Please after you complete reading the following article, answer the question on the end of the article:

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTS

Nothing less than an overhaul of the systems that implement federal policies will suffice

The crisis of governance in the U.S. goes deeper than political divisions and ideology. It also extends to policy implementation. Not only are Americans divided on what to do about health care, budget deficits, financial markets, climate change and more, but government is also failing to execute settled policies effectively. Management systems linking government, business and civil society need urgent repair.

The systems failures are legion and notorious. The 9/11 attacks might have been prevented if the FBI and intelligence agencies had cooperated more effectively in early 2001 when they received signals of a possible terrorist attack. Hurricane Katrina caused mass devastation and loss of life because recommendations to bolster the levees protecting New Orleans and other measures were neglected for decades and because the federal emergency relief effort failed after the storm. The U.S. occupation of Iraq has been marked by massive and shocking corruption, incompetence and implementation fiascoes.

Government regulatory agencies completely dropped the ball while overseeing the surge of dangerous financial instruments that underpinned the reckless lending that eventually burst in the Great Crash of 2008. Military procurement systems are, according to some experts, so broken that they now jeopardize national security: the U.S. is buying overpriced, unneeded and technically defective armaments. Our costly federal health care system subsidizes the overuse of technologies while underfinancing highly effective and lower-cost public health measures. Despite nearly a decade of planning, the government has failed to build and test even a single coal-fired power plant that captures and sequesters its carbon dioxide, even though such a project is vital for a move to a low-carbon economy. The list, alas, goes on and on.

We need a better scientific understanding of these pervasive systems failures. Other nations' governments more successfully manage infrastructure investments, health systems and environmental resources, apparently with greater flexibility, less corruption, lower costs and better outcomes. America should be learning from their experiences.

Several factors are at play. One has been the flawed privatization of public-sector regulatory functions. Wall Street firms hold excessive sway over government regulators, so that dangerous behavior has been unconstrained. Private insurance companies and health care providers block measures to curtail the overuse of costly technologies. Private military suppliers drive the procurement of unneeded weapons systems.

A second has been the collapse of planning functions within the federal government. A remarkable feature of the recent debates over climate change, energy systems, infrastructure rehabilitation and health care reform is the lack of detailed forward-looking government proposals. The Obama administration has stated general principles (very admirable ones) but too often without clear targets and the operational strategies to achieve them. Planning has been replaced by lobbying and backroom deals in Congress that are nearly opaque to the public.

A third, and paradoxical, factor is the chronic underfunding of government itself. It sounds like the old joke about the bad restaurant: that the food was lousy and there wasn't enough of it. The public is wary of putting more funds into government, yet without investing more in skilled public managers, we are probably doomed to remain stuck in the hands of vested interests and lobbies.

Fourth, today's challenges cut across specialties and institutional divisions. In health care and energy, for example, the private sector holds the key technologies, but only the public sector can finance R&D, regulate sustainable practices, and ensure access for the poor to resources and services. Public health must be addressed through curative medical care, nutrition, food systems and a safer man-made environment. Energy systems must respect both ecological and economic constraints. Yet government agencies are not designed to take an integrated approach.

Tinkering will no longer suffice: we need an overhaul of basic public management systems to regain control over regulatory processes, reduce lobbying, restore planning, adequately fund skilled managers and align those management systems with holistic strategies.

Correction

In "The Crisis of Public Management" [Sustainable Developments], Jeffrey D. Sachs complains that the U.S. government has failed to build a single coal-fired plant that captures and sequesters its carbon dioxide. One such facility does exist at the Shady Point coal power plant in Oklahoma, but it is not a government project.

The question is: Do you agree with the authors' assessment of the government actions? Why or why not? What alternatives should the U.S. have implemented to avoid the challenges they faced during those crisis?