Federal grants are the key to constraining bureaucracy

"The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape." — Karl Marx

According to popular lore, someone — a guy in a parking garage — once famously said, "Follow the money." That would be good advice for President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been given the task of "taming" the federal bureaucracy.

Efforts to rein in bureaucracy have been tried before, without success. Kushner's Office of American Innovation is tasked with creating "a SWAT team of strategic consultants" who can get the government to run more like "a great American company." One can't help but suspect that it will just become its own ever-growing bureaucracy. Welcome to the Monkey House.

It's not that this isn't a worthy goal, but if history is a guide, the bureaucracy isn't likely to lose numbers or influence through streamlining or workforce reduction. According to one source, 20th Century American presidents put forth at least 11 proposals for overhauling the federal Leviathan. Yet, here we are.

To bring about true transformation, Kushner instead should focus on the money and how it's delivered — namely the grants-in-aid system.