Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better
Peter Schuck
Language: English
Pages: 485
ISBN: 0691168539
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From healthcare to workplace conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. The most alarming consequence of ineffective policies, in addition to unrealized social goals, is the growing threat to the government's democratic legitimacy. Understanding why government fails so often--and how it might become more effective--is an urgent responsibility of citizenship. In this book, lawyer and political scientist Peter Schuck provides a wide range of examples and an enormous body of evidence to explain why so many domestic policies go awry--and how to right the foundering ship of state.
Schuck argues that Washington's failures are due not to episodic problems or partisan bickering, but rather to deep structural flaws that undermine "every" administration, Democratic and Republican. These recurrent weaknesses include unrealistic goals, perverse incentives, poor and distorted information, systemic irrationality, rigidity and lack of credibility, a mediocre bureaucracy, powerful and inescapable markets, and the inherent limits of law. To counteract each of these problems, Schuck proposes numerous achievable reforms, from avoiding moral hazard in student loan, mortgage, and other subsidy programs, to empowering consumers of public services, simplifying programs and testing them for cost-effectiveness, and increasing the use of "big data." The book also examines successful policies--including the G.I. Bill, the Voting Rights Act, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and airline deregulation--to highlight the factors that made them work.
An urgent call for reform, "Why Government Fails So Often" is essential reading for anyone curious about why government is in such disrepute and how it can do better.
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supporting government policy.” Winston, Government Failure versus Market Failure, 11n3. 24 Chapter 1 factors analyzed in part 2 evidently impair the performance of so many important programs, and because these factors are present in one form or another in virtually all other programs, I can think of no reason why the patterns that I shall describe would not also apply to them. Accordingly, the burden of proof should now shift to those who deny the accuracy or representativeness of the
pieces of legislation. Legislation is only part of the process of responsible policy making, and it is becoming a less important part relative to agency decisions. The costs of participating at the agency level, where many of the most important policy choices are in fact made, are likely to be lower than the costs of lobbying or otherwise seeking to influence Congress. Moreover, an agency’s institutional culture is likely more familiar to the average citizen, who deals with bureaucracies
rise of politically oriented ‘issue generalists’ on the liberal side.” See Starr, “Politics in the Orbit of Money” (book review), New Republic, September 13, 2012, 28, 31. The Political Culture of Policy Making 113 rates American politics and shapes our public policies, both domestic and foreign, in many profound ways. What is most salient about this religiosity and moralism, for present purposes, is that it raises both the stakes and the heat in policy debates. As participants are determined
SSDI. Moreover, over half of SSDI’s beneficiaries now qualify because of easily claimed conditions like mood disorders and back pain, and the program makes it easy to stay on the rolls. Not surprisingly, SSDI has higher claim rates and lower return-to-work rates than comparable private disability insurance.64 These incentives help to explain why SSDI recipients have tripled just since 1990 despite a much healthier working age population; much of the expansion occurs among young people. The CBO
focus on particular portions of the omnibus measure, to deliberate fully and knowledgeably, and to raise penetrating questions and make useful amendments. Administrative agencies, in contrast, can conduct more systematic information-gathering, careful deliberation, and detailed analysis of policy issues.16 Their staffs, at least, tend to be more technocratic and apolitical in their training and orientation. Moreover, some agencies fund a great deal of policy-oriented research. As noted in
