Since the founding of the republic, America’s leaders have pondered the question of federalism and the proper divide between national and local government regarding such thorny matters as infrastructure, healthcare financing, and education. Michael Boskin, the Hoover Institution’s Wohlford Family Senior Fellow and former chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, discusses American Federalism Today: Perspectives on Political and Economic Governance, a newly released book he edited based on the findings from a November 2023 Hoover conference on federalism. Boskin explains the urgent need for policy reforms (government waste in particular), plus what makes for effective government commissions (Boskin chaired a federal commission on the Consumer Price Index in the mid-1990’s).