Brookings: Projects - Management and Leadership Initiative

Implementing the Affordable Care Act: Organizational and Political Challenges

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

May 20, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

The Affordable Care Act is the single biggest domestic policy accomplishment of the Obama administration, but most Americans have yet to feel its impact, since many of the most far-reaching provisions do not take effect until 2014. Although the Supreme Court upheld the law, it continues to face political opposition and attempts to slow down its full implementation.

On May 20, the Management and Leadership Initiative at Brookings hosted a forum on the organizational challenges of implementing the Affordable Care Act in a difficult political environment. A panel of experts discussed obstacles such as building the state exchanges, expanding Medicaid, the role of the IRS, enforcing the individual mandate, the reaction from the small business community and the effect on premium prices.

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Implementing the Affordable Care Act: Organizational and Political Challenges

The Affordable Care Act: From Hiccups to Repeal

Elaine Kamarck — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:34:00 -0400

Note: On Monday, May 20, Elaine Kamarck, director of the Management and Leadership Initiative at Brookings, will moderate a public forum on "Implementing the Affordable Care Act: Organizational and Political Challenges."

It's been a long time since the federal government had to implement a large, new, federal program. Ten years ago we saw the implementation of Medicare Part D and the creation of a new cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. In each instance there were predictions of disaster and substantial growing pains. In the case of Medicare Part D implementation exceeded expectations and costs have not been nearly as high as feared. In the case of DHS, implementation was bumpier, nonetheless, ten years later both operate more or less smoothly and, in retrospect, the crisis now seems overblown.

This year, the Obama administration needs to finalize implementation of the Affordable Care Act—a historic piece of legislation and the most significant domestic policy achievement of the Obama administration to date. And the question of how it goes is front and center. Even the president has admitted that there will be “hiccups” along the way. Compared to earlier pieces of health care legislation, the ACA is incredibly complex, involving activity by fifty states, the jurisdiction of fifty state insurance regulators and changes in the entire health care industry. Added to the inherent complexity of the bill is the fact that it had no Republican support and is still adamantly opposed by the Republican party and by half of all those polled.

So the question is: how bad will it be? Imagine a continuum that goes from “hiccup” on one end to repeal on the other end. With plenty of points in the middle. What would that look like?

The hiccup scenario is the most optimistic. Hiccups are more or less normal. If the implementation is successful, the exchanges will be up and running. There will be glitches. Some people who qualify won’t get their subsidies; some who don’t will. The number of companies on the exchanges won’t be as big as hoped for but will grow. Premiums for health care will rise only modestly and the enhanced services in the new health care plans will make most people okay with the price increase.

The delay scenario is not really good nor is it fatal. A less successful outcome is one where the feds and states find they have to pull back from key provisions in the bill at least for a while. There may be delays in opening exchanges which would necessitate delays in enforcing the mandate that everyone buy insurance. The federal hub may not be able to interface with statewide data and eligibility could become a lengthy bureaucratic process. HHS might adopt a generous waiver policy while states work out their systems. Premiums may rise, leading to complaints from the public but no substantial drops in insurance buying.

The repeal scenario is fatal. Obviously Republicans, especially in the House, are rooting for this one. In fact they seem to like taking the repeal vote so much that they’ve done it 37 times in the past three years. So the question is: what would it take to move support for repeal beyond the Republican base? In 1989 Congress repealed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act a short sixteen months after it was passed. Why? It increased costs to seniors and offered them things that they didn’t want. In the context of ACA the repeal scenario is feasible if premium prices rise so high that people who don’t qualify for subsidies (there are more of them than those who do) decide that they really don’t want the enhanced packages envisioned in the law and then get really mad and let their representatives know it.

Where will we end up? Stay tuned.

Authors

Elaine Kamarck

Image Source: © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Simpler: The Future of Government

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 5, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

In his new book, Simpler: The Future of Government (Simon & Schuster, 2013), bestselling author and academic Cass Sunstein shares his lessons as head of the “most powerful White House office you’ve never heard of.” As administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein worked with others to initiate a program of simple, data-driven regulation designed to increase efficiency and flexibility of government. In Simpler, he illustrates how simplifying regulation saves money, improves health and lengthens lives—and why this is just the beginning.

On April 5, Governance Studies at Brookings, as part of the Management and Leadership Initiative, hosted a book launch for Simpler: The Future of Government to discuss the streamlining and reimagination of American regulation and rule-making. Moderated by Senior Fellow Elaine Kamarck, Sunstein offered key insights from his book and how to rethink what government can and should accomplish.

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Cass Sunstein Previews New Book, Simpler: The Future of Government

Policy Leadership and the Blame Trap: Seven Strategies for Avoiding Policy Stalemate

R. Kent Weaver — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor’s Note: This paper is part of the Governance Studies Management and Leadership Initiative.

Negative messages about political opponents increasingly dominate not just election campaigns in the United States, but the policymaking process as well. And politics dominated by negative messaging (also known as blame-generating) tends to result in policy stalemate. Negative messaging is attractive to politicians because people tend to pay more attention to negative information than positive information, and they are more sensitive to losses than equivalent gains. Political polarization, competitive, nationalized elections, increased fiscal stress and changes in campaign law and practice have all exacerbated pressures to engage in negative messaging in recent years. There are a number of strategies that allow politicians to maneuver around the “blame trap” and avoid policy deadlock in some circumstances, including passing the buck to non-elected bodies and putting in place triggering mechanisms that generate politically unpopular policy changes in the future. All of these strategies have limitations and disadvantages, however, so both blame-generating politics and policy stalemate are likely to be the “new normal” in American politics in the near future.

There are several strategic options for avoiding policy stalemate in a political environment dominated by negative messaging. Each of these options has distinctive advantages and limitations, and risks. None is suitable for all situations, but together they offer some important opportunities to avoid policy stalemate.

Passing the Buck: A first strategy that politicians can use to try to avoid the blame trap is to pass the buck to non-elected bodies—often temporary commissions—to reach deals behind closed doors without the pressure of staking out and defending partisan and ideological positions.
Grand Deals and Circling the Wagons: A related strategy to passing the buck is for Democratic and Republican leaders to negotiate behind closed doors to try to strike a grand deal on an issue like budgets and taxes or immigration, which they then sell jointly to the public and to rank-and-file legislators (“circling the wagons”) as the best deal that is achievable—and better than no deal at all.
Government by Autopilot: Another strategy for making difficult decisions is to set up a procedure under which reaching some trigger (e.g., deficit levels, or Social Security deficits) leads automatically to programmatic adjustments according to a formula set up in the original legislation unless Congress agrees to overturn it.
Feet to the Fire: This strategy starts with the same mechanism as policy by auto-pilot: policymakers set up an automatic mechanism that will trigger politically painful policy changes without politicians themselves pulling the trigger.
Experiment: On some policy issues where parties are divided, it may be possible to try out different approaches to policy before making a firm choice at the national level. This can be done in several different ways. One is to give more authority to states and localities to experiment with new policy options rather than having a uniform national policy.
Executive Action: If a hyper-partisan and divided Congress is unable to break policy stalemates, what about executive action as an alternative? There certainly are some opportunities for breaking stalemate through executive action, as President Obama showed in June 2012 when he suspended deportation of young illegal immigrants who had entered the country illegally.
Compromise: A final strategy for overcoming the blame trap is the oldest and simplest one: politicians can split the difference with their partisan foes and meet them halfway.

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R. Kent Weaver

The State of Homeland Security Address with Secretary Janet Napolitano

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:00:00 -0500

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February 26, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001 to protect the nation against another terrorist attack. The approach of DHS’ tenth anniversary provides an opportunity to assess its progress, and discuss how America’s homeland security environment has changed over the decade. How has the department responded to evolving threats, both international and domestic? How has DHS addressed emergency response efforts since Hurricane Katrina? How does DHS work with its domestic and international partners, including state and local law enforcement, to achieve shared security goals?

On February 26, as part of the Management and Leadership Initiative at Brookings, Governance Studies hosted a keynote address by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. Following her remarks, Senior Fellow Elaine Kamarck moderated a brief discussion with the audience.

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The State of Homeland Security Address with Secretary Janet Napolitano

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New Additions to Governance Studies at Brookings

Darrell M. West — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:30:00 -0500

New Additions to Governance Studies: Elaine C. Kamarck Joins as Senior Fellow and Director of The Management and Leadership Initiative at Brookings; Cass R. Sunstein and Douglas H. Shulman Join as Visiting Scholars.

I am immensely pleased to announce three exceptional new additions to the Governance Studies Program at Brookings: Elaine Kamarck, Cass Sunstein and Douglas Shulman.

Across a variety of research disciplines, including government management, tax reform and implementation, constitutional and administrative law, behavioral economics, and federal budgeting, Elaine, Cass and Doug bring unparalleled expertise and insight that will further Governance Studies’ goal of delivering cutting-edge research and policy solutions to improve the performance of our national government.

A bit more about our newest scholars:

Elaine joins us from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where she spent 15 years teaching government management and American politics, and she will be heading up our newest focused effort, The Management and Leadership Initiative at Brookings. Elaine is a widely recognized expert on government innovation and reform in the United States, OECD countries and developing countries. In addition, she focuses her research on the presidential nomination system and American politics and has worked in many American presidential campaigns. In the 1980s, she helped to found the “New Democrat” movement that vaulted Bill Clinton to the presidency. As a senior staffer in the White House, she created the National Performance Review, the largest government reform effort in the last half of the twentieth century. Her most recent books include Primary Politics: How Presidential Candidates Have Shaped the Modern Nominating System and The End of Government As we Know it: Making Public Policy Work. Her forthcoming book will focus on American politics and public policy and is called How Change Happens: Understanding Success and Failure in Modern American Politics.

Cass most recently served as the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and currently is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. While now based at Harvard, Sunstein also plans to participate in research projects and events at Brookings. He has authored a number of highly influential books including Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2008), Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (2005), Worst-Case Scenarios (2001) Deliberative Trouble? Why Groups Go to Extremes (2000) and Republic.com (2001). His next book Simpler: The Future of Government will be released in April 2013. Sunstein began his career in 1978 as a clerk for Justice Benjamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and then later for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude. For over two decades, he taught at the University of Chicago Law School.

Douglas most recently was the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. During his tenure, the IRS played a major role in the nation’s economic recovery efforts by delivering about $300 billion—or 40% of the money of the Recovery Act—through the tax system. He was also intimately involved in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and transformed the IRS’ use of data analytics to drive improvements in compliance and customer service. Under his leadership, the IRS also put in place $1 billion in budget cuts and annual operating efficiencies and reached the highest levels in the IRS’s history in its key customer service metric, the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Doug also launched and completed a major modernization of IRS’s core technology, allowing the IRS to process tax returns on a daily cycle. He came to the IRS from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, previously NASD), where he served as Vice Chairman and, before that, President of Markets, Services & Information.

We look forward to sharing with you these scholars’ forthcoming research and commentary, as well as showing you how their work is positively impacting U.S. domestic policy.

Authors

Darrell M. West

Reflections on President Obama’s Inaugural Address, His Second Term and Presidential Leadership Style

Elaine Kamarck — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:00:00 -0500

The parades and the parties are over. As the nation’s capitol returns to the routines of governance, everyone wants to know – how will President Obama change in his second term? Will he be a different leader? A better leader?

Presidential leadership exists in a special, charmed section of the universe where substance and style intersect. It’s no secret that Obama’s first term leadership drove both his friends and his enemies to distraction on both counts. From time to time, the left wing of the Democratic Party was beside itself, convinced that what they were getting was Clintonism without the love. And from time to time, the centrists in the party were convinced that he was an old fashioned liberal in high-tech clothing. Among his enemies, especially on Capitol Hill, his detachment from the intimate, personal, in-your-face persuasion of politics made it easy for them to demonize him as some kind of alien elitist whose existence was dangerous to the Republic.

In terms of style, the President’s second term promises to be much better but not because the President himself has changed. In spite of President Lincoln’s recent adulation (Obama took the oath of office on Lincoln’s Inaugural Bible), Obama is not likely to lead a team of rivals, cutting one deal after another with members of the opposite party in order to pass legislation. Then again, he doesn’t really have to. Obama has discovered, perhaps belatedly, that his very own Vice President can cut these deals in a way that Obama himself cannot or will not. For the third time in Obama’s Presidency, Vice President Biden was able to cut a deal on fiscal issues with the Republicans when everyone else in the Administration had failed. No wonder the Economist called Biden “the McConnell Whisperer” for his ability to succeed with the Republican leaders when all others have failed.

In terms of substance, however, Obama’s second term faces a variation of the same problem. To understand why, let’s take a small step back. It is very difficult to figure out what elections actually mean. Political scientists have studied the issue to death and concluded that, in general, it’s near impossible to draw policy conclusions from an election. From time to time, the chattering class comes to a consensus on what “the mandate” is, but usually the most important interpretation of an election is the one that exists in the mind of the President himself.

Looking back at Obama’s first Inaugural Address gives us some insight into the mandate in his head back then. That address reveals that President Obama thought he won because he was so clearly not George Bush. At regular intervals, he reminded America of the economic mess he had inherited: “our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility…without a watchful eye the market can spin out of control.” He also reminded America of the two wars he had inherited: “earlier generations… understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.” In 2008, not being Bush was enough to win the election, but it wasn’t enough to govern. To be fair, it wasn’t all Obama’s fault. The economic crisis hit so hard and so late in the campaign that there was no time for the creation of a response equal to the problem. But once in office Obama and his team mis-judged the depth and severity of the crisis. They spent all their energy on health care – an issue that was orthogonal to a country reeling from a housing and unemployment crisis. By the end of that battle, the President didn’t have the political capital left to tackle climate change, immigration or the need for more stimulus. In 2010 he lost the House, thus limiting his options even more.

This time around, even though Obama won a smaller percentage of the electorate than he did in 2008, he seems to have a little more clarity about where to go. Much of the President’s speech yesterday was a tribute to the millennial generation, which has elected him twice now. Millennials identify with the call to collective action—a touchstone of Obama’s speech—and this generation’s acceptance of gay marriage is largely responsible for the President’s most overt endorsement yet. Immigration reform and support for taxing the wealthy were the two other clear mandates to emerge from the electorate and will provide a guide to action in the second term.

But the President’s speech was light on the economic problem meaning that his biggest challenge will be to not repeat the mistakes of the first term by underestimating the pain and suffering of the recession. He can’t assume that just because we’re moving in the right direction, attention can be turned to other issues—worthy as they may be. In the middle of yesterday’s speech he talked about how “America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.” That was his sole shout-out for the large swath of Americans that has been devastated by this recession. While a robust debate about the economy has begun, the fact is that the restoration of economic growth in Obama’s second term will be the key factor in cementing his coalition going forward. Slow economic growth nearly did in Obama’s presidency; taking his eye off that ball could do in his legacy. It deserved more than one line.

Authors

Elaine Kamarck

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Challenges Facing President Obama During His Second Administration

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:00:00 -0500

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November 28, 2012
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

At the outset of a new administration, every president, whether incumbent or newly elected, faces management challenges unique to the executive branch: selecting and confirming staff, Cabinet members, and agency heads; establishing or renewing relations with Congress; and defining and then acting on an agenda. Newly reelected President Obama is no exception and faces any number of obstacles in his second term. What are the specific impediments to his success, and what might he do both as a leader and as head of the executive branch to move his second term agenda forward? Given that Republicans maintain control of the House and Democrats only have a slight edge in the Senate, what can be done to ensure executive branch effectiveness amid the continued challenges of divided government? What can a president hope to accomplish in an era of hyper-partisanship?

On November 28, Governance Studies at Brookings, as part of its Management and Leadership Initiative, hosted a forum on the various executive branch challenges facing the Obama administration in its second term. Discussion also centered on what defines presidential leadership, and how its manifestations reveal useful lessons for President Obama as he tackles a vast array of difficulties in his next term.

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Ten Leadership Lessons from Simpson-Bowles

Darrell M. West and Ashley Gabriele — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

It was January 2010 and the Senate was locked in a sharp debate about the country’s debt and deficit crisis. Unable to agree on a course of action, some Senators proposed the creation of a fiscal commission that would send Congress a proposal to address the problem with no possibility of amendments.

The bill failed but President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. It was chaired by former Senator Alan Simpson and former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles. With the national debt then totaling around $13.56 trillion and federal budget deficit running over $1 trillion each year, the members’ task was to produce a report recommending budget steps that would address long-term fiscal issues. Following months of meetings, 11 of the members signed onto a report recommending that the federal government take dramatic action. However, that number was short of the super-majority requirement of 14 votes necessary to send the package to Congress for an up or down vote.

Despite the political inaction, the Simpson-Bowles Commission report remains one of the most credible debt/deficit reduction plans on the table. It proposed an initiative that reduced the deficit by $4 trillion through 2020, reformed the tax code by ending a number of tax loopholes, cut tax rates and capped revenue at 21 percent of Gross Domestic Product, and suggested changes designed to contain health care costs, stabilize the debt, and reform the budget process.

In this report, we review the fiscal leadership lessons that emerged from this effort and what it tells us about future debt reduction activities. We interviewed principals of the Fiscal Commission and compiled documentary evidence, media interviews, budget information, and background materials on fiscal leadership. Based on this information, we developed a list of fiscal leadership lessons relevant for future budget action. We emphasize the importance of ending the fantasy that there are easy solutions, focusing on facts, understanding that compromise is not a dirty word, respecting that Democrats and Republicans have credibility in different fiscal areas, and valuing personal relationships among political leaders.

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Authors

Darrell M. West
Ashley Gabriele

Image Source: © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Do Performance Reforms Change How Federal Managers Manage?

Donald Moynihan and Stéphane Lavertu — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:22:00 -0400

Policymakers on both sides of the aisle say they want government programs to perform better. A central strategy to achieve that goal at the federal level has been the creation of a performance management system, the latest iteration of which was shaped by the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010. This system promotes the collection of information on the performance of federal programs. The expectation is that agency personnel will use this information when managing federal programs, but do such reforms actually make a difference? To address this question, we look at the impact of past reforms: the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 and the Bush administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). Both reforms established new routines intended to encourage federal agency personnel to take a performance-oriented approach in managing their programs.

Using data from two surveys, we found that the involvement of federal managers with GPRA processes and PART reviews generally had little direct effect on purposeful performance information use, i.e., using data to improve management and allocation decisions. These reforms were more strongly associated with passive use, i.e. using measures to further modify goals and measures in accordance with the procedural requirements of the law.

The findings reflect the limits of government-wide reform efforts that depend upon bureaucratic behavior that is difficult for reformers to control and observe. But the findings also offer some insight for the implementation of the Modernization Act.

The Act has sought to institutionalize leadership commitment to performance by requiring leaders to publicly commit to a handful of high-priority goals. Our findings support this approach, as we find that perceived leadership commitment is associated with higher performance information use.

We found that the existence of a dialogue between employees about performance was associated with performance information use. If such dialogues can be institutionalized through the quarterly reviews of performance goals required by the Modernization Act, this will facilitate greater use.

Our results suggest that quarterly reviews can also play an instrumental role in fostering performance information use if such reviews focus on the motivational nature of the task (“why are these goals important?”) and developing actionable knowledge (“what do the measures tell us about how to manage?”).

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Donald Moynihan
Stéphane Lavertu

What the Presidential Campaigns Reveal about Obama's and Romney’s Leadership Styles

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

October 3, 2012
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

A presidential candidate’s campaign conduct offers insight into that individual’s leadership style and approach toward governance. What does the 2012 presidential campaign illuminate about President Obama and Governor Romney as leaders, and what do their campaigns say about how they will govern? What can the American public infer about their future administrations based on how they have run their campaigns and conducted themselves on the trail?

On October 3, Governance Studies at Brookings held a discussion on the 2012 presidential campaign and what President Obama's and Governor Romney’s campaigns reveal about each man’s leadership and management philosophies. Moderated by Brookings Vice President Darrell West, a panel of experts, including Distinguished Fellow, former 2012 Republican presidential candidate and Former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and former U.S. Representative Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), discussed how the 2012 campaigns act as lenses through which one can assess President Obama and Governor Romney as leaders. This event was part of the Governance Studies leadership and management initiative. After the program, speakers took audience questions.

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Cut Off at the Pass: The Limits of Leadership in the 21st Century

Barbara Kellerman — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

America has a leadership deficit, argues Barbara Kellerman in a new paper that examines the current state of leadership in the United States. Surveying leadership’s genesis and its role as a compelling, powerful concept through history, Kelllerman asserts that our current understanding of leadership and fixation on leadership development is badly misplaced. As leaders in the Boomer generation give way to Gen Xers and Gen Yers , the established leader-centric model, with the leader at the helm controlling the action, no longer holds – it’s passé, obsolete in today’s modern, bottom-up world, states Kellerman.

Corporate America is not immune from this leadership deficit, Kelleerman observes, and is impacted by the idea that leaders (and managers) must be more democratic and less autocratic, and that some stakeholders should be treated more equitably in the workplace (employees), while others should have more of a say in corporate governance (shareholders).

Kellerman offers a different paradigm of how to view leadership in the 21st century and uses a visual model: imagine an equilateral triangle, with the leader, the followers, and the context each constituting a single, pointedly equal, side. She urges America to increase civic engagement of ordinary citizens to help leadership thrive again.

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Cut Off at the Pass: The Limits of Leadership in the 21st Century

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Barbara Kellerman

Image Source: Brian Snyder / Reuters

Improving the Presidential Transition Process

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 09:00:00 -0400

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August 2, 2012
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

Every new president must fill approximately 3,000 positions in the federal government during the transition from one administration to the next. Vital to running the government, these positions ensure the chief executive has his “A team” on the field. Recently, it has been very difficult for new presidents to navigate the transition and put the government in a position to execute its policy vision. A number of the most important positions, including the cabinet chiefs, deputy secretaries, and under secretaries, require Senate confirmation. What obstacles does a president face after the election? What can be done to ease this process and ensure a smooth transition?

On August 2, Governance Studies at Brookings hosted a forum on the presidential transition and appointee confirmation process. A panel of experts evaluated the challenges a president faces before entering the White House and policies that could ease this process.

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