Whither National Planning

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John Hirten, AICP
Author Info

Abstract

Cities have plans and corporations have plans, but the U.S. Federal Government, collecting billions of dollars in taxes to spend on a population of over 250 million people, doesn't have a plan.

Introduction

It's time to reinvent and improve on a planning approach instituted in the 1930s for guiding our government's huge resources into a more organized, rational, and efficient process to guide and direct the use of federal funds and programs affecting this country's physical, social and economic future.

As I followed the 1996 national elections and listened carefully to President Clinton and presidential candidate Dole, and in fact to all of the other candidates who made some attempt to gain attention, I kept waiting for their "vision" or their "plan" for the future of our country. I didn't expect to hear or see a detailed plan, but I did hope for some statement which could become the framework for setting national goals and strategies to help guide the nation in its growth and inevitable change. I would have settled for a statement on how they might go about developing such a vision, or strategic plan, or a process for getting there, such as: President Roosevelt's "National Resources Planning Board," or Nixon's "Commission on National Growth," or even an announcement instituting an analytic procedure such as Kennedy's Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS).

Sad to say, I am still waiting. I heard much agonizing about the solvency of Social Security, balancing the budget, deficit reduction and the need for education and welfare reform. But no plan. Certainly, these issues are important and have serious implications for either a liberal or a conservative agenda. But it is all out of context-lots of rhetoric about needing to save money or to be compassionate, but little reference to what we are or are not capable of doing, or who should do it, or about the impact of one effort on the other.

Interestingly, my concern was reinforced when I read an article about the status of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR). According to their recently released report, ACIR studied more than 200 existing federal mandates. They did so, they said, because "American federalism no longer has clearly defined responsibilities for respective federal, state and local governments. One result of this lack of defined roles has been increased federal involvement in activities historically considered to be state and local affairs." This is the crux of the problem. We can't define what level of planning should be carried out at the national level, when no agreement exists on the various defined responsibilities for the three major levels of government.1

In their study, the ACIR considered several key questions regarding the respective mandates:

Ironically, the last question implies that there are generally agreed-upon national goals, which of course is not the case. Consequently, this becomes a particularly timely issue for discussion among planners. The President delivered his 1997 State of the Union address and still no comprehensive goals or overall plan of action. Meanwhile, proposals are being discussed in Congress for returning some or all responsibility to states for transportation, housing, social services, welfare and education programs. Recent discussion on whether to re-authorize the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, known as ISTEA, also includes "devolution," a term used to give back most of the money to the states. But what about the federal role in setting some national goals on how to spend that money or undertaking some form of national strategic planning as guidelines, no matter who does what? Even if we agree that the time has come to reduce or eliminate heavy-handed federal mandates, don't we still need some kind of planning at the federal level to coordinate state and regional activities in accordance with some agreed-upon national goals or objectives?

I presume, depending on one's background, special interest or political philosophy, there are different points of view of what planning at the federal level means. Traditional planners might expect some very detailed programs and policy interventions (now called mandates) by the federal government into state and local affairs. Others may take the position that the federal government should only focus on preserving natural resources-such as forests, rivers, lakes, coastlines, energy, etc. Others will advocate that national planning should describe how to set national goals. And, of course, there are many variations in between. One could even make the case that the federal mandates referred to in the ACIR report are, in fact, a form of planning. If so, then what is or should be the frame of reference for these mandates, and under what overall framework are they related?

In his book Toward a Planned Society2, Otis Graham suggested that, from a planner's point of view, national goals are expressed in a national growth policy. He pointed out that in his State-of-the-Union address, President Nixon made reference to the past 30 years of population growth and shifting mobility when he said, "There were serious problems in rural America and violent and decayed central cities in our great metropolitan complexes." Nixon proposed that before these problems became insoluble, the nation should develop a "national growth policy." Graham pointed out that this was the first major planning statement by a president since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

Graham hinted toward a definition of national planning when he said, "Planning assumes that modern industrial society requires public intervention to achieve national goals; assumes that such intervention must touch all fundamental social developments; must be goal-oriented, and effectively coordinated at the center; must be anticipatory rather than characterized by ad hoc solutions and timing dictated by crisis."

Is this a definition upon which we can build and begin to define what should be a national planning effort, and if so, what form might it take? Are we too far beyond that possibility? Have the politics at the national level become so entwined in personalities that we are not likely to see any effort toward national strategic planning? Or, on the other hand, is this moment of change and transition in the federal, state and local relationships an opportunity for the federal government to step back from mandates and petty interventions and instead try to establish some framework for setting agreed-upon national goals, objectives and policies?

What do you think?

If we agree that this is the time to act, where will the leadership come from? Presidents Roosevelt and Nixon assumed it must come from the White House. Otis Graham argued that liberal planning as explored by the New Deal generation had been revived and recast by many hands when the Democrats were led by Kennedy, Johnson and Humphrey. Graham pointed out that the New Dealers located a set of strategic points where the society and its direction might be influenced: not only the gross size of the economy, but natural resources including especially energy and land use, population distribution, manpower, public credit, science and technology, and incomes. This broad rediscovery of the planning idea was followed by a second vitally important development in the evolution toward planning, which took place during the presidency of Richard Nixon, when a conservative form of planning was vigorously and imaginatively explored.

Turning specific policies into national policy in these areas has been the unfinished work of both liberals and conservatives as the problems of social management became so acute in the mid-sixties. This is still true today. The President and Congress are certainly espousing policies and offering "feel good" speeches, but they lack any framework for the overall purpose and objectives of those policies within any broad or comprehensive planning concept for the nation's future.

I'm optimistic and believe that national strategic planning, or whatever we call it, is not an anathema. It could be well received by both liberal and conservative politicians and large segments of our society, if properly explained for what it is: an organized, rational, efficient process to give guidance and direction to the use of federal funds and programs affecting the country's physical, social and economic future. This guidance can come without the need to adopt heavy-handed mandates, which become bureaucratized and self-defeating. To achieve this, I believe that we need clearer statements of where we should be going as a nation and how to accommodate our population growth and the economic and physical growth that follows. Most importantly, we need a better rationale on how to spend our tax dollars in a more efficient and effective way to achieve agreed-upon goals.

Franklin Roosevelt's principal contribution to national planning was partial institutionalization of the process by providing a planning capacity in the executive branch and in establishing a central planning board to focus on manpower utilization, science and technology assessment, and economic and social accounting. Nixon in turn called for a National Growth Policy, with block grants and revenue sharing to help implement it. Now, Clinton calls for a bridge to the 21st Century, but what does it mean and how do we get there? This can be an opportunity for planner and politicians to assert ourselves in helping to answer these questions.

Footnotes

1 We use federal, state and local, but regional MPOs, COGs and special districts also need to be included.

2 Oxford University Press, 1966 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 75-10189