The City of Renton invited residents to participate in the Renton Civic Academy, wherein participants are educated about the inner workings of city government through a series of three-hour sessions of presentation and activities facilitated by staff of the various city departments over a period of five weeks.

This ranged from roleplaying as a police officer coming onto a scene of domestic violence to getting a tour of where Renton makes their street signs (and makes them again after they’re vandalized).

Our country is currently gripped by an ideological conflict that is resulting in real-world consequences. Public benefits are being cut and government services are being reduced even though the U.S. is the richest country in the world. How did this happen? We believe that part of the reason is a mistrust of government.

In his 1981 inaugural address, then-President Ronald Reagan famously said, “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.” Some years later he said, “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Today, this sentiment is embodied most clearly in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which, under the banner of eliminating “waste” and “bureaucracy,” has launched sweeping efforts to shrink the size and scope of public institutions, often without fully understanding — or disclosing — the consequences. Cuts to frontline programs are framed as pragmatic, while the erosion of public trust is treated as evidence that government itself is broken, rather than the result of years of strategic defunding.

This approach is based on a false premise: that smaller government is inherently better, and that efficiency is achieved through subtraction rather than investment. But slashing services in the name of “freedom” doesn’t eliminate the need for those services — it just shifts the burden to individuals, families, and already-strained communities. The ideological push to dismantle public systems creates the very dysfunction it claims to oppose.

The reality is, we rely on government every single day: for roads, schools, libraries, emergency services, public safety, utilities, and even national defense. From local to state to federal levels, our government provides for the general welfare — as the Constitution mandates — with a level of success that remains the envy of many other countries.

Reagan’s “nine most terrifying words, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’” comment is hyperbole: a speechwriter’s flourish reflecting a comical cynicism. But today, what once was a tongue-in-cheek cynical joke is presented as a legitimate ideological proposition.

Some social media posts suggest many people actually believe government to be inevitably slapdash, incompetent, wasteful, or corrupt. The cynical joke has become simple cynicism.

The danger of uninformed cynicism is that it’s corrosive. When we begin from the assumption that all government is broken, we lose the imagination — and the will — to build systems that work. And in the end, it’s not the government that suffers most from these attacks. It’s us. The cynic is exempt from responsibility. Cynicism as a way of looking at the world expresses no interest in problem solving or finding ways to improve society.

A cynical and oversimplified outlook is a cop-out and reductive in nature. Government is not an abstract villain. It’s the structure through which we coordinate public services, safety, education, infrastructure, and response to crisis. The idea that government is inherently wasteful or disengaged falls apart the moment you look closely.

And in Renton, that closer look is exactly what the Civic Academy offers.

The Civic Academy didn’t present an exclusively glossy version of local government — it invited residents to examine its complexity. Participants made hypothetical budget decisions based on resources available and staff put themselves on stage, open to public questioning about everything from budget decisions to service gaps. When probed about our city shortcomings, the answer wasn’t satisfying, but it was honest: it comes down to capacity. Not apathy. Not corruption. Just enough staff to keep up.

That truth raises a fundamental contradiction in today’s political climate: if the issue is that our public systems can’t meet expectations, the rational response isn’t to shrink them further — it’s to invest more in making them work better.

Ian Taylor and Ali Cohen both attended the inaugural Civic Academy put on by the City of Renton.