Government Executive public administration expert Donald F. Kettl has recently come to the painful conclusion that the conservative Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership 2025 proposal on government reform is "a thoughtful but piercing critique of the existing civil service system."
The study begins with the fact that 74 percent of Americans today believe the national government performs poorly or merely fairly well, with only 23 percent saying it performs well or excellently.
Just as important, ever since the 1960s Great Society growth of government, polls have shown that Americans have been divided between preferring a larger government with more services or a smaller government with fewer services, the later more dominant since Reagan.
Even then only 44 percent wanted larger government, and 59 percent demanded major reform of that government, with 29 percent saying only some change was required and merely 6 percent saying not much reform of government was necessary.
Light combines both poll questions to estimate a four-part division of the population into categories he labels as "Expanders," those favoring bigger government and requiring only minor reform; "Rebuilders," those favoring large government but demanding major administrative reforms; "Streamliners," those favoring smaller government and fewer services but also demanding national reform; and "Dismantlers," those supporting major changes toward smaller government and questioning whether national reform of bureaucracy is even possible.
The Democrat base of support now finds big government expanders in second position at only 26 percent, while less pro-national government rebuilders were 42 percent of Democrats, making holding their core together much more difficult.
Objectively, presidents have not been able to fix big government; voters recognize this, and smaller government is popular.
https://spectator.org/left-right-and-center-agree-big-government-doesnt-work/
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