Vision without Execution Is Hallucination

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12239
• Author: Paul A. Volcker
• Date: 01 July 2014
• Published date: 01 July 2014

Perspective

Paul A. Volcker launched The Volcker

Alliance in 2013 to address the challenge

of effective execution of public policies

and to help rebuild trust in government.

In the course of his career, he worked in

the U.S. federal government for almost 30

years, culminating in two terms as chair

of the Board of Governors of the Federal

Reserve System. Upon leaving public service

in 1987, and again in 2003, he headed

private, nonpartisan National Commissions

on the Public Service.

E-mail: info@volckeralliance.org

Vision without Execution Is Hallucination 439

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 4, pp. 439–441. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12239.

Paul A. Volcker

The Volcker Alliance

Editor’s note: Paul A. Volcker contributed these

remarks on February 7, 2014, in Princeton,

New Jersey, as part of the “Good Governance”

lecture series of the Woodrow Wilson School

of Public and International Af‌f airs at Princeton

University.

These days I have been trying to avoid new

speaking engagements. But the simple fact is

Cecilia Rouse’s letter of invitation undermined

my defenses.

How could I resist participating in the Woodrow

Wilson School’s “Good Governance” lecture series?

Specif‌i cally, the purpose is to examine (and I quote)

“the current state of the United States governing bod-

ies—and whether they are meeting the needs of our

citizens.”

In that context, my speech can be both def‌i nitive and

exceedingly short.  e current state of our governance

bodies is poor. Quite simply, they are not meeting the

needs of our citizens.

Are there any questions?

If not, let me prime the pump.

Ef‌f ective governance has been a preoccupation of

mine for a long time. I have spent most of my work-

ing life in government. I’ve seen enough of it from the

inside to know something of the immense satisfac-

tions and inescapable frustrations of public service.

But beyond personal experience, I’ve never doubted

either the importance of ef‌f ective government or the

need for constant vigilance by our public leaders, by

our educational institutions, and by our citizens.

But today, those simple propositions seem questioned.

A certain sense of skepticism about government is—

and should be—part of our American experience. It

is, in fact, rooted in the checks and balances in our

constitution. But today, that healthy skepticism seems

to have settled into corrosive distrust. And there we

have a problem. No democracy—no government of

the people, by the people, for the people, in Abraham

Lincoln’s stirring words—can f‌l ourish, or even long

exist, if the people themselves have lost conf‌i dence in

our governing processes.

You can’t dismiss my concern by chalking it up to a

grumpy old man harking back to some presumably

glorious earlier days.  e evidence is all around us.

Virtually every poll tells the same story of disenchant-

ment, varying only in whether it is the Congress or

the president that ranks lowest in popular respect.

 ere is the often-cited poll repeated over the years

that asks one simple question: “Do you trust your

government to do the right thing most of the time?”

Doesn’t sound like an extraordinarily dif‌f‌i cult test—

but these days, the answer “yes” lies around 20 per-

cent.  e cynics among you may suggest 20 percent is

good enough for government work—but I have to tell

you it’s not evidence of a vibrant, healthy democracy.

Maybe you prefer a dif‌f erent kind of evidence bearing

upon our democratic processes. I’m told three out of

the four most af‌f‌l uent counties in the United States

are now those surrounding Washington, D.C., which

itself has become an island of great prosperity built

on the wealth of lobbyists, law f‌i rms, and government

contractors. I am told that today, 70 percent or so of

congressional staf‌f ers leaving those positions take jobs

as lobbyists, a multiple of the experience 20 years ago.

 e excesses of campaign f‌i nancing, the seeming

acceptability of gerrymandering, the passive pandering

to “one-issue” voters—I could go on and on. But the

relevant question is what to do about it.  at’s not a

question for me more than it is for you here at one of

America’s most prestigious educational institutions.

I know the Woodrow Wilson School, with its coun-

terparts at other great universities, is actively engaged

Vision without Execution Is Hallucination