Donald F. Kettl

1 month ago | governing.com | Carl Smith |Donald F. Kettl

One of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) first acts was to freeze funding for grants and contracts that had already been awarded to local governments. Local government officials are lobbying Congress to head off attacks on the tax-exempt status of most municipal debt, which would lead to an upheaval in how those governments build schools, roads and other essential infrastructure.

1 month ago | govexec.com | Donald F. Kettl

As we re-enter the theater, the curtain on Act 1 of The DOGE-acolypse has just fallen, following a shouting match between cabinet secretaries and the head of DOGEworld, Elon Musk. It was a surprising ending to an act of our play that began, just seven weeks ago, with a fevered debate about whether President Trump would be able to win Senate confirmation of cabinet nominees like Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as well as FBI Director Kash Patel.

1 month ago | governing.com | Donald F. Kettl |Zina Hutton

In 1969, President Nixon told the nation in his inaugural address that the country needed to transfer its wealth from war “to the urgent needs of our people at home.” That meant “decision-making must be returned to the regions and locales where the problems exist.” The elixir was combining programs into blocks and giving state and local officials far more power to decide where the money ought to go.

1 month ago | govexec.com | Donald F. Kettl

There are at least two things that everyone around the country agrees on: there’s waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government—and that we ought to do everything we can to root it out. And in rooting it out, there are two more things we can agree on. The war on unholy “waste, fraud, abuse” trio has been around for a very long time.

2 months ago | governing.com | Alan Greenblatt |Donald F. Kettl |Jared Brey |Carl Smith

Among those obstacles: public opinion, members of their own party in competitive districts, governors who worry about impacts to their state budgets, a closely divided Senate, and maybe one of the most formidable: hospitals and health care providers that carry significant influence in Washington. While House Republicans and some governors are coalescing around “work requirements” in Medicaid as a way to save money, more significant cuts — and more politically perilous ones — remain on the table.