Thank you for sharing that! I like your idea about talking to people within these orgs—I know that my sense of how things work has been really changed by actually seeing some of this firsthand.
I think another element to consider is what level of government we’re talking about. My sense is that the federal budget tends to be more politicized than many state and local-level budgets, and that with state and local budgets there’s more room for a discussion of “what is actually needed here in the community” vs. it becoming a straightforward red/blue issue (at least here in the states). I wonder if this means that, at least in some instances, interventions related to state and local-level would be more tractable than national ones. I’m reminded of the Zurich ballot initiative, for example.
Thank you for sharing that! I like your idea about talking to people within these orgs—I know that my sense of how things work has been really changed by actually seeing some of this firsthand.
I think another element to consider is what level of government we’re talking about. My sense is that the federal budget tends to be more politicized than many state and local-level budgets, and that with state and local budgets there’s more room for a discussion of “what is actually needed here in the community” vs. it becoming a straightforward red/blue issue (at least here in the states). I wonder if this means that, at least in some instances, interventions related to state and local-level would be more tractable than national ones. I’m reminded of the Zurich ballot initiative, for example.