1) Fed govt issues requirements for states to meet as they see best.
2) Minnesota does it best.
3) Federal government now tells the other 49 states they have to do it like Minnesota did it.
4) States respond: “But we are meeting the requirements you issued.”
5) Fed government: “Well, now the requirement is for you to do it like Minnesota.”

Of course if Minnesota has the best example of one program, then the feds, under the DNS model, should point this out and help other states do it this way as well. Perhaps there should be incentives to do it that way as well, such as bonus funds for exceeding the requirements, but they shouldn't force everyone to do it the exact same way. Otherwise, it's entirely DC-driven again, which is what the DNS model is supposed to stop.

To wit; wouldn't mandating your 'basic federal requiremsnts' also be a form of central government's intervention?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I read the DNS plan to be very fluid, with carrots and sticks interceding between mandatory requirenments and the laissez-faire of 'our inept government'.
Maybe reading a copy of Nudge would help, as well.

I wonder if Pat Buchanan would have dismissed the founding of the USA as 'just an ideological construct' and 'not rreal', if he'd been around at the time. His comments made me laugh.

It sounds like a good beginning for a good plan. If I'm not swooning, it's only because I've seen too many good ideas run up against insurmountable obstacles, and I've grown leery of new disappointments.

I especially like how the roles of central government and the members of the network are defined and interrelated.
It's really this final installment that explained the first two.

I'm still not sure how Goldwater fits in. I see him as the inspiration for the developtement of this current model, not as its prototype.

Pete, one thing that seems critical in your plan is that states, or other smaller-than-federal entities, aren't just laboratories and pilot studies. They are also the end state (pun intended). While it would be appropriate in your plan for the federal government to help other states implement the best practices that one state has learned (I feel like I'm in corporate America again! I'm going to go leverage something), they should not require it. To require that all states implement the best from one state is de facto centralization. A state should be free to offer a less than ideal solution as long as it continues to meet the basic federal requirements. This will at times allow one state's people to suffer with inept management, but, to paraphrase Ghandi, “at least it will be our inept management.”

That's why they'll resist it, Pete.

“No: Federalism and free-market enterprise are not the only answers. But they do offer instructive models, decent starting points, for the DNS approach and its proven benefits.”

Absolutely.

With centralization-decentralization contrast you might be able to find within our business world (which is far from 100% free enterprise) distinctions such as the way the Big Three used to be run and in many ways are still run (compounded by the obsolete UAW set of unrealistic expectations) as opposed to, say, Toyota, or, say, IBM versus Cisco. [wink]