Paul L. Posner is the Director of the Public Administration Program at George Mason University. He is the Chair of the Federal Systems Panel of the National Academy of Public Administration and Immediate Past President of the American Society for Public Administration.. He has authored numerous articles on budgeting and federalism and his book, the Politics of Unfunded Mandates received the award for best book on federalism from the American Political Science Association. Before his current position, he was with the GAO, serving as managing director for federal budgeting and intergovernmental management. He was responsible for GAO’s work on performance budgeting and has testified recently before several congressional committees on these issues.