Toward More Effective National Governing Institutions
While questions about the size and role of government are highly politicized, most Americans are united in a desire for our government to be effective and efficient. Despite this, our national governing institutions are weakened by years of neglect and underinvestment. The federal government is beset with outdated systems ill-equipped for the twenty-first century and a demoralized and shrinking expert workforce. Partisan gridlock and insufficient resources perpetuate a vicious cycle in which national governing institutions struggle to deliver the results they aspire to, eroding public trust and therefore making it harder to secure the political support and resources they require to succeed. The historical lack of diversity in the senior federal workforce has led to programs failing to meet the needs of populations who are not represented in decision making processes. This lack of perspective in the design and implementation of programs not only limits their effectiveness, but also leads large swaths of the public to believe the federal government is not serving them or their families.
Highly functioning national governing institutions are more likely to restore the public’s trust and faith in democracy’s ability to deliver for all Americans. The effectiveness of our governing institutions matters on a basic level for making good use of public resources, delivering essential services, and ensuring that citizens experience the value of civic institutions. On a more existential level, our governing institutions need to be equipped to respond to the increasingly complex challenges of our time, including battling a global pandemic, managing a rapidly changing climate, modernizing our nation’s infrastructure, and mitigating the impacts of phenomena like inflation. Michael Lewis, author of The Fifth Risk, has noted that the “United States government manages the biggest portfolio of [catastrophic] risks ever managed by a single institution in the history of the world.”