Washington's Dysfunction Is Getting Expensive—And Nobody's Fixing It

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The Carter Page settlement landed like a thud last week. One point two five million dollars to a guy who got illegally spied on. The FBI’s warrant applications had “myriad errors and omissions,” which is bureaucratic speak for “we really messed this up.” Not metaphorically. Literally broke the law while investigating whether a Trump campaign adviser was a Russian asset during 2016.

This wasn’t some rogue field office. This was the FBI, the organization we trust with counterintelligence. And they screwed up badly enough that the government just cut a check and moved on.

Here’s what’s rattling me: this settlement is a symptom, not the disease. Look at the headlines together and you see a government that’s simultaneously too intrusive (spying on citizens wrongly), too ineffective (can’t stop small boats crossing the English Channel), and increasingly obsolete (can’t compete with AI for entry-level talent). We’re not watching a government in decline. We’re watching one that’s forgotten how to do basic things well.

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The Intelligence Community’s Credibility Problem

Let’s start with Page. The inspector general investigation found that the FBI’s applications to surveil him contained errors and omissions. That’s not an oopsie. That’s a constitutional problem. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t have a “we’re pretty sure he’s bad” exception. Either you have probable cause or you don’t. Either your warrant application is honest or it’s not.

The settlement says the government is willing to pay to make this go away. But money doesn’t fix the underlying issue: if the FBI can botch a high-profile counterintelligence case this badly, what’s happening in cases nobody’s paying attention to? How many other surveillance operations are sitting on foundations of omitted facts and sloppy tradecraft?

My read is that this damages the intelligence community’s credibility at exactly the moment they need it most. Congress wants to expand surveillance tools. Agencies want more funding, more access, more authority. And now we have concrete evidence that when they get it, they don’t always use it carefully.

The FBI will argue—correctly—that errors happen and that this was investigated and handled. Fine. But the fact that it took millions in settlement money and a public scandal to expose it suggests the internal safeguards aren’t working. And no amount of spin changes that.

The Government Isn’t Competing for Young Talent Anymore

Sunak made a blunt observation: AI is already killing entry-level jobs for graduates. He’s right. And you know what that means for government specifically? The civil service loses the pipeline.

Government work has always been the compromise job for smart people. The pay wasn’t great but the work mattered and the benefits were solid. You take your law degree, you work at the DOJ for five years, you move to a firm and you’re set. Or you stay because the mission matters. Either way, government gets access to talent.

But if there are fewer entry-level jobs, period—if AI can do basic legal research and junior analyst work before a human can finish their coffee—then government agencies are competing for a shrinking pool of young talent against tech firms that’ll pay triple the salary. The State Department isn’t going to poach anyone from Google by offering a title and a pension.

This isn’t dramatic. It’s quiet competence bleeding out of institutions. And in five, ten years, you notice that agencies are staffed by less sharp people. That decisions are slower. That basic procedures—like, say, accurately completing warrant applications—start degrading.

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The Border Deal That Wasn’t Actually a Deal

The UK and France just signed a £662 million agreement to handle small boats. Over three years. That’s roughly $220 million a year for a problem that destroys political careers on both sides of the Channel.

Why is this significant? Because it shows that even wealthy democracies with functioning institutions can’t solve migration enforcement at the borders. They just keep writing bigger checks and deploying more riot police. The new deal brings 50 riot-trained officers. Presumably the previous deals brought other riot-trained officers. And the problem persists.

If the UK and France—genuinely competent governments with serious resources—can’t crack this, what does that tell us about the Senate Republicans who just jammed through a $70 billion immigration enforcement bump? They’re spending more money on the same problem that’s already been expensive and stubborn for a decade.

I think what’s happening is that governments are treating symptoms with bigger budgets instead of addressing root causes. And they’re doing it because the root causes are genuinely hard—economically, politically, diplomatically. So you spend more on enforcement, declare a win, and hope the problem quiets down before the next election.

Starmer’s Aide Problem Isn’t Going Away

Keir Starmer got asked about Matthew Doyle at PMQs. For those not following UK politics obsessively: the Prime Minister was questioned about whether Downing Street tried to get a diplomat role for his then-communications chief. Starmer “admitted No 10 asked about” it.

Now, Labour MPs are unhappy but not ready to overthrow him because there’s no obvious successor. That’s the state of his political position: people are disappointed in him, but not enough to risk a leadership contest when they don’t know what they’d get instead.

This is the opposite of confidence. This is holding power through default. And in politics, that’s unstable. Starmer’s got maybe eighteen months before backbenchers start seriously shopping for alternatives. The fact that they haven’t yet doesn’t mean they won’t.

The Chemical Nobody’s Talking About (But Should Be)

PFAS—“forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment or your body—are in school uniforms and non-stick pans. MPs want them banned. This is genuinely important and basically invisible in most coverage.

Why? Because it’s not dramatic. It’s a slow health problem affecting tons of people in small ways rather than a few people in catastrophic ways. So it doesn’t make news the way a scandal does. But it’s the kind of issue where government regulation actually matters, where the machinery should work, and where a functioning state bans harmful chemicals before they get embedded in every kid’s clothing.

I’m genuinely uncertain whether this gets banned or just gets studied for another five years while PFAS accumulates in groundwater. But it’s worth watching because it tests whether governments can still do boring protective work when nobody’s watching and industry lobbies against it.

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What I’m Actually Worried About

Here’s my honest take: we’re not seeing a sudden collapse. We’re seeing slow-motion degradation of institutional competence. The Carter Page settlement. AI hollowing out the civil service pipeline. Immigration enforcement that doesn’t enforce anything. A prime minister hanging on by default.

These aren’t unrelated. They’re symptoms of the same thing: governments that are simultaneously too invasive and too ineffective. Too quick to expand power (surveillance), too slow to exercise it well (competent warrant applications). Too comfortable spending money on problems (the border), too unwilling to solve them structurally.

The U.S. and UK governments aren’t in crisis. They’re not falling apart. But they’re grinding down like machinery with no lubrication. And nobody in power has an incentive to fix it because the current system keeps them in office even if it’s failing the public.

What I’m Watching

• The FBI’s next warrant application that becomes public. If we see the same quality issues, that’s not coincidence—it’s a system problem. Watch for inspector general reports specifically on post-Page warrant procedures through 2025.

• Whether any major government agency reports problems recruiting entry-level talent by mid-2025. State Department, DOJ, NSA hiring numbers. If they’re down 20%+ year-over-year among fresh graduates, that confirms the AI pipeline problem is real and accelerating.

• Labour Party challenger conversations. Once someone plausible starts positioning against Starmer—likely around spring 2025—that’s the moment his default-based authority evaporates. Watch for backbench organizing that’s currently dormant.

• The PFAS ban vote in Parliament and whether it survives industry amendment. If it passes clean, governments can still function on boring protective issues. If it gets watered down or killed, that confirms the degradation.