The House Government Reform Committee is hunting "problem child" federal agencies this session, in an attempt to bring to light unresponsive and wasteful bureaucrats.
Last week, committee chairman Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., sent out a survey to fellow members of Congress, asking congressional staff who handle constituent services to rate the responsiveness of federal agencies on a scale of 1 to 10, "10 being the worst."
All Cabinet departments are listed, along with several independent agencies. Some bureaus within departments, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Interior Department and the Health Care Financing Administration at the Health and Human Services Department are also singled out.
"It is imperative that you add any other troublesome agencies that we have left out," the survey says.
Burton's letter accompanying the survey says the results will "permit us to categorize 'problem child' agencies and programs." The survey asks staff to determine whether constituents feel like agencies treat them as valued customers. Staff must indicate whether they think agency employees are the problem or agency guidelines on how to deal with concerns are the problem. Burton also asks those being surveyed to describe the three most outrageous experiences they can recall while dealing with agencies.
"Why are these agencies giving you problems?" the survey asks. "What makes them sub par?"
In addition to uncovering unresponsiveness, Burton plans to focus on waste, fraud and mismanagement in federal agencies. On Wednesday, the committee will hold a hearing to review federal programs on the General Accounting Office's high-risk list. Burton said the reappearance of the same programs on the high-risk list year after year shows that the committee must make oversight of fraud a priority this year.
"Management problems in just one program in the Department of Housing and Urban Development are costing the taxpayers $1 million a day! Fraud in the food stamp program is costing more than a billion dollars a year! Overpayments in the Medicare program are wasting $20 billion annually!" Burton wrote in his opening statement of the committee's organizational meeting last week. "We cannot let these problems drag on year after year."
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., has also pledged to focus on "wasteful Washington spending" this Congress.