June 2024 - Building the Government We Need - A Framework for

From 2021 to 2023, he served in the Biden administration in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget as senior counselor and associate administrator (delegated the duties of the administrator). [...] Focusing on corporate and public power, labor and wages, and the economics of race and gender inequality, the Roosevelt Institute unifies experts, invests in young leaders, and advances progressive policies that bring the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt into the 21st century. [...] Thus, the continued investment in institutions of mass incarceration, such as racialized surveillance of immigrant communities and communities of color represent state capacities fundamentally in tension with deeper ideals of democracy and equity—and part of the solution for these problems might require the dismantling of some forms of otherwise arbitrary and under-accountable forms of state power. [...] This, in turn, points to the need to address state capacity and incapacity in two arenas: internal to the state bureaucracy itself—for example, by examining expertise, personnel, protocols, procedures, and the like—and external to the bureaucracy—for example, by examining the political conditions that enable or frustrate the ability to formulate policy and generate sufficient legitimacy and consen. [...] Implications: Building the State We Need This framework—in particular, disaggregating state capacity into the formulation of policy and its implementation, and separating out the internal and external drivers of capacity—has important implications for how we can build a more effective, higher-capacity state capable of addressing the needs of a complex and diverse democracy.