A Vacuum of Authority
Americans are increasingly disaffected with Washington. Nor does either party enjoy the support of a plurality of voters. There are more independents than Democrats or Republicans.
What do Americans want? For starters, they want things to work. Practical solutions to running schools, delivering healthcare, cleaning up the environment, and modernizing infrastructure shouldn't be that hard.
What's missing? Neither party has a coherent vision of how government should work day to day. Not in memory have political leaders bothered to look at what school principals, doctors, or public officials need to fulfill their responsibilities. Nor do they deal with the tangle of red tape and entitlements that bog down infrastructure projects in nearly endless delay and waste.
In this National Affairs essay, The Vacuum of Authority, Philip Howard argues that public gridlock is inevitable because of the philosophical aversion of both parties to giving responsible officials the authority to do their jobs. Republicans think putting legal shackles on officials will prevent abuse, but succeed mainly in barring common sense solutions. In the name of individual rights, Democrats run government by the lowest common denominator — so schools and public agencies are virtually unmanageable, and any infrastructure project can be delayed indefinitely because one group doesn't like it.
"Elect me," politicians promise, and "I'll make government work." But it almost never happens. That's because the people supposedly in charge, at all levels of society, can't make needed decisions. This is a philosophy problem, not a management problem. The cure is not de-regulation, but re-regulation — to replace thick rulebooks and procedures with simpler goals and clear lines of responsibility and accountability. Let Americans roll up their sleeves and act like Americans again. A political party with this vision might actually be popular.
In an important commentary, The Battle for the Public Service Is Just Beginning, political scientist Don Kettl argues that unaccountable civil servants are indeed a structural problem for democracy — specifically referencing Philip's argument that unaccountability makes civil service unconstitutional. Kettl disagrees with our solutions, but has opened the door to a long overdue reworking of the civil service system. Democracy can't work if the people we elect have no management authority.
Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) has endorsed our proposal for a National Infrastructure Board. See this commentary by Ramesh Ponnuru.