. When former IRS commissioner John Koskinen would get called in front of Congress and its members would gripe about the tax system, he would shake his head and say, “I didn’t write the tax laws, you did.” He had a point.

a government staffer can either (a) go along with the process, outcome be damned or (b) pursue the outcome, process be damned.

(usually choose (a) because of personal risk of (b))

usually dumb things happen not because the people are dumb, but because the process is dumb

I like this:

data as “flashlight vs. hammer.”

(it can be used to learn or to punish. doing the second gets you bad data)