The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How to Fix Them - Hardcover

Kettl, Donald F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393051129 ISBN 13: 9780393051124

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008

Synopsis

This book exposes the reality that our twentieth-century government is no match for twenty-first-century problems and proposes a solution.

In this timely and compelling book, Donald F. Kettl demonstrates how the process of governance has fallen out of sync with the problems the government is trying to solve. Pick almost any recent domestic concern―waging a war, protecting our food supply and borders, providing health-care coverage for an aging population or relief after a devastating hurricane―and the standard response is to outsource most of the core tasks to thousands of independent contractors. The government foots the bill, but this strategy provides neither leadership nor accountability. Without anyone in charge, who can formulate innovative solutions to the increasingly complex problems the government faces? Kettl has answers, explaining with precision and clarity how a twenty-first century government must function in order to provide real solutions to the policy problems that face the United States. 9 illustrations

About this title

About the Author:

Preeminent public policy expert Donald F. Kettl is the director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of many books. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

From Booklist:

Two events prompted Kettl, a public-policy academic and columnist for the civil servant’s must-read magazine Governing, to ponder how government malfunctions. The first was his mother-in-law’s Medicare experience; the second was the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Though satisfied with his mother-in-law’s treatment, Kettl professes amazement that throughout the process she never once dealt with a federal employee, a situation that prompts the author to analyze how Washington funds programs without genuinely controlling them, either administratively or fiscally. A crisis such as Katrina simply magnifies the government’s lack of responsibility: the opprobrium heaped on the FEMA director, while satisfying a primitive need for human sacrifice, ignored the multiplicity of bureaucracies that resulted in nobody being in control. What to do, then? As problem-solvers, Kettl dismisses the president (too busy) and Congress (institutionally reactive, not innovative); instead, Kettl proposes the creation of a cadre of civil-service superheroes empowered to attack chronic or acute problems. Kettl’s outlook may appeal to readers interested in the managerial problems of government. --Gilbert Taylor

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0393051129
• ISBN 13: 9780393051124
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304