On point (4) -- if I were going to redesign the US government from scratch, I would make our system more Parliamentary, with a proportional election system from multi-member districts, a significantly larger legislative body (maybe something like 5000 members, which would have each Congressmember representing somewhere in the neighborhood of ~65k people, comparable to the mayor of a smallish city), then have the body elect from within itself an Executive Board of perhaps 100, which would be the only people doing debate in full assembly. You'd have at least one EBoard member on / chairing each of the major Committees. But I'd have many, MANY topically-focused Subcommittees. These Subcommittees are what's relevant to your point here. Every agency could be in regular touch with the 10-20 members of Congress charged with overseeing their work, and helping to adjust the law to enable it. They'd normally report issues up through their parent Committee, but could be empowered, by some super-majority vote, to forward an urgent request for a change of law / policy directly to the EBoard. The expectation would be that the EBoard would in most cases review the factual record developed by the conversation of the committee with agency personnel and other outside subject-matter experts, and sign off on their recommendations.
The question is how, absent a Constitutional Convention and complete overhaul of the government, we get from where we are to something at least _like_ that, where there's closed-loop collaboration between the legislature maintaining democratic accountability, and the agencies attempting to meet the goals they've been asked to meet, and reporting back to the legislature on what's hindering their progress toward those goals, or even sometimes "these are questionable goals that may have unintended consequences, do you want to reconsider?" Right now it seems like everyone is just trying to pass the buck (see: The Unaccountability Machine). The Republicans in particular seem far more interested in having problems to yell about, than solutions to those problems which, when tested out, could fail or even fall short of expectations. (See: the bipartisan immigration bill this past year.)
When I was still working in the biopharma industry, the Food and Drug Administration was in dire shape. They lacked the resources to meet the statutory time frame for new drug reviews and the IT system required improvement. In 1992, then Commission David Kessler approached industry and pledged that in return for user fees to support increased personnel, FDA would commit to timely actions on reviews. The User Fee Act was approved and subsequently reauthorized every five years with tweaks to the performance goals. I was on the original negotiating team on behalf of the industry and the subsequent reauthorizations until I retired in 2010.
The underlying laws and regulations remained unchanged and companies still had to demonstrate safety and effectiveness. However, uncertainty about product review time was no longer an issue. Though there have been "complaints" about the FDA being in the pocket of industry because of this program, the truth is far different. There is and has been no compromise of standards. In this specific example, government works.
On point (4) -- if I were going to redesign the US government from scratch, I would make our system more Parliamentary, with a proportional election system from multi-member districts, a significantly larger legislative body (maybe something like 5000 members, which would have each Congressmember representing somewhere in the neighborhood of ~65k people, comparable to the mayor of a smallish city), then have the body elect from within itself an Executive Board of perhaps 100, which would be the only people doing debate in full assembly. You'd have at least one EBoard member on / chairing each of the major Committees. But I'd have many, MANY topically-focused Subcommittees. These Subcommittees are what's relevant to your point here. Every agency could be in regular touch with the 10-20 members of Congress charged with overseeing their work, and helping to adjust the law to enable it. They'd normally report issues up through their parent Committee, but could be empowered, by some super-majority vote, to forward an urgent request for a change of law / policy directly to the EBoard. The expectation would be that the EBoard would in most cases review the factual record developed by the conversation of the committee with agency personnel and other outside subject-matter experts, and sign off on their recommendations.
I love it!
The question is how, absent a Constitutional Convention and complete overhaul of the government, we get from where we are to something at least _like_ that, where there's closed-loop collaboration between the legislature maintaining democratic accountability, and the agencies attempting to meet the goals they've been asked to meet, and reporting back to the legislature on what's hindering their progress toward those goals, or even sometimes "these are questionable goals that may have unintended consequences, do you want to reconsider?" Right now it seems like everyone is just trying to pass the buck (see: The Unaccountability Machine). The Republicans in particular seem far more interested in having problems to yell about, than solutions to those problems which, when tested out, could fail or even fall short of expectations. (See: the bipartisan immigration bill this past year.)
When I was still working in the biopharma industry, the Food and Drug Administration was in dire shape. They lacked the resources to meet the statutory time frame for new drug reviews and the IT system required improvement. In 1992, then Commission David Kessler approached industry and pledged that in return for user fees to support increased personnel, FDA would commit to timely actions on reviews. The User Fee Act was approved and subsequently reauthorized every five years with tweaks to the performance goals. I was on the original negotiating team on behalf of the industry and the subsequent reauthorizations until I retired in 2010.
The underlying laws and regulations remained unchanged and companies still had to demonstrate safety and effectiveness. However, uncertainty about product review time was no longer an issue. Though there have been "complaints" about the FDA being in the pocket of industry because of this program, the truth is far different. There is and has been no compromise of standards. In this specific example, government works.