Here is how the Federal Government Enterprise is developed.
1. Start with the highest order purpose of the US Federal Government.
2. Identify America’s top priority outcomes.
3. Associate the present government systems and organizations with priority outcomes.
4. Account for laws and regulations governing system and organization performance.
5. Associate revenue inputs with government systems and outcomes.
6. Associate costs and benefits with outcomes.
Those six activities are non-trivial and should require investment to complete. However, I will draft a high-level model for the purpose of guiding the creation of Party Platforms and Presidential Manifestos.
I will compare the product with existing Platforms and then follow up with a suggested template for producing future Platforms and Manifestos.
Highest Order Purpose of the U.S. Federal Government
Since at least 2010, I have proposed that the highest order purpose of the US Federal Government is to “Optimize the return on national resources.” If you can think of something better, I would like to know it in your feedback.
Here is what this means. Given the nation's natural resources, materials, capital, and human resources, the job of government is to create an optimal environment in which citizens, their corporation, both public and private, can perform to the highest level of their capacity and ability.
Governments at each level collaborate with the Federal Government to produce optimal rules that provide incentives for good performance while dissuading or preventing bad or dangerous performance by people and their entities. The Federal Government is the citizen's instrument for achieving these things and for addressing essential outcomes as proposed here.
America's Priority Outcomes
1. Nation secured economically - 100%
2. Nation has a sustainable economy - 100%
3. Nation secured militarily - 100%
4. Homeland secured from terrorists - 100%
5. Employment opportunities for all who can work - 100%
6. Upward mobility for all who are prepared commensurate with ability - 100%
7. All persons provided minimal sustainment as a baseline to start - 100%
8. Social security assured for all persons - 100%
9. Clean air and water - 100%
10. Best education in the world - #1
11. Freest nation in the world - #1
12. Lowest crime rate in the world - #1 in the least crime per capita
13. Healthiest population in the world
The rationale is as follows:
The nation must be secured economically because anything less than that undermines everything else. When the debt and deficit are too large, the national integrity is at risk. The U.S. experienced a national crisis in 2008 following a period in which the Presidential administration and Congress initiated a foreign policy that we could not afford while simultaneously lowering taxes to the wealthy and corporations. Therefore, the nation’s precarious financial condition was made worse from revenue shortage.
Second, the nation must have a sustainable economy. The present economic model is one of regulated capitalism. The economy has operated on the notion of ever expanding markets, growing population, and unlimited energy supply. The present paradigm has been fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are in limited supply and burning them to produce energy creates an environmental hazard. Therefore, capitalism based on those ideas is unsustainable.
Short-sighted politicians who are corrupted by “Big Oil” and “Big Business” influences support corporations who want to maximize profits at the expense of being socially and environmentally responsible.
A sustainable economy is one that is managed to produce the required amount of upward mobile opportunity (jobs) that satisfy a progressive population. There are debates about how to best measure economic progress. The old approach is Gross Domestic Product. One new approach is Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). GPI starts with personal consumption expenditures, a major component of GDP, and adjusts it using 25 components. The point is that the nation must continuously review its economic model in light of advancing ideas.
The nation must be secure militarily. A nation that cannot defend itself is not viable. The U.S. engages in a strategy to be the strongest military force in the world and to be able to conduct a couple of global conflicts simultaneously. The Department of Defense manages different branches of service, each with a unique brand of warfare and capabilities. The DOD, like the entire nation, cannot stand still and must continuously improve.
Homeland Security is a new invention designed to combat and prevent domestic terrorism and violence. It is an immature organization with wide-reaching responsibilities. As with economic and military security, citizens may well expect the DHS to keep the nation 100% secure. When political leaders try to hedge on that commitment, they are ripe to answer questions about it.
Coincident with a sustainable economy is ensuring employment opportunities for all who can work. That is a foundation for ensuring that there is no poverty in America. We know that is a deficiency today.
It is not enough to be employed. Citizens who invest in personal and professional development deserve comparable opportunities to apply themselves.
Every citizen deserves a minimum standard of living that is above poverty.
Social Security must be guaranteed to all citizens for their lifetime.
Without clean air and water, human habitation is impossible. The government must ensure this through proper environmental regulation. The present government of the Executive and Legislative branches is withdrawing that commitment. Citizens have every right to resist and to demand better performance.
Americans deserve the best education system in the world, and that is not the status today. Deficiencies in education and training undermine the #1 priority, and that is economic security.
We have every right to expect that our Constitutional guarantees are met. The present government is failing to do that.
As a nation, we have every right to expect the cities and states everywhere to have the lowest crime rate in the world. Today, we are failing that measure.
Alignment of the Present Government Systems and Organizations with Priority Outcomes.
The purpose of this task is to audit the present government structure (at a high level) to see how they support the attainment of prescribed outcomes. It might be that some things the government does are more than our nation’s capacity. It may be that the list of outcomes missed some important things that government is doing.
Bear in mind that what a future President and Congress should do is to audit the nation’s performance to ensure in detail that citizens know what government is doing and how well it is performing.
Observe from current history that the Donald Trump administration arbitrarily applied “executive judgment” to determining that certain organizations are excessive and unnecessary. He didn’t do that by calling for a deliberate audit of Departments and Agencies. He didn’t do it in collaboration with the Congress that created them by acts of laws. Otherwise, the Executive branch may have exceeded its authority in the American political system. Without bipartisanship, and with one party in charge, there are greater possibilities for recklessness in downsizing government.
The process here is to align each department and agency in government with their associated outcomes. (More follows in part 2.)
(c) 2017 by James A. George, All Rights Reserved
https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/a
This analytical exercise has already produced some necessary changes. For one thing, I added #13 to the priorities and that is healthcare. The big story comes in part 2 of this article.
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