Mark Funkhouser

Recent Articles

• Five Reasons for Hope and Optimism
• Apr 16, 2012
• Amid all the gloom and doom, with our constant focus on what’s wrong, there are some hopeful things happening.
• 3 Comments

• Charles Dickens’ Fiscal Lessons for Government
• Apr 12, 2012
• Managing the taxpayers’ money wisely is about more than balancing the books. The daily lives of ordinary people are at stake.

• The Wastebusters that Government Needs
• Apr 9, 2012
• The scandal at the General Services Administration illustrates the value of inspectors general. Trust in government is at stake, so why are so many federal IG positions vacant?
• 3 Comments

• The Big Mistake that Unions Are Making
• Apr 5, 2012
• Accepting wage and benefit cuts to preserve jobs is bad for unions, and it’s bad for the rest of us.
• 3 Comments

• Public Pensions and the Infrastructure We Need
• Apr 2, 2012
• It's going to cost a lot of money to bring our infrastructure systems up to snuff. Public pensions could have a big role to play.
• 5 Comments

• A Competition for Ideas in Public Policy
• Mar 29, 2012
• An event coming up in Philadelphia promises to go a long way toward matching the challenges government faces with ideas coming out of some of the top schools of public policy.

• The Incalculable Things that Define Us
• Mar 26, 2012
• As we try to measure everything that moves, we need to remember that some of the most important things about us can’t be measured.

• Our Misguided Love Affair with Political Consensus
• Mar 22, 2012
• It’s the polarizers, not the consensus-seekers, who get the big things done.
• 2 Comments

• The Numbers that Tell the Real Story
• Mar 19, 2012
• We rely too much on aggregate data about our cities and states. It’s the differences among the numbers that are truly important.

• The Inherent Tensions of Regulation
• Mar 15, 2012
• None of us are angels. Government regulatory and inspection programs are a crucial way of making up for that.

• Bridges and the Inexorable Laws of Physics
• Mar 12, 2012
• Structurally deficient bridges will fall. The only question is when. We need to be thinking about risks like those, and about what to do about them.
• 4 Comments

• Collaboration and the Outcomes We Need
• Mar 8, 2012
• Competition in government service delivery is powerful, but it isn’t sufficient. The best leaders are recognizing that.
• 4 Comments

• How Not to Protect Kids from Sexual Assault
• Mar 5, 2012
• Only a few states have complied with a federal law requiring sex-offender registration and notification. The rest have good reasons for holding out.
• 8 Comments

• Getting the Fiscal Fundamentals Wrong
• Feb 29, 2012
• Stockton’s fiscal meltdown isn't the result of a dumb idea or corruption. That's why it’s particularly scary.
• 1 Comments

• The Once and Future City
• Dec 23, 2011
• The head of the Governing Institute found a couple of surprises when he looked at population trends in a number of U.S. cities. Populations in big and small cities are bouncing back.