Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (69 page)

10
. See, e.g., Damian Paletta, “States Mine Federal Funds Long After Need Is Gone,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 19, 2012 (states spend federal money even when the federal government wants them to stop because it is wasteful).

11
. For examples and analysis, see Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., “Cooperative Federalism, the New Formalism, and the Separation of Powers Revisited: Free Enterprise Fund and the Problem of Presidential Oversight of State Government Officers Enforcing Federal Law,”
Duke Law Journal
61 (2012): 1629–59.

12
. “Testing Times; No Child Left Behind,”
Economist
, August 13, 2011, 28.

13
. Motoko Rich, “‘No Child Left Behind’ Whittled Down by White House,”
New York Times
, July 6, 2012 (twenty-six states exempted from proficiency goals, with ten more state and D.C. waiver applications pending).

14
. U.S. Government Accountability Office,
Driver’s License Security: Federal Leadership Needed to Address Remaining Vulnerabilities
, GAO-12–893 (September 2012).

15
. Sarah Kliff, “It’s Official: The Feds Will Run Most Obamacare Exchanges,”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/18/its-official-the-feds-will-run-most-obamacare-exchanges/
.

16
. Enrico Moretti,
The New Geography of Jobs
(2012). Our historically high worker mobility rate has resumed. “Americans Get Moving amid Torpid Recovery,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 9, 2013. Canadians and New Zealanders are even more mobile. See Robert C. Ellickson, “Legal Sources of Residential Lock-ins: Why French Households Move Half as Often as U.S. Households,”
University of Illinois Law Review
2012 (2012): 376.

17
. See, e.g., Nelson D. Schwartz, “As Rules Tighten, Gun Makers Lured Away,”
New York Times
, August 5, 2013.

18
. See John D. Donahue, “Tiebout? Or Not Tiebout? The Market Metaphor and America’s Devolution Debate,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives
11 (1997): 78–80.

19
. See, e.g., Christine Rossell & David Armor, “The Effectiveness of School Desegregation Plans, 1968–1991,”
American Politics Quarterly
24 (1996): 267–302; Katharine Q. Seelye, “4 Decades after Clashes, Boston Again Debates School Busing,”
New York Times
, October 5, 2012.

20
. Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein,
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
(2008).

21
. Christine Jolls, “The New Behavioral Law and Economics” (unpublished manuscript, n.d.).

22
. Ibid.

23
. W. Mark Crain & Asghar Zardkoohi, “A Test of the Property-Rights Theory of the Firm: Water Utilities in the United States,”
Journal of Law & Economics
21 (1978): 395–408;
Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez, John R. Meyer, & David E. Luberoff, “The Prospects for Privatizing Infrastructure: Lessons from U.S. Roads and Solid Waste,”
Journal of Transport Economcs & Policy
25 (1991): 259–78; Walter J. Primeaux, “An Assessment of X-Efficiency Gained through Competition,”
Review of Economics
& Statistics
59 (1977): 105–8.

24
. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Pervasive Gloom about the World Economy,” July 12, 2012,
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/12/chapter-4-the-casualties-faith-in-hard-work-and-capitalism/
.

25
. See Peter H. Schuck,
Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance
(2003), chap. 5 (on affirmative action).

26
. Lawrence M. Friedman, “The Legal System, in Schuck & Wilson, eds.,
Understanding America
, 81–82.

27
. James Q. Wilson, “American Exceptionalism,”
American Spectator
, October 2, 2006,
http://spectator.org/archives/2006/10/02/american-exceptionalism
.

28
. See, e.g., R. Shep Melnick,
Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights
(1994); R. Shep Melnick,
Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act
(1983); Peter W. Huber & Robert E. Litan,
The Liability Maze: The Impact of Liability Law on Safety and Innovation
(1991); and Donald L. Horowitz,
The Courts and Social Policy
(1977).

29
. Mary Ann Glendon,
Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse
(1991).

30
. See, generally, David S. G. Goodman,
Groups and Politics in the People’s Republic of China
(1984).

31
. James Madison, “Federalist No. 10”. I have dissected Madison’s analysis with much admiration and some criticism in Peter H. Schuck, “Against (and for) Madison: An Essay in Praise of Factions,”
Yale Law & Policy Review
15 (1997): 553–97, reprinted in Peter H. Schuck,
The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance
(2000), chap. 7.

32
. Theodore J. Lowi,
The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States
, 2d ed. (1979).

33
. Ibid., 262–64.

34
. Schuck, “Against (and for) Madison.”

35
. See, e.g., Lowi,
The End of Liberalism
(1969). Most recently, its contribution to social inequality has been emphasized. See Kay Lehman Scholzman, Sidney Verba, & Henry E. Brady,
The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy
(2012).

36
. Eduardo Porter, “Unleashing Corporate Contributions,”
New York Times
, August 29, 2012 (reviewing evidence).

37
. Scholzman et al.,
The Unheavenly Chorus
, 311.

38
. Joseph A. McCartin,
Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America
(2011).

39
. “Campaign Journal,”
Wall Street Journal
, June 9, 2012.

40
. See, e.g., Monica Davey & Steven Greenhouse, “Wisconsin May Take an Ax to State Workers’ Benefits and Their Unions,”
New York Times
, February 12, 2011; David M. Halbfinger, “Christie Declares ‘New Normal’ in Budget Proposal,”
New York Times
, February 22, 2011. As an example of a more successful outcome, Rhode Island was able to garner strong bipartisan support for its pension reforms. See Girard Miller, “Rhode Island’s Landmark Pension Reforms,”
Governing
, December 8, 2011,
http://www.governing.com/columns/public-money/rhode-island-landmark-pension-reforms.html
.

41
. Kate Taylor, “Health Care Law Raises Pressure on Public Unions,”
New York Times
, August 5, 2013.

42
. Schlozman et al.,
The Unheavenly Chorus
.

43
. Derek Bok,
The Trouble with Government
(2001), 180–81.

44
. See John P. Heinz,
The Hollow Core: Private Interests in National Policy Making
(1993); “One Industry’s Hold on the Senate,”
New York Times
, April 2, 2013.

45
.
See, e.g., Keith Johnson, “Natural-Gas Export Fight Heats Up,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 11, 2013.

46
. See, generally, Jeffrey H. Birnbaum & Alan S. Murray,
Showdown at Gucci Gulch: Lawmakers, Lobbyists, and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform
(1987).

47
. Graham Bowley, “In Tax Overhaul Debate, Large vs. Small Companies,”
New York Times
, May 24, 2013.

48
. James Sherk & Todd Zywicki, “Obama’s United Auto Workers Bailout,”
Wall Street Journal
, June 14, 2012.

49
. See, generally, David Freeman Engstrom, “Corralling Capture,” 36
Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
31 (2013); Eric Helland & Jonathan Klick, “Why Aren’t Regulation and Litigation Substitutes? An Examination of the Capture Hypothesis,” in Cary Coglianese, ed.,
Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation
(2012), chap. 11.

50
. “The Rich and the Rest,”
Economist
, October 13, 2012, 12.

51
. See Thomas B. Edsall, “What If We’re Looking at Inequality the Wrong Way?”
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/what-if-were-looking-at-inequality-the-wrong-way/?emc=eta1&_r=0
.

52
. See, e.g., Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson,
Winner-Take-All-Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
(2010); and “The Rich and the Rest.”

53
. Scott Winship, “How Much Do Americans Care about Income Inequality?” April 30, 2013,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/04/30-income-inequality-winship
; and Scott Winship, “How Much Do Americans Care about Income Inequality? Part II,” May 15, 2013,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/05/15-do-americans-care-about-inequality-winship
.

54
. Alberto Alesina & Edward L. Glaeser,
Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference
(2004), 184.

55
. Peter H. Schuck, “Three Models of Citizenship,” in Michael S. Greve & Michael Zoller, eds.,
Citizenship in America and Europe: Beyond the Nation-State?
(2009), 170 (citing sources).

56
. Ibid., 171–72.

57
. Peter Westen, “The Empty Idea of Equality,”
Harvard Law Review
95 (1982): 537–96.

58
. See Schuck, “Three Models of Citizenship.”

59
. Schlozman et al.,
The Unheavenly Chorus
.

60
. See, e.g.,
Davis v. Federal Election Commission
, 554 U.S. 724 (2008) (invalidating “millionaire’s amendment” of Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act).

61
. Steven Greenhouse, “Union Membership Drops Despite Increase in Labor Force,”
New York Times
, January 24, 2013.

62
. See Schlozman et al.,
The Unheavenly Chorus
, 426–28.

63
. Winship, “How Much Do Americans Care about Income Inequality?” and Winship, “How Much Do Americans Care about Income Inequality? Part II.”

64
. Compare Jeffrey Bloomer, “Poll Shows Fivefold Increase in Ranks of U.S. Atheists,”
Slate
, August 14, 2012,
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/08/14/american_atheists_1_in_20_americans_say_they_are_atheists_.html?from=rss/&wpisrc=newsletter_slatest
, and Rodney Stark, “The Myth of Unreligious America,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 5, 2013 (the proportion of self-described atheists has not increased even slightly since Gallup first asked in 1944; many who say “no religion” pray and believe in angels; nonrespondents are less likely to belong to a church).

65
. See Robert Wuthnow, “Religion,” in Schuck & Wilson, eds.,
Understanding America
, chap. 10.

66
. Much of the discussion in this section is taken from Schuck,
Diversity in America
, chap. 1.

67
. The source for this quotation is cited in Schuck,
Diversity in America
, 342n29.

68
.
For a fuller development of this point, see Schuck,
Diversity in America
, 55–72, from which some of the discussion here is taken.

69
. For a fuller development of this point, see Schuck,
Diversity in America
, 67–71, from which some of the discussion here is taken.

70
. “State of Renewal,”
Economist
, June 2, 2012,
http://www.economist.com/node/21556247
.

71
. Richard H. Thaler, “Watching Behavior Before Writing the Rules,”
New York Times
, July 8, 2012.

72
. Lynn Eisenberg, “States as Laboratories for Federal Reform: Case Studies in Felon Disenfranchisement Law,”
New York University Journal of Legislation & Public Policy
15 (2012): 539.

73
. See, e.g., Peter H. Schuck & Ron Haskins, “Welfare Reform Worked,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 28, 2012.

74
. Robert D. Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century: The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture,”
Scandinavian Political Studies
30 (2007): 137–74.

75
. Matthew A. Baum, “Partisan Media and Attitude Polarization: The Case of Healthcare Reform,” in Cary Coglianese, ed.,
Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation
(2012), chap. 6.

76
. On the early republic, see Joanne B. Freeman,
Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic
(2001).