A Government Ill Executed: The Decline of the Federal Service and How to Reverse It [Paperback]

The federal government is having increasing difficulty faithfully executing the laws, which is what Alexander Hamilton called the true test of a good government. This book diagnoses the symptoms, explains their general causes, and proposes ways to improve the effectiveness of the federal government. Employing Hamiltons seven measures of an energetic federal service, Paul Light shows how the government is wanting in each measure.

After assessing the federal report card, Light offers a comprehensive agenda for reform, including new laws limiting the number of political appointees, reducing the layers of government management, reducing the size of government as its Baby Boom employees retire, revitalizing the federal career, and reducing the heavy outsourcing of federal work. Although there are many ways to fix each of the seven problems with government, only a comprehensive agenda will bring the kind of reform needed to reverse the overall erosion of the capacity to faithfully execute all the laws.

The next administration had best heed Lights call to focus on getting a coherent, shorter nomination and confirmation process that encourages talented people to sign up for government service.The book is A Government Ill Executed. I urge you to read it. It is an important book, and I hope that Senators Obama and McCain are looking at that book as we speak.Not only the presidential candidates, but everyone running for Congress should read this book. If our political leaders do not confront this pattern of desperate concern, says this sober scholar, they are likely to preside over a string of meltdowns that will make the federal response to Hurricane Katrina look like a minor mistake.[A] book that ought to be read by every candidate for federal office this year& [It] goes beyond the complaints to describe whats happened inside federal agencies to make them less effective.This book provides an important contribution to the literature on federal personnel, alsÃ