THE UNITED STATES IS CURRENTLY THE WORLD'S major Superpower from an economic, military, diplomatic, and cultural perspective. However, the United States needs to learn from history and address the major challenges of today and tomorrow if we want to stay great and stand the test of time. For example, the Roman Empire fell for many reasons, including decline in political civility and moral values, fiscal irresponsibility, an overextended military, and an inability to control its borders. Does this sound familiar?

While the United States is currently the longest-standing republic, its current political system is neither representative of nor responsive to the general public. Too many federal elected officials are “career politicians” who are ideologically to the right or left of the “sensible center.” In addition, they do not embrace the “problem-solver” mentality that comprises the majority of the American voting population. Current disgust with partisan politics and a lack of progress on a range of large, known, and growing public policy challenges (e.g., growing deficit and debt burdens, impending social insurance program insolvency, immigration reform, deteriorating infrastructure, health-care reform, climate change, and changing national security threats) has caused many Americans to be turned off and tuned out on the daily partisan political battles and current gridlock in DC.

The fact that Congress has passed timely budget and appropriations bills only four times in the past 45 years serves as clear and compelling evidence that Washington is broken and has been for a long time. Furthermore, the fact that over 40 percent of American voters, and growing, do not want to be identified with a particular political party serves to reinforce this disgust with the status quo. Clearly major budget, policy, and political reforms are needed to revitalize our republic, regain the trust of the American people, and restore our stewardship responsibility to current and future generations of Americans.

The authors of this book are well aware that major tax, spending, political, and other reforms will be necessary to create a better future for all Americans. They also understand that irrespective of the future role of governments at all levels they need to operate in a more future-focused, results-oriented, economical, efficient, effective, and sustainable manner. In order to do so, the federal government needs to place much greater focus on “value-based management.”

This book provides an extensive overview of value-based management and how it can be applied to improve performance and ensure accountability in government. It properly recognizes that effective leadership and management requires taking some risks to achieve needed innovation and change. However, those risks need to be well understood and properly managed to achieve and sustain the desired outcomes.

This book can be a valuable tool for government leaders and managers who want to “lead by example” in improving the performance and ensuring the accountability of government for the benefit of the American people. The time to do so is now!