Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (73 page)

90
. “Employer Mandate? Never Mind,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 5, 2013.

91
. Robert Pear, “A Limit on Consumer Cost Is Delayed in Health Care Law,”
New York Times
, August 13, 2013.

92
. Ray Fisman & Tim Sullivan, “The Most Efficient Office in the World,”
Slate
, July 31, 2013,
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2013/07/renewing_your_passport_visit_the_incredibly_efficient_new_york_city_passport.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content
.

93
. Kevin Sack, “In Discarding of Kidneys, System Reveals Its Flaws,”
New York Times
, September 20, 2012.

94
. Ian Lovett, “$4 Million Set for Man Left in D.E.A. Cell,”
New York Times
, August 1, 2013.

95
. Daniel Gade, “Why the VA Is Buried in Disability Claims,”
Wall Street Journal
, June 23, 2013.

96
. James Dao, “Veterans Wait for Benefits as Claims Pile Up,”
New York Times
, September 28, 2012; James Dao, “Workers Point Finger at Their Own Agency amid a Backlog in Veterans’ Benefits,”
New York Times
, June 16, 2012; James Dao, “V.A. Aims to Reduce Its Backlog of Claims,”
New York Times
, April 20, 2013.

97
.
Paul C. Light, “The Sequester Is an Overhaul Opportunity,”
Wall Street Journal
, March 21, 2013.

98
. U.S. Government Accountability Office,
Employment and Training Programs: Opportunities Exist for Improving Efficiency
, April 7, 2011,
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11506t.pdf
.

99
. “The Job Training Mess,”
Wall Street Journal
, May 9, 2012.

100
. Ron Nixon, “Number of Catfish Inspectors Drives a Debate on Spending,”
New York
Times
, July 27, 2013.

101
. Paul C. Light,
The Tides of Reform: Making Government Work 1945–1995
(1997), 2.

102
. Erin Banco, “Cut Emissions? Congress Itself Keeps Burning a Dirtier Fuel,”
New York
Times
, August 9, 2013.

103
. Helene Cooper, “Administration Torn on Response to Secret Service Scandal,”
New
York Times
, April 22, 2012.

104
.
In re Aiken County
, No. 11–1271 (D.C. Cir., August 13, 2013).

105
. Charlie Savage & Scott Shane, “Top-Secret Court Castigated N.S.A. on Surveillance,”
New York Times
, August 22, 2013.

106
. Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense, “Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Defined,”
http://www.dodig.mil/resources/fraud/fraud_defined.html
.

107
. U.S. Government Accountability Office,
Improper Payments: Moving Forward with
Governmentwide Reduction Strategies
, February 7, 2012,
http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/588228.pdf
.

108
. Ibid.

109
. Danny Werfel, Office of Management and Budget, “Eliminating Billions in Payment Errors,”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/11/21/eliminating-billions-payment-errors
.

110
. U.S. Government Accountability Office,
High Risk Series: An Update
, February 2013,
http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/652133.pdf
; 268, table10.

111
. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice,
Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2012
, February 2013,
https://oig.hhs.gov/publications/docs/hcfac/hcfacreport2012.pdf
, 1.

112
. U.S. Government Accountability Office,
Program Integrity: Further Action Needed to Address Vulnerabilities in Medicaid and Medicare Programs
, June 7, 2012,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12–803T
.

113
. David Wood, “Pentagon Reports Billions of Dollars in Contractor Fraud,” February 3, 2011,
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/03/pentagon-admits-to-billions-of-dollars-in-contractor-fraud/
.

114
. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,
Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2008
(2008), 6.

115
. Ron Nixon, “Millions in U.S. Subsidies Go to Dead Farmers,”
New York Times
, July 31, 2013.

116
. Ron Nixon, “Fraud Used to Frame Farm Bill Debate,”
New York Times
, June 18, 2013.

117
. James Dao, “Veterans Pension Program Is Being Abused, Report Says,”
New York
Times
, June 6, 2012; James Dao, “Duplicate Payments Bedevil Veterans’ Pension System, Employees Say,”
New York Times
, September 23, 2012; Robert M. Morgenthau, “The Death of Peter Wielunski,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 24, 2012 (on mental health claims).

118
. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration,
There Are Billions of Dollars in Undetected Tax Refund Fraud Resulting From Identity Theft
,
http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2012reports/201242080fr.html
.

119
. For federal employees, see Light, “The Sequester Is an Overhaul Opportunity.” For federal contractors, see Nicola M. White, “Senators Call for Crackdown on Tax-Delinquent Federal Contractors,”
Tax Notes
, May 30, 2011, 928.

120
.
Eric Lipton, “Health Lobby Tries to Undo Dialysis Cuts,”
New York Times
, August 29, 2013.

121
. William K. Rashbaum, “600 Long Island Rail Road Retirees to Lose Disability Pay in U.S. Inquiry,”
New York Times
, July 2, 2013.

122
. See, e.g., Michele A. Fluornoy, “The Smart-Shopping Way to Cut the Defense Budget,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 8, 2013.

123
. Steven Kelman, “Remaking Federal Procurement,”
Public Contract Law Journal
31 (2002): 581–622; Flournoy, “The Smart-Shopping Way.”

CHAPTER 7: MARKETS

1
. Gretchen Morgenson & Robert Gebeloff, “Wall St. Exploits Ethanol Credits, and Prices Spike,”
New York Times
, September 15, 2013.

2
. This is recounted in John B. Taylor, “When Volcker Ruled,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 8–9, 2012 (book review).

3
. See, generally, Daniel Yergin,
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
(1991).

4
. See, e.g., Eduardo Porter, “A Model for Reducing Emissions,”
New York Times
, March 20, 2013.

5
. See Laura Meckler, “Candidates Spar on Whether Government Fosters Success,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 25, 2012.

6
. See, generally, Peter H. Schuck,
Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance
(2003), chaps. 1–2.

7
. See, generally, Albert O. Hirschman,
Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action
(1982).

8
. See, e.g., Jeff Madrick,
The Case for Big Government
(2008).

9
. The most recent example is Michael Sandel,
What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
(2012).

10
. For a general economic treatment of crowding out and crowding in in a variety of policy contexts, see Amihai Glazer & Lawrence S. Rothenberg,
Why Government Succeeds and Why It Fails
(2001).

11
. Dwight Jaffee & John M. Quigley,
The Future of the Government Sponsored Enterprises: The Role for Government in the U.S. Mortgage Market
, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 17685, December 2011.

12
. Ibid., 64–65.

13
. National Bureau of Economic Research, “Medicaid and the Long-Term Care Insurance Market,” July 2005,
http://www.nber.org/digest/jul05/w10989.html
(summarizing study by Jeffrey Brown and Amy Finkelstein).

14
. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
Public Program Crowd-Out of Private Coverage: What Are the Issues?
Research Synthesis Report 5 (June 2004), 11.

15
. Ibid.

16
. Robert Pear, “Online Health Law Sign-Up Is Delayed for Small Business,”
New York Times
, November 28, 2013.

17
. Arthur C. Brooks, “Philanthropy and the Non-Profit Sector,” in Peter H. Schuck & James Q. Wilson,
Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation
(2008), 547–48.

18
. Ibid. (chap. 18).

19
. For a historical exploration of these differences, see Marvin Olasky,
The Tragedy of American Compassion
(1992)

20
. Jason Richwine & Andrew Biggs,
Assessing the Compensation of Public School Teachers
,
November 1, 2011,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/10/assessing-the-compensation-of-public-school-teachers
.

21
. Robert Pear, “Despite Democrats’ Warnings, Private Medicare Plans Find Success,”
New York Times
, August 26, 2012.

22
. Benjamin Zycher, “Comparing Public and Private Health Insurance: Would a Single Payer System Save Enough to Cover the Uninsured?”
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mpr_05.htm
.

23
. James F. Blumstein, Mark Cohen, & Suman Seth, “Do Government Agencies Respond to Market Pressures? Evidence from Private Prisons,”
Virginia Journal of Social Policy & Law
15 (2008): 446–77.

24
. See, generally, Jon D. Michaels, “Privatization’s Pretensions,”
University of Chicago Law Review
77 (2010): 717–80.

25
. Jonathan Macey,
The Death of Corporate Reputation: How Integrity Has Been Destroyed on Wall Street
(2013).

26
. See, e.g., Robert C. Ellickson,
The Household: Informal Order around the Hearth
(2008); Lawrence Stone,
The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500–1800
(1977); and Michael Novak,
The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(1993).

27
. See, e.g., Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein,
It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism
(2012).

28
. See, e.g., Jonathan K. Nelson & Richard J. Zeckhauser,
The Patron’s Payoff: Conspicuous Commissions in Italian Renaissance Art
(2008).

29
. See, e.g., Bill McKibben,
The End of Nature
(2006).

30
. See, e.g., Michael Mandelbaum,
The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball, and What They See When They Do
(2005).

31
. See, e.g., Philip E. Tetlock,
Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?
(2005).

32
. Floyd Norris, “Strong and Fast but No Time to Think,”
New York Times
, August 3, 2012.

33
. Such speed has its downsides. See, e.g., Nathaniel Popper, “Flood of Errant Trades is a Black Eye for Wall Street,”
New York Times
, August 2, 2012. The “flash crash” of May 6, 2010, caused a drop of nearly $1 trillion. See Nelson D. Schwartz & Louise Story, “Surge of Computer Selling after Apparent Glitch Sends Stocks Tumbling,”
New York Times
, May 6, 2010.

34
. Glazer & Rothenberg,
Why Government Succeeds and Why It Fails
, chap. 1.

35
. Peter H. Schuck,
Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance
(2003), 323.

36
. Ibid., 324–31. For such critiques of antitrust enforcement, see, e.g., Robert H. Bork,
The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself
(1978). For critiques of civil rights enforcement, see, e.g., Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action
(1996).

37
. The classic account of this program is Jerry L. Mashaw,
Bureaucratic Justice: Managing Social Security Disability Claims
(1983).

38
. Milt Freudenheim, “The Ups and Downs of Electronic Medical Records,”
New York Times
, October 8, 2012.

39
. Reed Abelson & Julie Creswell, “In 2nd Look, Few Savings from Digital Care Records,”
New York Times
, January 11, 2013.