Retribution Before Results
he three R's that constitute the curriculum for the 106th Congress will certainly encompass the topic of improving the performance of government programs and agencies. That is good news for those who care about improving government operations. But it's not likely that "results" will rank highest on the curriculum; indeed it will almost certainly trail behind "retribution" and "reelection" in the run-up to the presidential election of 2000.
The 106th will build on the performance agenda pursued by Congress during the past two years. In the House especially, prominent members saw the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act as an opportunity to hold agencies accountable for the money they spend, to insist that they define and achieve measurable outcomes. In Capitol Hill parlance, GPRA became "the Results Act," and members and their staffs set about grading and ranking agencies on their implementation of GPRA. As agencies published their long-range strategic plans, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, assigned them grades (most got C's or D's). At the same time, lawmakers took unprecedented pains to spell out the results they expect for the money they spend. Performance provisions were written into 28 public laws and 78 committee reports, a Congressional Research Service study found
Heightened interest in the performance of agencies and programs is, therefore, one legacy the 105th Congress has left the 106th. But its most visible legacies are its fiercely partisan impeachment of a Demo- cratic President and its far-from-reform-minded propensity to lard federal agencies with unwanted pork barrel projects. Intoxicated by the aroma of a budget surplus, legislators wooed home-district constituencies with $18 billion worth of questionable transportation spending in May and broke the federal budget ceiling by $21 billion in the omnibus spending measure approved in October.
Such setbacks notwithstanding, the conscientious band of Hill reformers who march beneath the Results Act banner believe they're gaining ground against the forces of pork and inefficiency. By pressuring federal agencies to set performance goals, they argue, they are making it more obvious which programs work, which don't and which might be more appropriately consigned to states and localities or private entities.
The Results Act, in theory, also provides opportunities for federal managers to identify priorities and press Congress to allocate resources to functions likely to yield the most beneficial results. Some critics contend that governmental inefficiency has been compounded over the past decade by budget cuts that have been spread across the board, rather than targeted at the least worthy programs.
Correcting the problems of federal waste, duplication and mismanagement requires action along a two-way street that involves communication, cooperation and trust between the executive and legislative branches. Such qualities, however, are in thin supply in a city convulsed by partisan rancor over impeachment and already preoccupied with positioning for next year's presidential election.
On the government management front, in fact, strains began to appear two years ago. Under the leadership of Armey, broad-ranging teams of House committee staffers backed up by General Accounting Office analysts were assembled to evaluate the strategic plans submitted by departments and agencies. In November 1997, Armey announced that 18 of the 24 federal plans had flunked. Only two got so much as a C, with the remainder relegated to the C- to D- range.
The low grades were a far cry from the upbeat announcements about reinvention laboratories and Hammer awards generated by Vice President Al Gore's government reform initiative. Not surprisingly, a chill quickly developed in the relations between the House's Results Act monitors and Office of Management and Budget officials involved in the preparation of agency performance plans.
Looking ahead, Armey still has his multi-committee teams of reviewers in place and the House's designated new speaker, Dennis Hastert, has been a performance standards activist in the area of drug war legislation. The stage thus is set for a final dress rehearsal--the assessment of agency performance plans contained in this year's budget submission. The main event will come in 2000 when agencies will submit their first accounting of actual results achieved. One can hope, of course, that the congressional assessments of those reports will be conducted and received purely in the spirit of governmental efficiency and getting the biggest bang for the taxpayer's buck.
But don't bet on it; 2000 figures to be a particularly partisan and bitter presidential election year, in which Republicans will be fixated on getting back into the White House and Democrats will be itching simply to get even. And if Gore--the leader of the Clinton Administration's government reform initiative--is the Democratic presidential candidate, it's especially hard to imagine GOP congressional overseers handing out many accolades.
Reformers thus can expect very tough going in the atmosphere of mutual mistrust that currently envelops Washington.