Francis Fukuyama has an excellent in-depth analysis of US government dysfunction in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. In a piece called “America in Decay” he focuses his lens on the three branches of government – the executive, the courts, and the legislature. He says:
“…the courts and the legislature have usurped many of the proper functions of the executive, making the operation of the government as a whole both incoherent and inefficient…
The story of the courts is one of the steadily increasing judicialization of functions that in other developed democracies are handled by administrative bureaucracies, leading to an explosion of costly litigation, slowness of decision-making, and highly inconsistent enforcement of laws. In the United States today, instead of being constraints on government, courts have become alternative instruments for the expansion of government.
There has been a parallel usurpation by Congress. Interest groups, having lost their ability to corrupt legislators directly through bribery, have found other means of capturing and controlling legislators. These interest groups exercise influence way out of proportion to their place in society, distort both taxes and spending, and raise overall deficit levels by their ability to manipulate the budget in their favor. They also undermine the quality of public administration through the multiple mandates they induce Congress to support.”
Well worth a read if you can get through the gateway. Fukuyama sees no way out other than some big shock to the system.
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