So far, the
Washington conversation
around reorganizing
government has focused,
well, on Washington.
That's not surprising,
and the federal
government clearly could
be more efficient. But
beyond the important
work of streamlining
agencies inside the
Beltway, the strategy
for reorganizing
government must be
expanded outside to
better adapt to
21st-century realities
and accelerate job
creation.
Admittedly, this is
all very nerdy stuff,
which currently comes
fully loaded with even
nerdier jargon. Try
talking about the need
for smarter, distributed
government at your next
cocktail party. Yet
there is a way to
envision the government
hybrid we need to build:
like those amusing
Esurance ads, we need
new models for
government service that
allow citizens and
businesses to talk to a
helpful person when they
want one, or do it on
the web when they don't.
The approach we
advocate is thus not
about more government or
less government -- it's
about creating a federal
government that sets a
clear, national
competitiveness strategy
to meet our global
economic challenges and
then empowers local
communities and
businesses to deliver
the desired outcomes.
People at the local
level best know the
economic needs and
assets of their
communities, and federal
resources and
public-private
partnerships can be of
enormous help in
enabling these
communities to realize
the opportunities they
see and create a new
model for "bottom-up"
growth. These ideas are
at the heart of the
Obama administration's
new Growth Zones
initiative.
In research conducted
with the respected
public opinion firm
Gerstein-Agne, we found
that Americans are
skeptical of nearly
everything Washington
does from the top-down,
including reorganizing
itself. But they are
eager to partner with
government to leverage
local and regional
knowledge as part of a
national strategy.
The good news is that
a public-private,
partnership-driven
approach has worked
before to solve a tough
problem and is beginning
to work again. In the
1990's, the Workforce
Reinvestment Act created
community-based worker
retraining and job
opportunity programs
using business, labor
and community
partnerships.
Today, dozens of
examples exist around
the country that point
to the success of this
model: In Colorado, over
1,500 aerospace and
clean energy companies
are partnering with
local and federal
government to get new
technologies to market
faster by leveraging
local suppliers and to
identify new markets and
increase exports; In
Charlotte, Tucson, and
Portland, government
purchasing power has
spurred the growth of
United Streetcar, the
first American-made
streetcar company in 57
years, which uses parts
manufactured in over 20
states; and in Michigan,
federal loans and state
retraining programs have
revived GM, creating a
new battery industry
worth 68,000 new jobs.
These results and
their public support
illustrate why we need
to further deploy
similar models to
accelerate job creation,
market innovation, and
performance-based
government. New efforts
—
led by the
Obama administration and
a growing, bipartisan
group of governors,
mayors, and business
leaders
—
such as
Startup America and the
Jobs and Innovation
Partnership initiative,
point the way.
We can build on these
successes by creating a
number of low-cost
mechanisms designed to
re-tool federal economic
development and energy
and infrastructure
programs and smooth out
the funding pipeline
from Washington to local
communities, a necessity
in a post-earmark era.
These include:
Local job
creation councils --
Groups of local business
people and civic leaders
come together to steer
federal funding to local
priorities in designated
Growth Zones and
self-identified clusters
while meeting clear
accountability and
performance goals. Such
local community councils
are better able to
deploy local assets and
overcome partisan
gridlock.
Solution
centers --
While web applications
and open data are
critical advances we are
seeing emerge from the
Obama administration,
sometimes (like those
Esurance ads) people
need intermediaries
(translation, a human).
One stop centers for
federal and state
economic development
would offer direct
frontline connections
and support ranging from
rural and small
community loans (USDA),
to free entrepreneurship
training, to new SBA
programs targeting the
equity needs of small
businesses and startups
that deliver two-thirds
of net job creation.
Flexible
federal funding --
By allowing local
communities and states
to best decide their
needs, the federal
government can focus on
the overall results a
program is supposed to
deliver. The newly
proposed BUILD Act,
which is designed to
leverage private capital
to dramatically reduce
the taxpayer costs of
infrastructure projects,
is a perfect example.
While 8.8 percent
unemployment and
long-term debt are
indeed daunting
challenges, they also
present
once-in-a-lifetime
opportunities to reform
government in a
bipartisan manner, based
on local strengths and
measurable outcomes. The
bottom line is that
bottom-up growth is
something that both
everyday Americans and
economic experts think
is the right way to
reinvigorate our
economy. So while it is
good that we are focused
on streamlining how big
federal agencies like
the Commerce Department
can more effectively
deliver outcomes, let's
not forget that the
biggest bang for the
buck may come from
moving the buck from
Washington, D.C., to
community-led growth.
Dan Carol and
Morley Winograd are West
Coast-based fellows at
NDN's New Policy
Institute, a think tank
in Washington, DC. Mr.
Carol was the Issues and
Content Director for the
Obama campaign and is
the author of the
Acceleration Agenda
(2010). Mr. Winograd
served as senior policy
advisor to Vice
President Al Gore and
director of the National
Partnership for
Reinventing Government
(NPR) from 1997-2001 and
is co-author, with Mike
Hais, of Millennial
Momentum: How a New
Generation is Remaking
America to be published
this fall as well as
Millennial Makeover:
MySpace, YouTube, and
the Future of American
Politics (Rutgers
University Press, 2008).
