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21–828 PDF 2006

S. Hrg. 109–353

ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESULTS IN FEDERAL

BUDGETING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT 

INFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL 

SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 14, 2005

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA D. TYRER, Chief Clerk 

FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, AND 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

THOMAS CARPER, Delaware 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

KATY FRENCH, Staff Director 

SEAN DAVIS, Legislative Assistant 

SHEILA MURPHY, Minority Staff Director 

JOHN KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

LIZ SCRANTON, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 1

Senator Lautenberg .......................................................................................... 5

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 13

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2005

Hon. David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, U.S. Government Accountability Office ............................................................................. 3

Hon. Clay Johnson, III, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget .................................................................................................. 4

Eileen Norcross, M.A., Research Fellow, Government Accountability Project, 

The Mercatus Center of George Mason University ........................................... 22

Beryl A. Radin, Ph.D., Professor of Government and Public Administration, 

University of Baltimore ....................................................................................... 24

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Johnson, Hon. Clay, III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 56

Norcross, Eileen, M.S.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 22

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60

Radin, Beryl A., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 24

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 74

Walker, Hon. David M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 3

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33

APPENDIX 

Questions and responses for the Record from: 

Mr. Walker ........................................................................................................ 78

Mr. Johnson ...................................................................................................... 81

Ms. Radin .......................................................................................................... 83

‘‘An Analysis of the Office of Management and Budget’s Program Assessment 

Rating Tool (PART),’’ June 2005, by Eileen C. Norcross, Mercatus Center, 

George Mason University .................................................................................... 87

(1)

ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESULTS IN FEDERAL 

BUDGETING 

TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2005

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room 

562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Coburn, Chairman 

of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Coburn, Carper, and Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. The Subcommittee will come to order. This 

hearing today is on Accountability and Results in Federal Budgeting. The Federal Government is expected to spend $2.5 trillion in 

the next fiscal year, which comes to $22,000 per family in the 

United States, a significant sum. While the first hearing of this 

Subcommittee focused broadly on the President’s Management 

Agenda, also known as PMA, today, we will more specifically discuss efforts to increase accountability in Federal budgeting—accountability as seen through transparency, on-time reports, evaluation, and assessment. 

As part of the PMA, OMB released in 2003 the Program Assessment Rating Tool, or PART. Used to evaluate the design, goals, and 

performance of Federal programs, PART seeks to find ways to ultimately improve overall performance through the format of a basic 

questionnaire and evaluation of that. Thus far, PART has been 

used to evaluate 607 Federal Government programs, roughly 60 

percent of the Federal budget. Of these 607 programs, 15 percent 

have been rated effective, less than 90; 26 percent moderately effective; 4 percent ineffective; 29 percent could not demonstrate results, and 26 percent, adequate. 

That last number that I gave you, the 29 percent that could not 

demonstrate results, it was almost a third of the Federal Government’s programs. 

We will also discuss today the latest iteration of OMB’s scorecard, which is a set of quarterly grades for each Federal agency. 

Ratings of red, yellow, and green are given to each agency for each 

of five initiatives: Human capital, competitive sourcing, financial 

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tion. Ratings are given for both current status and progress in implementing the PMA, the President’s Management Agenda. 

When the first scorecard was issued in June 2002, only 4 agencies received yellow current status ratings for their budget performance and integration, while the remaining 22 agencies all received 

red ratings. In the latest scorecard, 6 agencies have red ratings, 12 

have yellow ratings, and 8 have green current ratings for budget 

performance and integration. While the latest of these scores are 

encouraging, they also demonstrate that the Federal Government 

has a lot to do when it comes to managing the way it spends the 

taxpayers’ money. 

As part of the President’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2006, 

OMB released a list of roughly 150 discretionary programs for 

which it proposed either reduced funding or complete elimination. 

The termination of many of these programs has been proposed before. For example, the OMB proposed the termination of the Advanced Technology Program four separate times. The termination 

of earmarks for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

was proposed not only in fiscal year 2006, but in 2002, 2003, 2004, 

and 2005, as well. The termination of the program for Community 

Technology Centers has been proposed six separate times. 

It is absolutely stunning that we continue to fund programs that 

time after time, year after year, fail to produce positive results or 

measurable results. I hope we will hear substantive proposals 

today to either terminate or measurably reform these programs. 

We are pleased to have with us today representatives from both 

government and academia. On our first panel, the Hon. David 

Walker, Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office, and the Hon. Clay Johnson, III, the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget, will give us 

their perspective on efforts to increase accountability and ultimately improve results in Federal budgeting. 

We are also privileged to have on our second panel Eileen Norcross, a Research Fellow with George Mason University and The 

Mercatus Center, and Beryl Radin, a professor of Government and 

Public Administration at the University of Baltimore. They will 

both give us a helpful non-governmental perspective on the effect 

of government accountability efforts. 

Our Ranking Member, Senator Carper, will be here in a moment. 

We will ask him for his opening statement at that time. At the 

present time, I would like to introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is the Hon. David Walker, Comptroller General of the United 

States. Mr. Walker began his 15-year term as the Nation’s chief accountability officer and was appointed in 1998 as the head of the 

then-General Accounting Office, now referred to as the Government 

Accountability Office. Through his role as Comptroller General, Mr. 

Walker oversees GAO’s work to improve the performance and accountability of the Federal Government, including measures to improve the efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars. 

Our second witness on the first panel today is the Hon. Clay 

Johnson, III, Deputy Director of Management for the Office of 

Management and Budget. In this role, Mr. Johnson provides government-wide leadership to the Executive Branch agencies to improve the agency and program performance. Prior to this position, 

3

1The prepared statement of Mr. Walker appears in the Appendix on page 33. 

2The graphics referred to in Mr. Walkers prepared statement appear in the Appendix on 

pages 39 and 40 respectively. 

Mr. Johnson served as Assistant to the President for Presidential 

personnel and as the Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney transition team. 

I would like to thank both Mr. Walker and Mr. Johnson for being 

here. They have been here before and will be here again. We are 

very pleased with your work, and I would note that your submitted 

statements will be made a part of the record and you will each be 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. Walker. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. DAVID M. WALKER,1 COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be 

back before this Subcommittee. I appreciate your commitment to 

improving government performance and ensuring accountability for 

the American people. I thank you for including my entire statement into the record. I will now move to summarize it. 

I am pleased to come here before the Subcommittee today to talk 

about the concept of performance budgeting in general and the Office of Management and Budget’s Program Assessment Rating Tool, 

or PART, in particular. As you know, Mr. Chairman, our Nation is 

currently on an unsustainable fiscal path. I have two graphics that 

I would like to refamiliarize you and the other Members and key 

staff with.2

Both are based upon GAO’s long-range budget simulations. This 

first one is based on CBO’s 10-year baseline projections and the requirements that CBO, by law, must comply with. Those requirements, among other things, include: (1) no new laws will be passed 

in the next 10 years, (2) all expiring tax cuts will, in fact, sunset, 

and (3) discretionary spending will grow by the rate of inflation 

during the next 10 years, and (4), that the alternative minimum 

tax will not be fixed. 

Mr. Chairman, I have asked individuals in every speech that I 

have given in the last 2 months whether or not they believe any 

of those four assumptions are true, and so far, I have less than ten 

out of several thousand that believe that those assumptions are 

reasonable. Unfortunately, this is the basis Congress is using to 

make decisions. 

The next chart demonstrates what an alternative scenario would 

look like if all expiring tax cuts are made permanent and if discretionary spending grows by the rate of the economy during the entire period. It is clearly a very dramatic and unacceptable outcome. 

As a result, it is critically important that a fundamental reexamination of major spending and tax policies and priorities be undertaken in order to recapture our fiscal flexibility for the future and 

address key social, economic, and security changes and challenges 

in the 21st Century. Clearly, performance budgeting holds promise 

as part of a fundamental reexamination of the basis of the Federal 

Government. Existing performance budgeting efforts, such as the 

Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), and PART, (or 

4

1The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 56. 

the Program Assessment Rating Tool), can provide a foundation for 

a baseline review of existing Federal policies, programs, functions, 

and activities. 

As I testified before this Subcommittee in April, the President’s 

Management Agenda and its related initiatives, including PART, 

demonstrate the Administration’s commitment to improving not 

only Federal financial management but also overall management 

while enhancing government performance. However, it is not clear 

that PART has had any significant impact on Congressional authorization, appropriations, and oversight activities to date. 

In our view, there are three key factors that we believe are critical to sustaining successful performance budgeting over time. One, 

we have to build a supply of credible performance information. 

Two, we have to encourage demand for that information and its use 

in Congressional processes by garnering stakeholder buy-in. And 

three, we need to take a comprehensive and cross-cutting approach 

to assessing related programs and policies which must be not just 

vertical, but horizontal, and must consider not just spending, but 

also tax policies and preferences. 

The Federal Government is in a period of profound transition. 

We face an array of changes, challenges, and opportunities to enhance performance and assure accountability. Much is at stake in 

the development of a collaborative performance budgeting process. 

This is an opportune time for the Executive Branch and the Congress to consider and discuss how agencies and committees can 

best take advantage of and leverage the new information and perspectives coming from the reform agenda currently underway. 

Some program improvements can come solely through Executive 

Branch action, but for PART to meet its intended goal, there must 

be greater buy-in by the Congress, which to date has not been 

forthcoming. 

I would be happy to answer any questions that you and the other 

Members of the Subcommittee may have, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Mr. Johnson. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. CLAY JOHNSON, III,1 DEPUTY DIRECTOR 

FOR MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, Senator Lautenberg, thank you. I 

contend that agencies are better managed today, and they are more 

focused on results than ever before. But we are not as focused on 

results as we can and need to be. 

Agencies are assessing program performance with the PART instrument and using this information to inform management and 

budget actions. The Administration is proposing Sunset and Results Commissions legislation to involve Congress more directly in 

holding agencies accountable for results. 

Some say the PART assessments have not had any impact on authorizations, appropriations, or oversight. To that, I say it has had 

some impact, but clearly, we can do a better job convincing Congress of the usefulness of performance information. I point out that 

this effort was designed to span 5 years. Only this past year did 

5

we assess programs accounting for more than 50 percent of the 

budget. We are only in the fourth year of a 5-year effort, and there 

is more attention being paid this year than last. 

Some would also say that PART assumes that each program has 

one goal and that all programs are alike. To that, I say all programs are alike in that they should be able to account for what taxpayers are getting for their money. Most importantly, I point out, 

though, that the PART asks unique questions for different kinds of 

programs. They ask unique questions for competitive grant programs, block grant programs, regulatory-based programs, capital 

asset programs, credit programs, and research and development 

programs. 

Some say that good performance data is hard to come by. I agree, 

but shame on us if we are not always looking for the best way, no 

matter how imperfect, to measure what our programs do, and what 

outcomes they achieve. 

And some say that the Results and Sunset Commissions that we 

are about to propose are ways to get rid of programs we do not like. 

To that, I say we want programs to work. The history of Sunset 

Commissions and similar programs is that they are much more apt 

to drive program improvement than they are to result in program 

elimination. 

We all want to get more for the money we spend. The biggest opportunity is to get programs to work better. Yes, we debate in the 

preparation of our budgets and in appropriations legislation on 

whether to eliminate $5 or $10 billion of programs or how else to 

spend it, but this pales in comparison to the $20-plus billion associated with every 1 percent improvement in performance. The most 

significant opportunity we have is to drive better program performance. 

We believe that the PART now, and the soon to be proposed Sunset and Results Commissions, help us achieve these savings for the 

taxpayers. They help us focus on results. Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Senator Lautenberg, would you like to make an opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Forgive my tardiness. I am sorry that I missed the Subcommittee 

meeting that you had, but it was impossible to be back here from 

distant travel. 

I do thank you for convening this hearing, and thanks also for 

giving us an opportunity to discuss the issue. Mr. Chairman, I 

think everyone knows I came out of the business community, and 

before I arrived in the Senate, when I left that company 23 years 

ago, we had 16,000 employees and the cardinal principle was to 

make sure everybody carried their share and we held them accountable. As a result of that kind of supervision, we had a really 

successful career as a company and it continued on way past my 

chairmanship, so apparently I got them off on a good start. 

So I applaud the President’s desire to hold the government programs and employees accountable for their performance. The first 

step in accountability is an ability to measure performance, and 

6

that is what the PART program is about. Measuring performance 

is like any other tool in business or government. It can be effective, 

but only if it is used properly, and that, Mr. Chairman, is my concern about the PART program. 

We have to ask the right questions, measure the right things. If 

we don’t, we will never get good results. So we have to make sure 

that the questions are directed in such a way that there is an objective review. Programs should be judged based on how well they 

achieve the goals set for them and whether or not they have any 

political pressure to present the results of their review. 

Since this hearing is about a performance-based budget, there is 

one thing that I would like to mention in passing, and that is in 

business, there is a measure of success that we don’t have available 

to us here and that is the financial result, financial bottom-line. 

But government just doesn’t and can’t really do it the same way. 

Our definition of success is much more complicated. When a program doesn’t perform, we have to ask why not. 

For instance, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program 

lost points on its PART evaluation because in spite of its successes 

in leveraging financial support, it serves only a small percentage 

of small manufacturers each year, and that evaluation was used to 

cut the funding for the program. It doesn’t make sense. If the program is working, it doesn’t have enough resources to make a big 

enough impact, we should decide on whether or not we are going 

to increase it or get rid of the program. 

In short, Mr. Chairman, we should demand accountability for the 

Federal Government to make sure they accomplish the goals that 

we set for them, but we have to examine the outcomes of these programs honestly, fearlessly, and without any bias in the way we see 

the programs other than in their efficiency and their results. 

So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for doing this. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. I would clarify for the record, in 

both Mr. Walker’s testimony and Mr. Johnson’s testimony, I believe 

there is reference to the fact that when programs fall low on the 

PART assessment, that sometimes it is because not enough money 

has been given. So I think they recognize that weakness and they 

have testified that way. 

I want to go back to your chart, because whether we have a Results or a Sunset Commission or whether we have a PART evaluation, right now, we are sitting at about 19.6 percent of our GDP, 

the government consuming it, according to what you have right 

there, and estimated to grow to approximately 40 percent by the 

year 2040. 

We have a tool now that we are using—that we are attempting 

to use. We are not effectively using it in a lot of ways because a 

lot of the agencies aren’t responding with the management expertise based on the measurement tool that is going to be used there. 

What is the plan to move those numbers down through PART, 

through results, through Sunset Commission, so even though we 

have this long run of mandatory spending, how in the world are 

we going to achieve that area that we can achieve and how are we 

going to be able to implement this? 

We are in the third year, fourth year of this. What do we see? 

Are we seeing improvements? The criticisms of the PART system, 

7

are they legitimate? Is it resistance to just being measured, or are 

there some legitimate criticisms to the PART system, either one of 

you that might want to respond to that. 

Mr. WALKER. I will start, Mr. Chairman, by refamiliarizing you, 

and I know you have read this at least once, the booklet that we 

put out——

Senator COBURN. Twice. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Specifically, 

I am referring to the booklet that we put out on February 16 which 

lays out the business case pretty strongly that we are on an imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path. As a result we are going to 

have to look at the basis of the Federal Government, both as it relates to spending and as it relates to tax policy. 

With regard to the subject of this hearing today, in addition to 

trying to answer the 202-plus questions in the booklet that illustrate the need to reexamine the base of the government, I do believe there is strong conceptual merit to having some type of periodic assessment of programs, policies, functions, and activities. My 

personal view is that the agencies should be on the front line. This 

should be a normal and recurring part of their job. 

I think in order for these assessments to work, several things 

have to happen. It is important what the process is. It is important 

what the principles and the criteria are. It is also important who 

the players are that are involved in generating the results that will 

be considered by the Congress, as well as by the President, to the 

extent of the Executive Branch, in trying to make decisions. 

In that regard, I think there is a need for and an opportunity to 

institutionalize a periodic assessment process that builds upon the 

principles that are laid out in this booklet, including the generic 

questions, as well as the principles and generic questions that are 

outlined in the PART. By doing so we can try to come up with 

something that has a chance of being sustained over time and can 

generate more meaningful results, both financially and non-financially, irrespective of what administration might currently be in 

power. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think we have great opportunity to use the 

PART. Whatever it is called 5 years or 10 years from now there 

should be an instrument that we use consistently across all programs to assess performance, and today is it called the PART and 

there are 25 questions, plus or minus. It should be a part of our 

job. It should be part of what agencies do on a day-in and day-out 

basis. That is the assumption in the PART now. 

Part of the PART program is you evaluate different aspects of 

the program and then you are supposed to develop recommended 

next steps, things that you, the program manager, are going to do 

this next year to improve performance, reduce cost, or both, and we 

are set up to monitor that and to hold agencies accountable for the 

follow-through—we, OMB, are set up to follow through, hold agencies accountable and then follow through on those recommendations. 

And some of these programs’ recommended next steps are really 

significant. They are going to invest more money in IP. They are 

going to reorganize this. They are going to change the rules, get a 

8

bill changed, new legislation, or whatever. Others are less aggressive. 

They all should be held accountable for having a commitment to 

improve performance every year. That is built into the system. We 

are now at the point where we have some programs that are now 

in the second year and the third year since its asessment, so we 

are now able to start holding agencies accountable for that followup on what they said they could do to improve performance. 

The other thing we need to do and are preparing to do is to make 

this information more public so there is more discussion about 

PART and about what the desired outcomes are, what the performance measures are, and so forth. All this information is available 

now on the website. You have to really want to find it and you 

have to be able to speak that form of English that only OMB and 

a few Congressional staffers are adept at speaking. 

What we want to do is to take this information, just put it in 

English, put it in lay terms for all the world to see. Here is what 

we are spending your money on. Here is how we evaluate these 

programs. Here is how we measure success, and here is what the 

recommended next steps are. This more public information, we believe, is going to drive more dialogue between the public and Members of Congress. 

There will be more dialogue between think tanks and good government groups and Members of Congress and the Executive 

Branch about how much better this performance measure is than 

that performance measure, how much stronger and more aggressive this recommended next set of actions is than that one, and 

there will be more pressure, more dialogue, more discussion about 

how to drive performance even better. Make it more public, make 

it more transparent, and get more impetus behind using the information to drive performance. Both of those things—the first one exists and the second one is in the process of being developed. 

Senator COBURN. It seems to me we have three problems. One 

is creating a culture where you use management tools of assessment and outcomes to drive policy, refinements, and efficiency 

within programs. 

The second is just the management expertise of demanding more 

with less, which is nowhere in any of this that I have found anywhere. We still have yearly budgets that come in at baseline rather 

than zero-based budgeting. So that is the second part. 

And the third part is to engage Congress. The Congress is going 

to get surprised in about 4 years and we are going to be making 

major cuts to major programs to handle our financial difficulties. 

It seems to me whatever we can do to awaken Congress to what 

is about to happen to us in terms of international financial markets, the force that is going to be placed on the Congress. 

My follow-up question is, what about the second and the third 

part? What about the more for less that is every business. Senator 

Lautenberg asked that of his business every year. Give me more 

for less. That is called efficiency. That is called productivity. He 

asked that and got it. What about that component of it? 

And the second question I would ask you about is how do you 

engage Congress? How do you engage Congress to address what 

those charts show, and how do we make the changes that are necVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:53 May 23, 2006 Jkt 021828 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\21828.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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essary, create an awareness in Congress to do the reform? There 

are a lot of programs out there that are great. This isn’t going to 

be just about programs that are great ideas. It is going to end up 

being what about the programs that we cannot afford? Which is the 

best of those? That is the other reason why we should have such 

a good assessment tool. We cannot afford everything that we are 

promising today. 

So please answer those two subparts of that question, if you 

would, and then I will defer to Senator Lautenberg. 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, I would respectfully suggest that we 

need to integrate and institutionalize those two concepts into the 

current processes that we already have. For example, we have the 

Government Performance and Results Act, which requires strategic 

and annual performance planning, and annual performance and accountability reporting. A key component of that should be the concept of getting more done with whatever resources and authorities 

you have, and it could be with less, or it could be the same amount. 

Second, I think we also have to look at the budget process and 

the materials that are provided to the Congress. We need to move 

beyond baselines. The baselines are not sustainable. The baselines, 

to a great extent, represent an amalgamation and combination of 

programs, policies, functions, and activities that made sense when 

they were put into place but haven’t been subject to fundamental 

review and reexamination. Performance information needs to be included as part of that process. 

I think we need to make the agencies responsible for doing this. 

I think there needs to be a role for OMB on behalf of the Executive 

Branch and the President, whoever the President might be. I also 

think there needs to be a role for GAO, because the fact of the matter is that every administration has a President who is associated 

with a political party. They change from time to time, but by definition, the Congress has to feel comfortable with the process, the 

principles, and the players. As a result it is important not just to 

get an Executive Branch assessment but also the GAO’s assessment since we are an independent, nonpartisan, nonideological 

agent and a subsidiary of the Congress. 

Mr. JOHNSON. When they first started using the PART 40 some 

odd percent of the programs could not demonstrate a result. So it 

was impossible to hold the head of programs accountable for the accomplishment of a goal. They couldn’t define what the goal was. 

They didn’t know what they were trying to accomplish or they 

knew what they were trying to accomplish, but they couldn’t measure it, or whatever, some combination of the above. 

With performance information for programs, you now have information that you can use to hold program managers responsible for 

the accomplishment of desired outcomes at desired costs, and it is 

at that point, and we are just now getting to that point, where you 

can start setting annual goals with program managers that we 

want to get more for less, or we want to get the same for less, or 

we want to get more for the same. And that needs to be part of 

holding managers accountable, holding employees accountable. 

That is one of the basic concepts for why there ought to be, we 

propose and will recommend here shortly, civil service modernization government-wide. It helps create an environment where peoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:53 May 23, 2006 Jkt 021828 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\21828.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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ple, managers in particular, are held more accountable for how 

their programs perform, and also how to better engage Congress. 

When we started this, the whole PMA was designed to focus on 

opportunities to better manage the Federal Government that involved Congress initially as little as possible. Nothing against Congress, but we wanted to work as much as we could within the Executive Branch to drive performance. Now there is more information 

available. There is information on 60 percent of the budget. We 

have information now that can be used to inform budget decisions, 

programs, continuation of programs, and elimination kind of decisions. So now there is enough information to more significantly involve Congress. 

So this is why we are having these kinds of hearings. This is why 

you are interested in this. We can get more buy-in about what the 

stated purpose is. We can get more buy-in to the validity of these 

performance measures. We can get more buy-in to the validity of 

these efficiency measures. 

And I think one of the key things that is going to lead to the 

credibility and validity of these numbers is if we are able to show 

Congress how this information is being used within the Executive 

Branch, not to eliminate, add, or subtract programs, but to drive 

performance. We can show that this makes sense. Program managers are using these new definitions of desired outcomes, and we 

are making these kinds of changes in the way programs are being 

managed and achieving different kinds of results, more desirable 

results, than we were several years ago before we had this information. 

I believe that is going to make a big difference in terms of how 

credible this information is with Congress, and then these kinds of 

trends also make it much more necessary for Members of Congress 

and the Executive Branch to pay attention to what is working and 

what is not, and what we are getting for the money. 

Senator COBURN. Senator Lautenberg. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

These two witnesses are very knowledgeable people. We see them 

with some degree of regularity. 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have the same agent. [Laughter.] 

Mr. WALKER. We get the same fee. 

Mr. JOHNSON. The same fee, Senator, zero. [Laughter.] 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Well, we can discuss that at another time, 

but what I——

Mr. WALKER. More for less. [Laughter.] 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I got a little concerned when Mr. Johnson 

made some reference, and I thought that there was a suggestion 

in there that maybe the Congress ought to be rated the same way, 

using PART. If that is the case, I will recuse myself from that hearing. [Laughter.] 

But in any event, thank heaven that we are not measured by the 

same yardstick. It is fair to say that there might even be some political influence around here. 

How sure are you, Mr. Walker, can we be, that there is no political urging, to use the politest term I can, because this is all that 

I share with the Chairman here. We have gotten to know each 

11

other some and we know that in terms of how we operate, there 

is consistency of view. 

As I listened to what each of you had to say, I thought about the 

differences in departments. How do you measure the museum performance and how do you measure a transportation program or the 

manufacturing program, which I think is a very good idea? You are 

left in kind of a discovery area. Who do you talk to—who gets spoken to when these decisions are being reviewed or questions are 

being asked? Who in the line of command typically gets talked 

with? Do the employees get to respond? Do the staff within these 

units get to respond, or is this strictly a management review? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t know how far down it gets. It is both agency and OMB, but I don’t know how far down, if it gets down to the 

Forest Service person in whatever Western State. 

There are four basic areas of questioning in the PART that really 

are good questions that would apply to your form of business, my 

form of business, any kind of Federal program. Is there a clear, defensible purpose? There are several questions related to that. Are 

there valid short-term and long-term goals? Is the management 

sound or the management practices good? And what are the results 

of the program relative to the goals? Now, those are generic questions that apply to any kind of program. 

There is work done by OMB and people working on individual 

programs within the agencies. They get agreement or disagreement 

on what the ratings are. We are this year establishing an appeals 

board in case there is an impasse at what the evaluation ought to 

be, and it goes to a selection of deputy secretaries to review that 

and make some determination on what the ruling ought to be on 

that. 

But I feel comfortable that there are good assessment from both 

objective and pride of authorship. The people involved in the program standpoint, and the questions that are asked are generic in 

nature, but very focused on whether the programs are working or 

not. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Senator Lautenberg, you having been in the private 

sector for many years and I having been in the private sector for 

21 years, these are management 101 concepts that apply to government as well as the private sector and the not-for-profit sector. 

They are not inherently partisan in nature. And yet the fact of the 

matter is, the government hasn’t done much in this area for many 

decades, irrespective of which party was in power. 

I would respectfully suggest that the agencies have to be primarily responsible and accountable for doing what needs to be done 

here. I would also agree that OMB has a role to play. At the same 

point in time, I don’t believe that it can stop at OMB. Given the 

fact that OMB is part of the Executive Branch, and works directly 

for the President—whoever the President might be and whichever 

party that President might be associated with—I think you need to 

have a check and balance. I think part of that check and balance 

possibly is to have a role for GAO. Ultimately, it is not only going 

to require action by the Executive Branch, it is also going to require action by the Legislative Branch in order to achieve meaningful and lasting results. 

12

Rightly or wrongly, I know there is concern in the Congress with 

regard to just relying upon the PART. There is also interest in having some checks and balances in the process. That is how our Constitution is based. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. In the business world, again, each of our 

witnesses here has talked about the experiences in the private 

world. I think that the most reliable measure is to see how the customers like it. I don’t know whether we include that as part of our 

review. Again, I note that the museum is here, and I wonder, have 

we done any assessment or do we do any about visitors, whoever 

the customers may be. Unfortunately, it takes time to catch up 

with that opinion. The cart and horse thing that is so often used 

as a reference here is whether the resources are adequate to give 

the facility or the program enough time and enough direction to 

work effectively. 

Mr. WALKER. Senator Lautenberg, I would respectfully suggest, 

as Clay Johnson touched on the criteria need to be customized to 

the particular entity involved. Let us take GAO as an example, 

which I know firsthand. We are a professional services organization. We have four primary measures. Measure one, results, financial and non-financial results. Two, what do our clients, meaning 

the Congress, think about our work? Three, what do our employees 

think about our agency? And then four, what do our partners, both 

within government and outside of government domestically and 

internationally, think about us? 

Those four measures work very well, and there are a lot of details behind those measures, but the framework has a lot of conceptual merit. However, the details obviously have to be tailored to the 

particular enterprise and their workforce. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. And each of you is satisfied that there is—

that these results are free of any skewing for political or ideological 

decisions? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am totally satisfied that they are free of those 

biases. 

Mr. WALKER. We haven’t evaluated that. I believe that to the extent that you have a process that provides for checks and balances, 

then it can provide additional assurance, not just for today, but 5 

years from now, and 50 years from now. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I want to talk about customer service in a second, 

but one thing, there is less bias in our assessment of the ratings 

than will be there in Congress’ assessment of whether programs 

work or not, to your point that you made earlier. 

On customer service, we had talked about that. I can tell you 

that every program that has a large customer service component, 

which is almost all of them, does a lot of customer service measuring. All of our lending operations, all of our grant-making operations, all of our e-Government initiatives are measuring customer 

satisfaction, and like many government issues, they are comparing 

our ability to take a reservation for a campsite with orbit.com’s satisfaction with their ability to take an airline reservation. So we are 

looking for private sector benchmarks and trying to build that into 

program managers’ goals. 

The thing we have to realize, our ability to assess programs are 

in a pretty infant stage. We are now in a 3-plus year process of 

13

measuring program performance. We haven’t even evaluated all 

the programs yet. The program metrics and measurements we use 

will be way better 5 years from now than they are now and better 

still 10 years from now. We will get better at measuring. We will 

get better at correlating this with results and so forth. 

We talked about how we don’t have customer satisfaction measures in all of our customer service programs. It is in some, but not 

all. That needs to be corrected. That will be corrected. But we are 

going from a situation 2 years ago where 50 percent of the programs could not demonstrate any result, forget the right result, 

any result. We are now coming to the point where we have measures, a lot of them are very rudimentary and basic, and now we 

are going to build from there and make them much better and use 

that information to hold the program managers more accountable 

for the delivery of more for less. 

Senator COBURN. Senator Carper, welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for running 

a little late. Our caucus luncheon ran until about 2:15. We had a 

heated discussion on energy policy, and as I was making my way 

over here, my cell phone went off and it was our Lieutenant Governor from Dover, Delaware calling, from Legislative Hall, to give 

me the results of the elections in Boys’ State and he was standing 

next to the newly-elected Boys’ State Lieutenant Governor, our oldest son, Christopher Carper, who we are just very proud of. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

[Applause.] 

Senator CARPER. Nobody has asked for a recount. [Laughter.] 

So, I think we are in a moment of real pride. He had lunch at 

the Governor’s house today, where we used to live. Tuesday in 

Delaware, we have a legislative leadership luncheon where Democrat and Republican leaders in the legislature and the Governor 

and the Lieutenant Governor all have lunch, and sitting right there 

at the table was—literally in a room where he grew up for 8 years, 

was our boy, real special. 

I have a statement I would like to give, not now but maybe during our break between our panels, if you don’t mind. I want to say 

to our witnesses that I don’t think I have ever seen the two of you 

before, but it is great to see you. [Laughter.] 

People are going to start talking, but we are glad you are both 

here. Thank you for your testimony and your response to our questions. 

Let me just start off, if I could, with a question for you, Mr. 

Johnson, and I am going to ask Mr. Walker to respond to it, as 

well. I will give you the first shot at it, if I can. 

I have read criticisms, and you have probably heard them, too, 

of the Program Assessment Rating Tool which argue that OMB’s 

ratings sometimes ignore the will of Congress with respect to our 

intent in creating certain programs. I just wonder, is it possible for 

a program to get a poor rating simply because it does what is required by statute and not necessarily what OMB might like for 

that program to do? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. 

14

Senator CARPER. All right. What should we do about that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. What we challenge our agencies to do is——

Senator CARPER. I want the record to show, that is the shortest 

answer I have ever gotten from any witness in the 4-plus years I 

have been here. Could you be more direct? [Laughter.] 

Mr. JOHNSON. We charge agencies to have outcome goals for each 

program, and if the enabling legislation doesn’t provide that or 

leaves that vague or there are contradictory outcomes called for, we 

make it the responsibility of the agencies to go back to the appropriate body here and fix that. 

They say, well, but I can’t control that. Then we say, well, we 

are not saying who is at fault here. We are saying we have a program that does not have a defined outcome, or it has a defined outcome and perhaps in some cases the measures are undefined—or 

the goals are so broad or so vague that you could never hold anybody accountable for their accomplishment. That needs to be fixed. 

And if it involves working with Congress to fix it, then it is their 

responsibility to work with Congress to fix it. 

Again, the assessment is not of Congress—it is of the program, 

but the program manager is responsible for doing what they can 

to get the most result for the amount of money spent for that program, and if it involves corrective legislation, that is what they 

need to go try to get. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Walker, any thoughts, please? 

Mr. WALKER. First, I think one of the things that Congress needs 

to do when it is enacting legislation, whether it be a new program, 

or whether it be a new tax policy, is it needs to think about why 

is it doing it, what is it trying to achieve, and how should success 

be measured. Therefore, at the very creation of a program or policy, 

these are issues that should be focused on by the Congress, since 

it is the body that causes it to be created and appropriates money 

on a recurring basis. That is generally not being done at the 

present time. 

Second, it is important that we not just look at the programs 

with regard to the different departments and agencies, but we need 

to have additional emphasis on horizontal activities, because many 

times there are many programs that are being operated and trying 

to accomplish a similar goal within many different departments 

and agencies, and we need to focus on employing more of a horizontal and integrated approach. 

Last, I think we can’t forget about tax policy. We spend as much 

in this country, or fore go as much in revenue in this country in 

some years as a result of tax expenditures and tax preferences as 

we do in total discretionary spending. Discretionary spending includes national defense, homeland security, judicial system, education, the environment, GAO, OMB, etc. It is important that we 

not let tax preferences/expenditures off the radar screen. They have 

to be on the radar screen, too. 

Senator CARPER. I have to ask this question. It is not really germane to our hearing today, but you mentioned tax expenditures 

and revenue flow gone. Is there any significant revenue flow gone 

simply because taxes that are owed and are not being collected? 

Mr. WALKER. Over $300 billion is the estimated tax gap, of which 

there are sub-elements to that, some because people aren’t claiming 

15

the income, some because they have understated their gains, some 

because they have overstated their losses, some because they have 

delinquencies that we haven’t collected. And we had a hearing on 

that before the Senate Finance Committee and that is an issue 

that needs more attention, as well. 

Senator CARPER. So $300 billion, is that like a one-time number 

or is that a recurring number? 

Mr. WALKER. Every year. 

Senator COBURN. The Chairman and I have talked about that 

and I think that might be the subject of some subsequent inquiries 

not today, but that is an issue for another day. 

We had another hearing in our full Committee, Mr. Chairman, 

this morning, and out of the mouths of a couple of our witnesses 

came the words ‘‘Government Performance and Results Act,’’ and 

I don’t remember anybody ever mentioning that in a hearing before, at least not that I can recall. Anyway, it was mentioned a 

time or two in our earlier hearing. 

What I would like to do is ask, if I could, just start with Mr. 

Johnson to ask a little bit about how we coordinate the rating tool 

with the Government Performance and Results Act, which I think 

might have been adopted about a dozen or so years ago but I think 

it goes back to the early or mid-1990s. How does OMB take into 

account programs’ successes in fulfilling obligations, placed on 

them in their agency’s long-range or annual performance plan? 

Does the rating tool ignore the Government Performance and Results Act? How do we just coordinate the two and use them both 

effectively, or is that impossible? 

Mr. JOHNSON. No, it is not impossible at all. In fact, they should 

be used together. The Government Performance and Results Act 

was adopted 12 years ago and——

Senator CARPER. Could you just take a second and give us a little 

short primer on the Government Performance and Results Act, if 

you are able to? And if you are not, you are OK. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am known to be a pretty good delegator, and so 

I am going to call on my good friend, Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. That is called delegating up, Senator, but that is 

OK. [Laughter.] 

Mr. JOHNSON. Whatever you want to call it, just do it for me. 

Mr. WALKER. He is very adept at delegating. 

Senator CARPER. Well, we have all done it. 

Mr. WALKER. I would say, Senator, one of the things that I mentioned before was I think it is very important that we recognize 

that we do have a number of statutory provisions in place, one of 

which is the Government Performance and Results Act, GPRA. My 

personal view is that we need to take a lot of these concepts, and 

integrate them into the current framework. We also need to institutionalize them such that they will exist irrespective of what administration is in power and irrespective of which party controls 

the Senate and the House of Representatives. 

I do not think they are mutually exclusive. They should both be 

done. One should be a subset of the other. 

Senator CARPER. How did he do? 

Mr. JOHNSON. It wasn’t much of a summary, but—— [Laughter.] 

Mr. WALKER. Oh, you want me to summarize GPRA? I apologize. 

16

Senator CARPER. Just a primer, if you would, on——

Mr. WALKER. Yes. The Government Performance and Results 

Act, which I believe was created in——

Mr. JOHNSON. I would give him a——

Senator CARPER. An incomplete? 

Mr. JOHNSON. No——

Senator CARPER. You are taking my time. 

Mr. WALKER. The answer is that the Government Performance 

and Results Act, which I believe was created in 1993, provides for 

a number of things. One, it provides that agencies do a strategic 

plan periodically. Second, it provides that agencies prepare an annual performance plan. Third, it requires that agencies publish an 

annual performance and accountability report. 

I might note for the record that, as frequently is the case, many 

times, these pieces of legislation are passed and only apply to the 

Executive Branch. In this particular case, as in many others, we 

have voluntarily adopted it at GAO, not just to comply, but to try 

to lead by example. 

It was a very valuable concept and we have made a lot of 

progress in the last 12 years with regard to this. But we still have 

a ways to go. I believe that some of the concepts we are talking 

about today represent a prime example of how we need to integrate 

these concepts into our existing mechanism. However, we need 

greater involvement by the Legislative Branch, including the Congressional committees, because to a great extent, whether it is 

budget, whether it is appropriations, whether it is authorizations 

or reauthorizations or whether it is oversight, this type of information is not used to the extent that it should be. 

Mr. JOHNSON. David and I were on a panel a couple of years ago 

with Pat McGinnis with the Council on Excellence in Government 

and Congressman Armey talking about the Government Performance and Results Act, and I think that it was the feeling of everybody on that panel that the Government Performance and Results 

Act had not lived up to its potential. 

I think one of the reasons is that the unit of evaluation, I suggest, should not be an agency. It is difficult to say that an agency 

has succeeded, an agency is the sum of its programs. There are 

some agencies like Commerce that have the most unbelievably 

wide diversity of programs—they all do, but some of them are incredible. And to say that Commerce is doing this or doing that 

overall, it is not really relevant. 

So I think now having program information gives us information 

about relevant units of measure, relevant component parts of agencies that can now be incorporated into our overall discussion about 

if Commerce, if Interior, if the State Department is meeting its 

mission? Is it accomplishing its strategic goals? 

Three years ago, we only had program information for 20 percent 

of the programs, then 40, now 60. We are in 80. This next year is 

for us the time when all of us should figure out how to really bring 

these two things together, because I think it gives us an opportunity to realize even more completely the full potential of the Government Performance and Results Act of 12 years ago. 

Senator CARPER. Yes, sir. 

17

Mr. WALKER. One last thing, Senator Carper, we still need a government-wide plan. We don’t have a government-wide strategic 

plan. We don’t have a government-wide performance plan. We do 

have, I would argue, a performance and accountability report, but 

we still need the government-wide plan. 

The budget is, by definition, not a strategic plan because it 

doesn’t look out far enough. 

Senator CARPER. Who should be responsible for developing that? 

Mr. WALKER. The President, and presumably the President 

would use his very valuable agent, OMB. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Gentlemen, thanks very much. 

Senator COBURN. I want to go back for just a moment. Mr. Johnson, in your testimony, you stated that the Administration is proposing two new commissions, the Sunset and the Results Commissions. Can you talk in some detail about what those commissions 

would do, how would they be created, and how they would be structured, and what their purposes would be? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, and I know I am going to miss a few of these 

facts. The Sunset Commission is a concept, I think it is employed 

by about half the States. Texas is one. What we are proposing is 

that there be a seven-member commission, four in the majority 

party—or in the Administration, three not. Four members appointed by the President with consultation from the majority and 

minority leaders in both Houses. 

There would be a list put together with Congress, a schedule of 

when programs or agencies would come up for review over a 10-

year period of time. So it would set a 10-year review cycle. If Congress and the President agreed that the department of X ought to 

be reviewed in total, it will be on that list. If they agree that it only 

ought to be programs or it ought to be these programs but not 

those programs, or it shouldn’t be defense programs, or it should 

be—that will be worked out, but there will be a 10-year review 

cycle. 

Then every year, those programs, and so we are talking about 

1,200 programs—let us say it is only program specific—it would be 

1,200 programs. About 120 programs a year would come up for consideration. If they are not affirmatively agreed to to be continued, 

they would sunset. 

My understanding is that the experience in the States is that the 

programs tend not to then go away. They tend to know that their 

judgment day is coming up, so there is accountability—Congress is 

on the line, calling for performance. The Executive Branch is on 

the line, calling for performance. Program managers really feel 

held accountable for how their programs perform, and it tends to 

drive more significant performance, more focus on results, and 

more focus on efficiency. 

And so what happens is programs get better. Improvements get 

better. Occasionally, the Sunset Commission will come out with a 

recommendation to modify a program or change the measures or 

less of this and more of that as opposed to this thing should go 

away altogether. If something needs to be done away with, my 

guess is, and I think the experience in States is, it will generally 

be done away with long before it ever comes up before sunset review. So it is a mechanism for driving a formal focus on results. 

18

Congress would be involved and the Executive Branch involved, 

both calling for results. 

The Results Commission is to deal with the programs like job 

training or community and economic development or programs 

dealing with disadvantaged youth or world water quality, where 

there are issues that many agencies and many programs are involved with which makes it very difficult for the Executive Branch 

and for the Congress to deal with these matters, because you get 

into jurisdictional issues, you get into so many different budgets, 

you get into issues about, well, is it Commerce’s fault, is it Interior’s fault, is it whatever. 

If Congress agreed to the concept, then what would happen is the 

President would propose that we ought to create a specific Results 

Commission on the subject of job training. Congress would agree 

that was not too controversial a topic or it was a good enough 

amount of money or a substantive issue that we should create a 

Results Commission to deal with that. They would agree to do that. 

The President would form a seven-person commission, four in consultation with the majority and minority leaders in both Houses. 

But it would be seven people who have expertise of various sorts 

on the subject of job training in this case. It would be a commission 

put together to deal with the specific issue at hand. 

They would then have 9 months to receive a proposal on how to 

organize these multi-agency, multi-program efforts differently, do 

away with some, add some things, combine them over here, combine them into—whatever the recommendation is, take that, have 

hearings, decide what they believe—how the President’s recommendation ought to be amended, if at all, come back to the 

President with that. There is some dialogue back and forth. Anyway, but then that goes to the Congress for expedited consideration, like a BRAC-kind of a process. 

So one deals with single agency kinds of performance issues. The 

other one deals with single program performance. The other one 

deals with multiple departments, multiple agencies, multiple programs dealing with the same issue. 

I have left a lot of the details out, but——

Senator COBURN. Talk with me for a minute about the fact that 

we are going to approve $170 billion worth of spending this year 

for programs that aren’t authorized. How does the Results or the 

Sunset Commission deal with that? In other words, we are going 

to spend $170 billion. We are going to appropriate it this year for 

programs that are totally unauthorized. In other words, the Congress hasn’t done this job, either won’t reauthorize them, don’t 

have the votes to reauthorize and appropriate them anyway. How 

do you address that problem? Thirty percent of our discretionary 

budget is appropriated without any authorization. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am not familiar with the particulars, but when 

the Congress and the Executive Branch are developing that list of 

programs, that schedule to review all programs, it would decide 

whether they are reviewing just authorized programs, or unauthorized programs. They might decide to put all those unauthorized 

programs in the first couple years of sunset review. 

19

So Congress is integrally involved with the Executive Branch to 

decide what is involved and in what order these different programs 

are involved. So this would be a mechanism for doing that. 

Senator COBURN. We really could do that if we had effective oversight, without either of those commissions, couldn’t we? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, I would respectfully suggest the 

commission wouldn’t deal with that issue. The fact of the matter 

is that you already have a number of programs that have not been 

reauthorized yet, even though they are supposed to be reauthorized, and yet the Congress has decided to continue to appropriate. 

There is absolutely no question that we need additional emphasis 

on whether or not programs, policies, functions, and activities are 

achieving real results. There is absolutely no question that we need 

additional emphasis on mechanisms to determine whether and to 

what extent programs should be continued. 

However, we should integrate those mechanisms into other ongoing processes and institutionalize them. I haven’t seen the proposed 

legislation and I would reserve any comment on the proposed legislation until I see it. However, historically, we have done a lot of 

work at GAO with regard to commissions that work and commissions that don’t work. The commissions that typically have worked 

the best are the ones that had a finite term and a specific mission 

to be accomplished. What I am hearing is something that could go 

on indefinitely. 

The real key is, how can we end up making sure that the Congress is engaged to a greater extent? How can we make sure that 

more of this type of information is automatically considered? How 

can we increase the transparency of this information, not only for 

the benefit of the Congress, but also for the benefit of the public 

so there are incentives to start dealing with some of the tough 

issues that have accumulated over time and that we are going to 

be forced to deal with because of the fiscal picture that I outlined 

earlier? 

Senator COBURN. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Just a couple more questions, if I could. Let me 

just ask, and again, I sort of direct this to you, if I could, Mr. Johnson, and then to ask Mr. Walker to respond, as well, but what factors do the views of stakeholders or the individuals or groups that 

benefit from a given program, what factors would their views play 

with respect to OMB’s ratings of a particular program and how, if 

at all, does OMB actually solicit their views? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I know that we pay attention to if programs are 

working or not, and if they are supposed to serve a given community, the most important stakeholder group is the community of 

citizens that are supposed to be served, and so there are different 

measurements of whether they are being served or not. 

But the exact method of doing that and the degree to which it 

happens across the board, I don’t know, but I can get back to you 

with that information. 

Senator CARPER. General, do you want to take a shot at that one, 

as well? 

Mr. WALKER. He would be in a better position to say on PART. 

I do believe that it is a factor that should be considered. At the 

20

same point in time, just because you have a lot of people that are 

happy that the program exists doesn’t mean that the program or 

policy, if it is on the tax side, is achieving the desired results. 

All too frequently, in the absence of having performance and outcome-based information, the assumption is if we spend more 

money, we will get more results, or if we give more tax preferences, 

we will get more results. That is not necessarily true, and that is 

part of the whole purpose here. We need to find out what works 

and what doesn’t work because we are not going to be able to afford and sustain all that we have right now. We also need to make 

room for other things that the Congress will want to do because of 

emerging needs and challenges facing the country in the future. 

Senator CARPER. OK. And one last question, if I could. Based on 

the analysis of the rating tool scores, grant programs, as I understand it, are less likely to receive effective scores and much more 

likely to be deemed ineffective or to receive a score of results not 

demonstrated. I just wonder, why do you think this is, and how do 

rating tool questionnaires differentiate between different types of 

programs? 

Mr. JOHNSON. There are questions that are asked of grant programs that are specific to grant programs. I was giving a talk to 

the SESes at EPA about a month ago and a couple fellows came 

up to me at the end and said PMA is great and getting more results and better defined goals and so forth. We need to get States 

and local communities to, once we grant them the money, get focused on getting more for the money. 

And I said, what is fabulous is that you are asking me about 

this. I bet you 5 years ago, you never would have been inclined to 

think about how we can now focus on what our grant recipients do 

with the money, because that is what we are holding agencies accountable for. The goal is not to give monies to States and municipalities in an efficient, effective fashion. The goal is to get good 

things happening with the money that States and municipalities 

are spending in a prescribed nature. 

So that means not only we have to define what the goals are, but 

we have to hold States and municipalities, to the extent to which 

we can, accountable for spending the money as designed and in an 

effective fashion. Right now, we are not particularly equipped to do 

that, and I think that disconnect between us giving them the 

money and them spending the money wisely or them spending the 

money as intended or them producing or measuring the results of 

that is not what it needs to be. But now our agencies know that 

they are being held accountable for how their grant recipients 

spend the money and so they are going to turn around and work 

with States or municipalities and maybe make the money they get 

next year dependent on how well they spend the money this year. 

We can get better at this. We just generally have not been. That 

has not been our goal, is to seek the performance against desired 

outcomes at the bottom level. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Several thoughts, Senator. One, there are different 

forms of grants, including block grants, and I think one of the 

things that we need to keep in mind is that we need more performance-related information, we need more transparency so that we 

21

can have more accountability both at the Federal level as well as 

the State and local level, depending upon the facts and circumstances. 

Second, we have a finite amount of resources, which are going to 

get tighter as time goes forward based upon known demographic 

trends, rising health care costs, and other factors. As a result, we 

need to be more value and risk oriented. We also need to be more 

targeted with regard to expenditures as well as tax preferences. 

The last thing is, and it is a concern that I have, there are other 

practices that exist that can complicate this. For example, the practice of Congressional earmarking. When you are in a situation 

where you have a finite amount of resources and it is going to get 

tighter and you are trying to get people to focus on results, to the 

extent that there is going to be more earmarking, then there is 

going to be less flexibility to be able to target, to achieve desired 

outcomes, to mitigate risk, which could establish a vicious cycle 

that should be of concern to all parties. 

Senator CARPER. Good enough. Thank you both very much. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. I am going to submit some questions in writing so we don’t carry this out too long. 

The other point I would make, the number one stakeholder in all 

these programs is the next two generations. It is not the stakeholders that are meant to serve, because if we don’t solve the financial problem, there is not going to be any service and the stakeholders, the next two generations, are going to be paying the bill 

for things that we have already spent the money long ago. 

So it is important for us to—the ultimate stakeholder is the 

American taxpayer for all these programs, because since we are 

running on a deficit to the tune of about $22,000 per man, woman, 

and child per year in this country, and the people sitting in this 

room, the vast majority, aren’t going to be paying that money back, 

it is going to be our children or grandchildren, it is important to 

keep perspective of who the real stakeholder is. 

I want to thank you for your testimony. I am sure we will invite 

you back. We appreciate so much you being with us, and with that, 

we will dismiss the first panel. 

Senator Carper, while our second panel is coming up, I will ask 

you to——

Senator CARPER. I think I would just ask unanimous consent 

that my statement appear in the record and we will go right to the 

second panel. 

Senator COBURN. Without objection. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:]

OPENING PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this very timely hearing. 

As you and all of our witnesses are well aware, our country is facing record budget deficits. We’re just embarking on another appropriations season here in Congress 

where we’ll be called on to make some very difficult decisions about what to do with 

scarce Federal dollars. 

At the same time, as GAO and General Walker have pointed out countless times 

before this Subcommittee and elsewhere, we’re at a kind of turning point right now 

where we need to decide what we want our government to do in the 21st Century. 

Nearly 4 years after the attacks on September 11, we still have a whole new set 

22

1The prepared statement of Ms. Norcross appears in the Appendix on page 60. 

of needs and priorities that must be balanced against older needs and priorities and 

scores of popular programs. 

And with the challenge of the retiring Baby Boom generation on the horizon, we 

just can’t afford to do all of the things we might want to do—at least not well. 

That’s why proposals like OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool are so interesting. 

We should never be afraid of taking a hard look at Federal programs to determine 

whether or not they’re accomplishing what we intended for them to accomplish 

when we first created them. In this day and age, we simply can’t afford to allow 

poorly-managed programs to continue without reform or, frankly, for a program that 

has run its course and achieved its goals to continue draining resources from other 

priorities. That said, we need to be certain that the Program Assessment Rating 

Tool or whatever mechanism we use to make these evaluations is itself effective. 

To be effective, a program like the Program Assessment Rating Tool must be totally separated from politics and ideology. It must also be closely coordinated with 

existing mechanisms agencies and Congress use to align budgets with program 

goals and outcomes, such as the Government Performance and Results Act. And perhaps most importantly, we also need to make sure that a program’s intended beneficiaries outside of Washington have a say before an evaluation is completed. While 

I’m keeping an open mind on this issue, I’ve some evidence that the Rating Tool 

might fail all three of these tests. 

I’d just say in closing, Mr. Chairman, that we’re not going to close the budget deficit by reducing spending on a program here or eliminating a program there. President Bush called for the curtailment or elimination of 154 programs in his Fiscal 

Year 2006 budget proposal. Even if Congress were to eliminate every single one of 

those programs, I think the savings would only cover a fraction of our budget deficit. 

Non-defense discretionary spending, the target of many of the spending reductions 

and program eliminations in the President’s budget proposal, makes up only about 

16 percent of the Federal budget. I’m sure we can find ways to improve the management of some of the funding in that 16 percent, or even to find and eliminate waste 

or inefficient use of resources. If we truly want to tackle the fiscal problems facing 

us right now, however, we—meaning Congress—need to take a look at the entire 

budgetary picture, on both the spending and revenue side, and make some tough 

decisions.

Senator COBURN. Our second panel, we are privileged to have 

with us today two scholars from the academic community to give 

us their perspectives on Federal Government accountability efforts. 

Our first witness on the second panel is Eileen Norcross from the 

Mercatus Center in George Mason University. Much of Ms. 

Norcross’s academic research effort has focused on the analysis of 

budget and performance integration and agency performance reports. We look forward to hearing from her today. 

Our second witness on the panel is Dr. Beryl Radin, Professor of 

Government and Public Administration with the University of Baltimore. She has written extensively on the role of the Federal management as an instrument of policy implementation, and we look 

forward to hearing her thoughts on the current initiative to make 

government more accountable and outcome-oriented. 

Ms. Norcross, if you would. 

TESTIMONY OF EILEEN NORCROSS,1 RESEARCH FELLOW, 

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT, THE MERCATUS 

CENTER OF THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY 

Ms. NORCROSS. Thank you, Chairman Coburn and Senator Carper and Members of the Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs, for inviting me to testify on the state of accountability and results in Federal budgeting. 

Much of my research at the Mercatus Center is on the progress 

agencies have made towards developing outcome measures, the 

23

Program Assessment Rating Tool, and the extent to which Congress and the Executive Branch use performance information in 

the budget. I would like to submit for the record my paper analyzing the results of the fiscal year 2006 PART. Additionally, I 

would like to submit a copy of our 2004 annual scorecard for your 

reference. 

Why should we bother to evaluate the performance of agencies 

or program results? What is the purpose of linking performance information with cost information? Policy makers can and do debate 

values and priorities, but such a debate is about ends, not means. 

Policy makers often articulate many worthwhile ends—reducing 

homelessness, eradicating disease, or ensuring we are secure from 

terrorism. If we are to accomplish these ends, we must know if results are being achieved. This means holding programs to a factbased, not values-based, standard. 

If our goal is to reduce homelessness, does the program actually 

do this? If so, to what extent does it succeed? Do other approaches 

reduce homelessness more effectively? How many fewer homeless 

people would we have if we moved resources from a less-effective 

to a more-effective program? 

Answering such questions requires reliable performance and financial information. Linkage of results information and cost information tells us which means are most likely to accomplish the ends 

policy makers decide are worthwhile. Measuring results enables us 

to know what public benefits arose from a given activity. 

Agencies are statutorily required to report on their annual performance by articulating their goals, designing performance measures, and assessing results achieved. This then requires that agencies link their goals, objectives, and performance measures with 

their budgets. 

According to our annual scorecard, which evaluates how well 

agencies are meeting their reporting requirements, we find many 

agencies lag in linking performance information and financial information. Not until our third annual scorecard in 2002 did an agency, SBA, receive the highest score in this category. They achieved 

this because each of their performance indicators included a cost 

estimate, and some included a cost per output measure. This practice continued in 2003. 

This measure is important because where there are programs of 

equal efficacy, then the best means of comparing them is the cost 

per unit of success. This allows us to know how resources might be 

used to increase the public benefit. 

Some agencies have made improvements in recent years. In our 

first scorecard in 1999, 14 agencies showed no linkage of cost to 

goals. This year, 7 agencies allocated their costs among goals and 

objectives, falling short of the highest score only because they failed 

to link these costs to individual performance measures. 

With the fiscal year 2004 budget, the Bush Administration attempted to forward the use of performance budgeting with PART. 

By formally linking budget requests to program performance, 

PART provides a view into how the Executive Branch is making 

some of its budgetary decisions. 

This approach has several merits. It is program-focused. Budget 

decisions are often made at the program level. Where multiple proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:53 May 23, 2006 Jkt 021828 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\21828.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
24

1The prepared statement of Ms. Radin appears in the Appendix on page 74. 

grams attempt to accomplish similar outcomes, PART assessments 

can facilitate comparisons. OMB has made the assessments publicly available, ensuring the process is transparent and open to the 

public. 

There are some shortcomings. We may agree or disagree on individual PART assessments. The yes/no format may oversimplify 

agency answers. There are difficulties in relating individual program assessments to GPRA’s assessment of performance goals. 

PART must remain open to constructive criticism in terms of its 

methodology and mechanics, but it would be a setback to the use 

of performance information if the concept of trying to objectively assess program results were abandoned altogether. 

In the fiscal year 2006 budget, the President recommended 155 

programs for termination or program cuts. Fifty-four of these programs have been PARTed. Of the 99 recommended for termination, 

32 have been PARTed. Of the 55 recommended for cuts, 23 have 

been PARTed. These 55 programs represent about $10 million in 

savings, or 0.4 percent of the proposed $2.57 trillion budget. Within 

the 55 programs, it appears PART was used in conjunction with 

other information to make funding decisions. Twenty-five of the 

175 programs rated results not demonstrated, and half of the 22 

programs rated ineffective to date were recommended for elimination or cuts. There is not a perfect correlation between a PART 

score and funding decisions. 

PART is not the only means to better integrate performance information into the budget. Important criticisms remain about its 

methodology, question format, and ratings classifications. But 

PART remains a consistent, systematic, and transparent attempt to 

evaluate government programs. By focusing on individual programs 

where budgetary decisions are often made, PART is a valuable approach that can only improve the effort to advance performance 

budgeting. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, and Members of the 

Committee for taking on this important subject. The integration of 

performance information into the budget is a vital means of guaranteeing that the stewardship of public funds will achieve the most 

effective results and show the greatest public benefits. I hope this 

testimony will be helpful as the Subcommittee considers the role of 

performance information in the Federal budgetary process. 

Senator COBURN. Dr. Radin. 

TESTIMONY OF BERYL A. RADIN,1 PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, UNIVERSITY OF BALTIMORE 

Ms. RADIN. Chairman Coburn, Ranking Member Carper, my 

name is Beryl A. Radin and I am a Professor of Government and 

Public Administration at the University of Baltimore and an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and 

I will be joining the faculty at American University’s School of Public Affairs this coming fall. 

For more than a decade, I have been studying the efforts within 

the Federal Government to improve the effectiveness and accountVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:53 May 23, 2006 Jkt 021828 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\21828.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
25

ability of Federal programs and have published a number of articles on this subject. Like many others, I believe it is important to 

find ways to assure that limited Federal dollars are used effectively 

to carry out the goals and objectives of programs that have been 

created by both the Congress and the Executive Branch. But while 

the focus on performance is extremely important, I have serious 

questions about the current procedures that have been put in place 

to carry it out. 

The effort that has been undertaken in OMB through PART may 

have been motivated by a legitimate and appealing concern, but I 

do not think that this model is an appropriate way, or is a limited 

way to measure program performance. 

The six issues that I will discuss today explain why there appears to be a disconnect between many of the PART evaluations 

overseen by OMB and the budget proposals that were found in the 

President’s current budget. They illustrate how difficult it is to impose a single model in an extremely complex Federal system with 

a diverse array of programs. We should heed what H.L. Mencken 

once said, ‘‘Explanations exist. They have existed for all times, for 

there is always an easy solution to every human program, neat, 

plausible, and wrong.’’

Let me summarize my six points. First, many Federal programs 

have multiple and conflicting goals. The PART process does not 

really reflect that reality, and most of the evaluations that have 

been done assume there is a single goal for programs. 

Second, not all Federal programs are alike. There are major differences, and we heard some of that earlier, between competitive 

grant programs, block grant programs, research efforts, regulatory 

programs, and other program forms. Yet the PART approach largely treats them alike, even though OMB acknowledges the differences and GAO has actually written about that extensively. Perhaps most importantly, the PART process does not recognize the 

decisions by Congress to enact programs in different form. Instead, 

OMB actually second-guesses Congress in terms of assessment of 

program purpose and design. 

My third point, OMB budget examiners and OMB itself have a 

limited perspective on programs. It does not make sense to rely on 

only one perspective to determine whether programs should live or 

die. Congress itself has recognized that as it has separated the authorizing and appropriating functions. A yearly budget is not the 

only way to look at what are often very detailed and complex programs. 

Fourth, there are many different types of information that are 

useful to those who are charged with running or assessing programs. The information that is used in the PART process is not 

value-neutral. Rather, it reflects markedly different reasons for 

concern about performance. Significantly, the information that is 

emphasized by OMB often is not useful to program managers, policy planners, or evaluators, or judging from the quite tepid reaction 

on Capitol Hill, to those charged with appropriations recommendations. 

Fifth, OMB calls for new data sources but does not acknowledge 

that agencies are not able to collect that data. A number of agencies would like to collect data on the achievement of program outVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:53 May 23, 2006 Jkt 021828 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\21828.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
26

comes. However, they are constrained both by the mandates of the 

Paperwork Reduction Act as well as by their inability to receive appropriations that would give them the sources to develop these 

data systems. 

And sixth, PART focuses on an Executive Branch perspective and 

is not easily transferred to the Congressional branch. The one-sizefits-all approach that is found in the PART process is not compatible with a Legislative Branch with multiple committees and subcommittees as well as separating between authorizing and appropriations perspectives. The multiple venues within the Congress for 

discussing issues are one of the strongest attributes of our democracy, even though the complexity it creates is sometimes frustrating. 

In conclusion, I suggest that this Subcommittee and the Congress 

avoid attempting to adopt the PART process and instead, by focusing on accountability and results, emphasize the existing resources 

that are unique to the Legislative Branch. Instead of searching for 

a one-size-fits-all approach, the Congress has rich resources within 

the appropriations and authorizing committees structure that could 

be used to craft definitions of results within the framework of specific programs. Performance can best be handled within the confines of specific program development and traditional Congressional oversight. 

The Congress has oversight capacity that can be used to provide 

more robust information than that from the PART process. The 

oversight process gives the Congress access to a range of information from GAO, from CBO, CRS, and the Inspectors General, as 

well as from non-governmental sources. Each of these sources has 

a somewhat different perspective, but collectively, they offer a rich 

view of program performance. Congress has the ability to develop 

a regularly-scheduled assessment of programs within its oversight 

role. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify, and I am available to work 

with the Subcommittee and its staff to continue this conversation. 

Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you both for your testimony. 

I know that the oversight is there. The Congress, less than 7 percent of their hearings are oversight. Ms. Radin, my question is, 

how are you going to change that? How are you going to get Congress to do the oversight that is necessary and how are we going 

to measure performance if Congress won’t do the oversight? 

Ms. RADIN. Has there been an attempt to try to prop up the process? 

Senator COBURN. That is one of the things that Senator Carper 

and I are doing with this very Subcommittee, but it is a new attempt. We are going to average about two Subcommittee hearings 

a week. That is about 60 or 70, maybe even 80 hearings on oversight. 

But the fact is, if you look at all the hearings in Congress, the 

vast majority of them are not oversight hearings. The vast number 

are on the basis of new legislation or appropriations. So my question to you is, if we are not going to use the PART performance 

tool, which everybody recognizes it has weaknesses, what tool are 

we going to use? 

27

Let us also assume all the programs out there are good. Let us 

just make that assumption from it. They are all good, but we are 

going to come up with this budget hurdle we are going to face. So 

the thing we have to know is how do we prioritize them? Which 

is the best, because some are going to go away. I promise you, in 

the next 10 years, a large portion of the Federal Government is 

going to go away because we will not be able to afford it. So how 

do we measure what do we give best to the Federal Government? 

Ms. RADIN. The Subcommittee certainly can’t do everything on 

its own. But can’t there be some effort in the organization of the 

Senate and in the House to really focus on the authorizing committees, because they are the ones that really know the programs. It 

seems to me that there has not been a priority given to oversight 

in those committees, and that seems to me something that the organizers of the Congress can push. 

It is not going to happen all at once. We know that there have 

been attempts to try to rationalize the budget process and it is 

maybe a little bit less irrational than it was in the past, but the 

system is so complex that thinking that we can deal with it in one 

fell swoop is just not realistic. 

Senator COBURN. With all due respect, I don’t think we are 

thinking we can do it in one fell swoop. We have seen a transition 

process. And the PART may not be the answer, but some measure 

of performance and some level of accountability so that people understand what the end goal is that is associated with a relook at 

how you are performing on that end goal has to be a component 

of every Federal Government program that we have. We have to 

start asking the hard questions because we are going to get the 

hard questions asked about the end, the tough ones in the next 5 

to 10 years. 

Ms. RADIN. I am not arguing that you shouldn’t ask those questions. I am suggesting that Congress has to grapple with that in 

its own terms and that turning it over to OMB really is violating 

what the Constitution has created. The ball is in your court. 

Senator COBURN. That is exactly why we are having the hearing. 

We haven’t turned it over to OMB. But a measurement of performance, no matter who does it, still gives some information with 

which the Congress can act on. And the question may not be 

whether Senator Carper and I agree on a program. The question 

may be which of the following ten programs, two out of them are 

going to have to go if we are going to live within the constraints 

for our grandchildren. Which two, and how do we measure that? 

To have a ratings program or an assessment program within the 

agencies within the program in terms of creating the expectation 

for performance is not a bad idea. I don’t think that there is anybody up here that is suggesting Congress is about to give that over. 

They are not, because the only way you change it is through Congress. 

The other point that I would just ask is you recognize that over 

25 percent of our discretionary budget is unauthorized right now. 

There is no expertise on it because there is no authorizing language and hasn’t been for 10 or 15 years. So Congress has its own 

problems in terms of authorizing the spending that we have. 

28

1 ‘‘An Analysis of the Office of Management and Budget’s Program Assessment Rating Tool 

(PART),’’ June 2005, by Eileen C. Norcross, Mercatus Center, George Mason University, appears 

in the Appendix on page 87. 

First of all, unanimous consent to put the Mercatus Center evaluation into the record, and without objection, that is so ordered.1

Senator COBURN. Ms. Norcross, compare the Mercatus Center to 

the evaluation by OMB and their process. If you line those two up, 

what did you see? 

Ms. NORCROSS. The annual scorecard? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Ms. NORCROSS. Our annual scorecard evaluates performance, the 

annual performance reports that agencies must submit. And what 

we found this year was that about 11 percent of the budget is represented by good reporting, and what we mean by that is that 

these agencies receive a satisfactory score according to our criteria, 

which assess reports on whether they produce public benefits, how 

transparent they are, and on leadership. 

The PART tool assesses government programs. So the annual 

scorecard we produce really evaluates a GPRA requirement. The 

PART tool evaluates on the program level. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Let me just start off by welcoming you and 

thank you very much for being here and for the thought you have 

given to these issues and your counsel to us today and to the Congress. 

Let me start off by asking, where do you think the two of you 

agree in terms of your advice to us and where do you disagree? 

Ms. RADIN. Well, I think we both agree that assessing performance is important, that the question is how do you do it and whether you acknowledge that there is incredible diversity of programs 

in the Federal portfolio. 

I am concerned about the PART evaluations that I think have 

really ignored the will of Congress. David Walker talked about the 

importance of Congress defining goals. Now, some of the goals and 

programs are outcome goals, but some of them are also process 

goals and those are legitimate. And yet the approach that we have 

used in both GPRA and in PART have suggested that process goals 

aren’t important. 

So, for example, Congress may develop a goal that says we want 

to involve particular groups in the decisionmaking process who 

have not been involved before. That goal is not new. The Cooperative Extension Service back in the 1930s really created process 

goals, and I think that is a very legitimate role for Congress. 

We have also seen efforts in research, for example, that are really process goals and not outcome goals. We focus on process because we don’t know what is going to occur as a result of a research effort. 

In other cases, Congress has actually determined the means for 

developing particular programs. In both the Clean Water Revolving 

Fund and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Congress told 

the agency not to use cost-benefit analysis in making their decisions about programs, yet those agencies got very low ratings because they didn’t have a cost-benefit analysis. 

29

Now, you asked earlier whether OMB, there were times in which 

OMB, in a sense, preempted the voice of Congress, and it has happened. In another example, the Appalachian Regional Commission 

got a low rating because it was playing a coordination role and 

wasn’t outcome-oriented. But the very fact of that Appalachian Regional Commission is to focus on coordination. That is its goal. But 

it is not an outcome goal, it is a process goal. 

So I think this makes things a lot more difficult for the agency 

to fit into the PART process. 

Senator CARPER. Let me go back to my original question, and I 

will direct it this time to Ms. Norcross. Where do you see you and 

Dr. Radin agreeing in your testimony? Where do you see you disagreeing? 

Ms. NORCROSS. I would say we both agree on the importance of 

using performance information. We might have disagreements on 

the PART itself and the extent to which it should be used by Congress. I don’t know that I advocate PART being used by Congress 

wholesale. I think the Executive Branch took the initiative to develop a tool that would evaluate the government on a program level 

and I would like to see Congress also incorporating that kind of 

performance information, whether it is the PART or not, once Congress demands performance information, agencies have to produce 

it. They have to know how their programs are doing and they have 

to produce better data, and it just gives us more objective data to 

make better decisions. 

Senator CARPER. Early this morning, on the way down on the 

train, I had a telephone conference call with my State director and 

with the person who is in charge of our largest county for me. We 

were talking about the results of a faith-based housing initiative, 

a home ownership initiative that we have going in each of our 

three counties, and we were talking about how the program was 

going with respect to being successful or not. 

And the question I asked, and I ask this question a lot of my 

staff, is how do we measure success? And the response that came 

back was that we measure success with respect to how many people are involved in home ownership counseling programs. And I 

said, is that really the way we want to measure success, or do we 

want to measure success with respect to the number of people who 

become homeowners because of their participation in this process. 

I am sort of reminded of that conversation here today, Mr. Chairman, because how we measure success is really important as to 

how we evaluate these programs. 

First of all, we have to answer that question. How do we measure success, whether it is a home ownership program or whether 

it is a program to get people off of welfare or any variety of programs to make us safer, but to be able to determine how we measure success is just critical and I don’t know that we spell that out 

all that often in legislation that we pass. Since we don’t spell it out, 

I think it makes it all the more difficult for OMB or anybody else 

to come in and say programs are a success or are doing what they 

are supposed to or not because we have not ourselves said, in order 

for this program to be successful, this has to happen. 

Ms. RADIN. I would say that what you are describing is a reliance 

on output measures rather than outcomes. One of the reasons why 

30

we tend to fall back on output measures is because so many of the 

outcomes are not measurable today but in the future. Yet we are 

talking about annual budget processes. You have to give a program, let us say, 5 years or 10 years to really show any outcomes. 

So we use the outputs as an indicator, and this is a classic problem 

for the whole evaluation field. People have really tried to figure out 

how you can focus on outcomes when you have a time delay in the 

process. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. Well, the important thing is that we have some 

process ongoing to measure, and it is not just that we are going to 

measure it, it is that we are going to create the expectation that 

it is going to be measured, which is just as important as the measurement itself. 

Just a couple of things. First of all, I thank each of you for coming. I have not gotten through the Center’s evaluation. I am going 

to do that. I would like to leave the record open so that we can 

send you additional questions. 

I guess one additional question for you, Dr. Radin. Can you not 

measure process? In other words, if the Appalachian Regional Commission is a coordinator of effort, can you not measure that coordination? 

Ms. RADIN. You can, but the way that we have approached these 

kinds of processes——

Senator COBURN. Now you are talking about OMB’s approach. 

Ms. RADIN. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Ms. RADIN. I think you can measure processes as long as you acknowledge that the process is what Congress is trying to accomplish with the program. That will be different from outcomes. 

Senator COBURN. I think that is true, and I would assure you 

with the diversity in the Senate that what OMB brings to us, we 

are going to look at that evaluation and then we are going to make 

an independent judgment on what is or what isn’t going to be funded—and unfortunately, from my viewpoint, a lot of things are going 

to get funded that shouldn’t and a lot of things may not get funded 

that should, and just the opposite viewpoint on somebody sitting on 

a different political spectrum. 

But the most important thing is to reach above that and say, no 

matter whether we agree or not, let us say we agree on all of them 

needing to be funded. How are we going to measure which ones 

have to have priority, because that is really what is coming. What 

is the priority for the Federal Government in how we spend, what 

we spend, and where do we spend it? 

We are not going to see the polarization on issues, I think, in the 

future because the problems economically are going to be so difficult. It is going to be which ones have the highest priority and 

which ones do we as a group think needs to be funded first, second, 

third, fourth, and fifth. So measurement of whether it is outcome 

or output or trend lines on outcome or output are going to become 

very valuable for us. 

Ms. RADIN. One of the things that I have been concerned about 

is that I think most of the effort in the performance area (not just 

PART), has really focused on efficiency values. But there also are 

31

effectiveness values and there are also equity values and we 

shouldn’t forget them because many programs have all of those elements. 

Senator COBURN. And I think the other thing that we heard before you came is that there are some programs that aren’t performing because they are underfunded. In other words, they are 

not going to achieve the critical mass to achieve the goal that Congress wanted them to because the resources haven’t been put there. 

So we need to look at all of that. 

Any other comments either of you might want to make? 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Chairman, I do have one last question, if 

I could. This discussion really reminds me of conversations I have 

had with my colleagues before about programs that are not being 

authorized, not being reauthorized, not being revisited, and yet the 

funding continues. In some cases, it makes sense. In other cases, 

frankly, it does not. In some cases, it reflects not an inappropriate 

thing to go forward and to fund a program that has not been reauthorized. In other cases, I think it really reflects a failure on our 

part in the Legislative Branch. 

I would like to ask Dr. Radin, one last question, if you don’t 

mind. I think you argue, I believe in your testimony, that at least 

some of the ratings given by OMB reflect some of the views that 

critics have held about programs for some time. Are there weaknesses within the Program Assessment Rating Tool or in the way 

it has been implemented that allow or maybe even encourage bias? 

And as a follow-up, do you think it is possible for OMB, regardless of whether it is staffed by Democrats or by Republicans, is it 

possible for OMB to do the kind of work and make the kind of determinations that the rating tool calls for without introducing some 

level of bias, whether it be political or ideological? 

Ms. RADIN. I think one of the points that GAO made in its report 

a year ago January was that there is incredible variability in OMB 

in the way the budget examiners have been dealing with PART. 

And so you have some cases in which a budget examiner for the 

last 20 years has been trying to kill a program, makes a recommendation for zero budgeting and Congress puts the money 

back. And then there are other cases in which the budget examiner 

loves the program and so it does extremely well. 

And so I think that this process really gives an incredible 

amount of authority to the individual budget examiner. Much of 

that is not really transparent so that we don’t know why a rating 

occurs. The child welfare community-based Child Abuse Prevention 

Program was rated in a number of elements that, ‘‘this element is 

not applicable.’’ Yet the overall rating was ‘‘results not demonstrated’’ and nobody really quite understands how you got from 

that, the ‘‘not applicable’’ to the ‘‘results not demonstrated.’’

So the fact that this isn’t transparent, I think is a big issue, and 

that is why this process is too important to really have it centralized in the hands, really, of a small number of people in OMB. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks to both of you very much. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(33)

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Æ


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