2: Inter-Governmental System

Rationalizing the Inter-Governmental System

Other Information:

This set of memoranda will discuss government's capacity to deliver effective public service for federally assisted programs, if these programs provide a more efficient, productive and responsive inter-governmental system, and whether reforms are needed to promote more effective governance of intergovernmental programs. Memo Overview: The American intergovernmental system was one of the great institutional inventions of the Country’s founding fathers. It serves many purposes ranging from facilitating our democracy through the dispersal of political power, to enabling individuals in local communities to more carefully and strategically address the many problems that exist in a complex society. That this system has played a major role in facilitating the building and development of the American nation goes without saying. Nevertheless, this is a system that is currently in a state of crisis - in part because it has worked so effectively for so long that often little or no attention is paid to it. This is highly unfortunate since the American governmental system is an interlocking one in which the actions of each level impact upon each of the others. Today, more than ever, the intergovernmental system faces multiple highly complex challenges. Many of these challenges are driven by fiscal factors, but not all of them. Political and administrative conflict, exacerbated by a highly polarized political environment, has dramatically lessened the capacity of the system for cooperation at a time when collaboration is desperately needed. While many proposals are being put forward to address the problems faced at the federal, state and local levels of government, rarely do those proposals recognize that they are highly dependent for successful implementation on circumstances that are often predetermined at another level of government. To help the next Administration, the next Congress and our state and local governmental leaders to more effectively address these issues, a group of four individuals with long experience both studying and participating in the American governmental system has prepared the attached memo. These individuals have held senior positions in local, national and state government and have also written extensively about intergovernmental relations in the United States and abroad. The memo on “America’s Invisible Intergovernmental Crisis” provides important recommendations for reinvigorating the American intergovernmental system and the nation itself. Most significant in this regard are the calls for a joint federal, state and local reassessment of the nation's tax policies with a focus upon the introduction of a shared consumption tax and the need for the establishment of an institutional mechanism to facilitate intergovernmental collaboration. Summary: It is now widely recognized that at all three levels of government in the United States there is a mismatch between available revenues and citizens’ demands for public services. Almost every study of this situation, whether at the national, state or local level, suggests the problems will inevitably become far worse in the absence of significant action. What is often not recognized, however, is that in many instances these situations are inextricably interrelated across all three levels of government. The fact is that the country faces an intergovernmental crisis and that if it does not address its fiscal problems from an intergovernmental perspective, it will not be able to address them successfully. In order to strengthen the federal system emerging needs for public services and public deficits must be addressed; intergovernmental tax reform should be undertaken in a collaborative manner; a means to an institutional framework for the improvement of intergovernmental policy must be initiated; and, much work must be done to rationalize that system.

Stakeholder(s):

• Allan Rosenbaum: Chair & Co-author -- Allan Rosenbaum is Director of the Institute for Public Management and Community Service and Coordinator of the PhD program at Florida International University. He has held senior positions in local, state and national government and is currently the Vice President of the American Society for Public Administration and will subsequently become President of that organization. He has either lectured or provided advice or technical assistance in approximately 60 countries around the world. He is a former editor of the Policy Studies Review and a past President of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration.


• The Honorable Parris Glendening: Co-author


• Paul Posner: Co-author


• Tim Conlan: Co-author

Objective(s):

2.1: Needs & Deficits

2.2: Tax Reform

2.3: Intergovernmental Policy Council

2.4: Grants & Personnel

2.4.1: Grants

2.4.2: HR Policy

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