ABSTRACT
Symptomatic of the problems of government hierarchy that have emerged was the plaintive cry of Congressman David R. Obey (D-WI), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, upon announcing his retirement in May 2010 from the U.S. House of Representatives after 40 years of service: “I hate to do it. There is so much that needs to be done. But frankly, I am bone tired” (quoted in Young and Giroux 2010, p. 1149). The congressman’s tenure, like that of other senior incumbents, witnessed an unprecedented decline of public trust in the federal government, rise of public debt, and proliferation of the governance problems that occasioned this volume. Public confidence in government’s ability to do great things dropped, too. In 1965, for instance, most Americans believed that the War on Poverty would “help wipe out poverty”; now, most believe that “poor people have become too dependent on government assistance” (Hetherington 2006). Yet the congressman wishes he could stay in Washington to do even more, obliviously unaware that his statement is not noble but ignoble.
