The legal questions here are above my pay grade, but I'm sure a lot of good could be done here at little cost. And surely there'd be an easy bipartisan vote at the end of the road, should these changes require legislation.
Absolutely--we're in a competitive, status-driven culture, and like it or not, it gets some pretty good results sometimes. Rewarding innovation in government is essential b/c there aren't the same market signals (profit, loss) to guide us toward replicating the best practices (and discarding the worst).
I like the emphasis on integration; there are too many separate, disconnected projects in participation dotting the landscape. There could be great efficiencies--and better programs on average--if we integrated many of these offices and projects.
I think we're at the point where this really is do-able. The key to this proposal is the links between small and large scales, and there have been good experiments in doing this with online, teleconferenced, and even face-to-face groups. One million people is not beyond reach. Good proposal.
One could come up with any number of lists of core principles (and I've seen plenty), but these strike me as quite reasonable and relatively comprehensive. I recognize that they came out of discussions of many people, so it's no surprise that they resonate with the best principles and practices in public deliberation and dialogue. Good job.