New Chapter, Same Verse

s this was written, Bush administration leaders were readying the first comprehensive set of policy proposals since Washington and New York were attacked on September 11 for inclusion in the President's State of the Union address and fiscal 2003 budget submission. Reports were circulating that the President would propose not only substantial new spending on security, but also ambitious restructuring of government bureaucracies. Prime candidates were said to be the agencies chiefly responsible for policing the borders: the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Coast Guard. A reorganization of these agencies, which also has been proposed by some on Capitol Hill, makes a lot of sense. What makes no sense is the current "disorg" chart, which has Customs agents working side by side but really worlds apart from immigration agents and port security forces. Combining these and other smaller functions of government would facilitate communication and enhance security. Conventional wisdom has long held that reorganization is too damned difficult to be worth the effort. Interest groups and their acolytes on the committees of Congress are too comfortable (and too powerful) in the current scheme to warrant spending the time and political capital to shake things up, recent administrations have concluded. So a reorganization initiative by Bush would testify both to his current sense of self-confidence and to a change-perceived at least-in the political climate. This month's cover story, "Bold Government," assesses that climate, attempting to gauge how the winds are shifting around the ship of state. The winds have picked up, without question, imparting a new forward thrust to government and also a shift in course toward much greater emphasis on security, probably at the expense of domestic initiatives like a new Medicare drug benefit. Some see a much more positive attitude toward government in the aftermath of Sept. 11. But Tom Shoop's analysis of the most recent twists in the age-old Hamilton/Jefferson debate suggests that the public, the administration and Congress are more interested in resetting federal priorities than in funding a huge expansion of government. Indeed, the first major anti-terrorist legislation to clear Congress, authorizing the new Transportation Security Administration, provides a funding mechanism for the agency that won't cover its costs, thus throwing it into the appropriations lion's den with hundreds of other federal programs. So this could be the same old story-promising a lot, delivering a little-we have found in our examination of many other programs, including some linked to national security. Joshua Dean reports this month on the government's efforts to help protect vital national infrastructure, including energy, transportation, banking and telecommunications systems and the computer networks that make them run. Disturbingly, he finds that resources committed to the job in recent years have come nowhere near matching the scope of the threat. In a similar vein, Shane Harris reports that elaborate interagency efforts to track and impede money flows of the kind the terrorists use are suffering for lack of previous effort and experience in treating the problem. With his new proposals, President Bush will begin addressing organizational and funding problems like these, and here's hoping Congress will cooperate. In a more modest good-government effort this month, is asking readers to complete a Web-based survey that's a first step toward improving financial management in federal agencies.