What is needed is a system that gauges success by measurable, customer-defined outputs (which are not necessarily, or even usually, the most easily quantified measures of output). Such a gauge is impossible without a public dialogue on the outputs of government. To that end, it is crucial that Americans cease to see government and politics as a spectator sport. Politics, which should be about governance, is increasingly about winning or losing. It is a kind of national circus, which distracts public attention from our society's mounting failure to provide bread for all its citizens. Politics in our system should be a deliberative process—a national dialogue that seeks consensus and focuses on resolving differences on the basis of principle rather than power. Such a national dialogue would frame the coherent decision-making process needed to inform the operational reforms suggested above.