Overlooking Management

Let's face it, the music of management reform inspires few lawmakers to kick up their heels and dance a jig. The nitty-gritty of improving program performance isn't a sexy topic that inspires campaign anthems. Nor is it a subject that -in this day of divided government -engenders bipartisan cooperation.

Perhaps most off-putting of all is the perception that the bureaucracy is fundamentally resistant to change. Rep. Steve Horn, R-Calif., a Capitol Hill exception who insists on tilting against the windmill of managerial inefficiency, recently observed that the past 60 years have seen countless reform attempts -including three major presidential commissions. But, he says, "nearly all have failed to control the government's unwieldy and overlapping functions."

Horn believes it would help to cleave the Office of Management and Budget in half and thus create a free-standing Office of Management within the Executive Office of the President. The House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, which Horn chairs, is drafting legislation to that effect. His proposal, however, is not deemed likely to get far in the absence of White House
endorsement.

Congress members, for the most part, waste little time checking up on how -or whether -the programs they have created are working. Requirements to periodically rewrite and renew authorizing legislation for the discretionary programs that constitute roughly a third of the budget are routinely ignored. But spending for activities whose authority has expired continues through the procedural dodge of granting waivers to the appropriating committees.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, which annually tracks such spending, appropriations this year for programs and activities with expired authorizations will exceed $102 billion. CBO analyst Ellen Hays, in an interview, noted that defense and intelligence are the only two program
areas that Congress subjects to reauthorization scrutiny on a regular basis.

Some major activities have gone without a full-scale review for a decade or more. The Justice Department's authorization, for example, was last rewritten in 1980 and the Foreign Assistance Act in 1985. The law governing the space program, which this year will spend $13.7 billion, hasn't been reviewed since 1993.

Inattention to the authorization process shifts responsibility -and power -to the appropriating committees, which make critical substantive decisions -often without benefit of hearings or rigorous debate. Ambitious lawmakers increasingly are happy to sacrifice seniority on authorizing committees in order to gain an appropriations post.

"Over my 18 years, I felt the appropriations process steadily took on a greater and greater role," observes former Rep. William F. Clinger Jr., R-Pa., who retired in 1997 after a largely frustrating stint as chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

Clinger, who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University, says "there is not a lot of interest in the Congress right now" in taking on management issues. Under the best of conditions, he added, it is a chore that requires a strong push -and "willingness to knock heads together" -from both the congressional leadership and the White House.

In Clinger's view, "the best hope in the short term is to try get next year's presidential candidates of both parties to buy into" the management reform cause. But even that might not be enough, he cautioned, because of differences in how the parties interpret the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, which requires agencies to sharpen goals and improve accountability.

"The Democrats see the Results Acts as a way to deliver the same level of service, but do it better and more efficiently. They are not in this to cut a lot of programs out," he said. "By contrast, Republican leaders see this as a way to justify devolution of functions to the states and thus eliminate a lot of things at the federal level."

Nor are all of the obstacles partisan. Clinger noted that jurisdictional rivalries between committees often get in the way of Congress' ability to conduct effective oversight of overlapping and duplicative agency programs. Last, but not least, he noted that advocacy on behalf of government reform is comparatively weak. "There are plenty of constituency groups that work to preserve programs," he noted, "but no one is beating on Congress to improve management."

Even if "smart government" doesn't head the congressional agenda, the Results Act process is plodding ahead nonetheless. In the House, under the general supervision of Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, staff teams have reviewed and evaluated performance plans submitted by agencies and departments in February. In the Senate, new interest in GPRA is being displayed by Appropriations and Governmental Affairs committee staffs.

If nothing else, the music of management reform still plays in the background.

Dick Kirschten is a contributing editor for National Journal.