Comments for Government Reform

Comment on How about “Legislative Impact Statements”? by Dumb Design « Government Reform

Dumb Design « Government Reform — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:38:16 +0000

[...] of a subsequent supply/demand imbalance. So why bother, say the manufacturers. Clearly there was no Legislative Impact Statement done on that provision of the law! [BTW, Europe doesn’t have these shortages.] Comments [...]

Comment on Improving Program Design (from Gore’s National Performance Review) by Government-reform

Government-reform — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 18:04:11 +0000

Government-reform…

[...] something about government-reform[...]…

Comment on Toward a Science of Program Design (1977) by Designing Government by Design « Government Reform

Designing Government by Design « Government Reform — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:02:10 +0000

[...] again discussed more fully elsewhere, the introduction of food stamps in rural Louisiana (a) enriched the local storekeepers, (b) [...]

Comment on Glimmer: My best book of 2009 by Designing Government by Design « Government Reform

Designing Government by Design « Government Reform — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:01:43 +0000

[...] has come to pass. Check out the Stanford University School of Design, read this introduction to the world of design, and watch this video of one of the leaders in the [...]

Comment on Ashby’s Law and “Phase Four Souvlaki” by Designing Government by Design « Government Reform

Designing Government by Design « Government Reform — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:01:17 +0000

[...] quick examples come to mind. First, as discussed elsewhere, President Nixon’s Wage and Price Controls could not effectively control prices. At a restaurant [...]

Comment on About by Designing Government by Design « Government Reform

Designing Government by Design « Government Reform — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:00:55 +0000

[...] Robert A. Knisely, Esq. [...]

Comment on About by Thoughts on Collaboration for a Kennedy School Class « Farmusings

Thoughts on Collaboration for a Kennedy School Class « Farmusings — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:36:15 +0000

[...] I’m new to the discussion, allow me to introduce myself. And Jerry, sorry to bring the same ol’ pony to the [...]

Comment on “Rocket Surgery,” “Usability Testing,” and Government by dbrunton

dbrunton — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:06:42 +0000

Nice post. I might have to propose this for the agency I work in!

Comment on Toward a Science of Program Design (1977) by Glimmer: My best book of 2009 « Government Reform

Glimmer: My best book of 2009 « Government Reform — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 03:47:56 +0000

[...] was the first reference I’ve seen to ‘designing government’ since I first wrote “The Design of Government” early in the Carter Administration. It’s about time! [...]

Comment on How about “Legislative Impact Statements”? by zarnetske

zarnetske — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:55:17 +0000

Taking this a little further . . . the Congressional Budget Office already does budget impact statements and most state legislatures also do some sort of fiscal impact statement, some (Ohio, for example) even go so far as to evaluate the overall impact on municipal governments. But as far as I can tell, you have to go down under to Australia and New Zealand to find legislative bodies that have formal structures for not only eliciting public input, but sytematically processing, analyzing and using that public input before passing legislation. Both Australia and New Zealand have regulatory impact offices that evaluate the total impact of both regulations and legislation as inputs into the regulatory and legislative processes. It seems that the process is similar to the Rulemaking/Regulatory proceedures for U.S. federal agencies. The government’s idea is published and public, industry, and NGO feedback is gathered. A report is done and a recommendation is made.

In the U.S., the public feedback loop is truncated. Every legislative idea is, of course, reviewed by interested parties (corporations, interest groups, academics) and often position papers are produced by those parties (although academics usually don’t more as quickly as the legislators so the opinions, data, and factoids offered by the interest groups are often more prominent than those of the nation’s scholars). The problem is the U.S. is that the process isn’t very transparent so many who might get excited about the conversation if they knew it was going on, never hear about the issue until all the important decisions have already been made.

Australia, New Zealand and our own Rulemaking procedures may offer a useful model for revising the legislative process to allow for meaningful pre-passage impact evaluations. Modern technology and a good model might get us all the way there.