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IT’S TIME TO REACT—REAUTHORIZING EXECUTIVE

AUTHORITY TO CONSOLIDATE TASK: ESTABLISHING RESULTS AND SUNSET COMMISSIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE

AND AGENCY ORGANIZATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

H.R. 3276

TO PROVIDE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF RESULTS COMMISSIONS TO

IMPROVE THE RESULTS OF EXECUTIVE BRANCH AGENCIES ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

AND ON

H.R. 3277

TO PROVIDE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SUNSET COMMISSION

TO REVIEW AND MAXIMIZE THE PERFORMANCE OF ALL FEDERAL

AGENCIES AND PROGRAMS

SEPTEMBER 27, 2005

Serial No. 109–111

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

(

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE AND AGENCY ORGANIZATION

JON C. PORTER, Nevada, Chairman

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

——— ———

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

EX OFFICIO

HENRY A. WAXMAN, CALIFORNIA

RON MARTINSON, Staff Director

CHRIS BARKLEY, Professional Staff Member

CHAD CHRISTOFFERSON, Clerk

TANIA SHAND, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 27, 2005 ..................................................................... 1

Text of H.R. 3276 .............................................................................................. 6

Text of H.R. 3277 .............................................................................................. 21

Statement of:

Johnson, Clay, III, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget ........................................................................................... 41

Light, Paul C., Paulette Goddard professor of public service, Robert Wagner School of Public Service, New York University; Thomas A. Schatz,

president, Citizens Against Government Waste; Maurice P. McTigue,

Q.S.O., vice president for outreach, Mercatus Center; and J. Robert

Shull, director of regulatory policy, OMB Watch ....................................... 55

Light, Paul C. ............................................................................................ 55

McTigue, Maurice P. ................................................................................. 73

Schatz, Thomas A. ..................................................................................... 66

Shull, J. Robert .......................................................................................... 80

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Johnson, Clay, III, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget, prepared statement of ................................................... 42

Light, Paul C., Paulette Goddard professor of public service, Robert Wagner School of Public Service, New York University, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 58

McTigue, Maurice P., Q.S.O., vice president for outreach, Mercatus Center, prepared statement of ............................................................................ 75

Porter, Hon. Jon C., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Nevada, prepared statement of .................................................................... 4

Schatz, Thomas A., president, Citizens Against Government Waste, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 68

Shull, J. Robert, director of regulatory policy, OMB Watch, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 82

(1)

IT’S TIME TO REACT—REAUTHORIZING EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY TO CONSOLIDATE TASK:

ESTABLISHING RESULTS AND SUNSET COMMISSIONS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2005,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE AND AGENCY

ORGANIZATION,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

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

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jon Porter (chairman

of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Porter, Davis of Illinois, Norton, and

Mica.

Staff present: Ronald Martinson, staff director; Chad Bungard,

deputy staff director; Christopher Barkley, professional staff member; Chad Christofferson, clerk; Krista Boyd, minority counsel;

Tania Shand, minority professional staff member; and Teresa

Coufal, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. PORTER. I would like to bring the meeting to order. The

hearing today is entitled, ‘‘It’s Time to React—Reauthorizing Executive Authority to Consolidate Task: Establishing Results and Sunset Commissions.’’ I would like to thank everyone for being here

today.

I think it is time to get up. I appreciate everyone being here

today. Really, I think it is very timely based upon the current deficit and the current problems we are having funding the Federal

Government and programs across the country. As a member of

Government Reform, I think it is also very germane that we look

closely and look at ways to try to reduce fraud and abuse.

But before we get into the substance of the hearing, I want to

convey my profound condolences to the victims of Hurricane Rita

and their families who suffered such great personal loss, and those

of Katrina. I would also like to acknowledge that some of our subcommittee members and witnesses who represent flooded areas are

unable to be with us today because they are back home where they

should be, and that is attending to the urgent need of their constituents and their families.

Through the years, Congress has created Federal programs to

meet pressing needs but has often lacked the big picture perspective. The unfortunate consequences are rampant overlap and duplication in Federal programs. In 2003, the National Commission on

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the Public Service issued a report entitled, ‘‘Urgent Business for

America,’’ and indeed it is urgent business.

The highly esteemed bipartisan commission comprised of numerous formerly high ranking officials of the Clinton, Reagan, and

Bush, Sr., administrations, as well prominent Members of Congress

from both sides of the aisle, recommended that ‘‘A fundamental reorganization of the Federal Government is urgently needed to improve its capacity for coherent design and efficient implementation

of public policy.’’

The Commission found extensive evidence of duplication and

overlap throughout the Federal Government which resulted in a

waste of limited resources, an inability to accomplish national

goals, impediments to effective management, and a danger to our

national security and defense. This must come to an end. Now with

hurricane recovery costs escalating, cutting out wasteful programs

takes on a whole new meaning and is now getting much needed

congressional attention.

Members ranging from the Republican Study Committee to Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, are calling for the costs of the cleanup

to be offset in the Federal budget. Unfortunately, it is often the

case that when Congress acts hastily to either add or cut programs,

the unseen effects are not felt until it is too late in many cases.

We in Congress need to be thoughtful in making considerations of

where to trim and what programs we should cut. This is where the

two proposals that we are discussing today can play a very important role.

First, H.R. 3276, the Government Reorganization and Improvement of Performance Act will help us to get a grip on wasteful government spending by authorizing the President to reorganize and

streamline Federal programs and agencies. Specifically, the bill

will allow the President to propose the creation of results commissions for the purpose of reviewing a specific program area.

Once approved by Congress, the results commissions would recommend to the President plans for reorganizing duplicate Federal

program areas. The President would have the option of forwarding

the recommendations to Congress, which then could vote them up

or down without an amendment. This proposal has been supported

by huge majorities of both parties in Congress through the years.

Similar bills in recent history have passed Congress by overwhelming majorities or even at times without one dissenting vote.

Finally, the substance of this proposal was supported by the National Commission on Public Service. It is obvious that the constituency for this bill is the average American taxpayer who rightly

expects his or her money to be spent wisely, and we owe them just

that.

The other bill we will consider is H.R. 3277, the Federal Agency

Performance Review and Sunset Act, or the Sunset Act. This bill

would establish a sunset commission to review each Federal agency

for its efficiency and continued need. After an agency is reviewed,

it would have to be positively reauthorized by Congress. Without

congressional action, any agency not reauthorized would be terminated within 2 years of review by the sunset commission. That is

pretty serious.

3

This past April, Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before the

Senate Budget Committee with regard to reforming the budget

process. What was missing in government, he stated, was a systematic review of all Federal programs. He said Congress might want

to require that existing programs be assessed regularly to verify

that they continue to meet their stated purposes and cost projections. The Sunset Act is expressly consistent with this analysis and

would bring light of review and accountability to Federal programs

and result in considerable cost savings to the taxpayer.

I look forward to hearing from our very distinguished panel of

experts today who will provide their views and certainly their experience.

In my backup, in a letter that I sent to members of the committee, I did list a few areas as examples, Federal program areas in

need of review, as an example, the results commission. There are

19 Federal programs throughout the government focused on substance abuse programs. There are 90 early childhood programs existing and 11 Federal agencies with 20 different offices; 86 teacher

training programs exist in 9 different agencies; 27 different programs and services to prevent teen pregnancy exist in HHS alone;

50 different programs to aid the homeless are operated by 8 different Federal agencies; 541 clean air, water, and waste programs

are managed by 29 agencies.

Now, my intention is not to discount the importance of programs

on substance abuse, or on childhood development programs, or

teachers training programs, or teen pregnancy programs, or the

homeless, or even clean air and water. The importance of this hearing and the bills that we are considering today is to look at the duplication and make sure that we are doing it properly. We may

need 19 different programs for substance abuse, but let us find out

if we actually do. That is the purpose of the bill, that is the purpose

of the hearing, and that is the purpose of the results commission.

Again, I appreciate your all being here today. I am sure we could

talk for hours about government waste and priorities. Unfortunately, we don’t have hours. We do have a couple of hours today

and some experts. I would formally now like to bring the meeting

together because we have a quorum present, and I would like to

introduce our ranking member, Mr. Danny Davis, if he has any

comments this afternoon.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jon C. Porter and the texts of

H.R. 3276 and H.R. 3277 follow:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

appreciate your calling this hearing.

This hearing will be very helpful as we continue to examine how

to make the Federal Government more effective and efficient. In

April 2003, the full committee held a hearing on reorganizing the

government. At that hearing, Comptroller General David Walker

stressed that, above all else, all segments of the public that must

regularly deal with their government—individuals, private sector

organizations, State and local governments—must be confident

that the changes that are put in place have been thoroughly considered and that the decisions made today will make sense tomorrow.

Many experts like some of the witnesses who will testify before

us today support granting the President’s reorganization authority.

However, there are those of us who have serious concerns about

granting the President a too broad reorganization authority. I believe that everyone would agree that overlapping and duplicative

government programs are problematic, but it is important to consider how much authority the President should be given to reorganizing the Federal Government and what role should Congress

have in framing the reorganization.

It is indeed appropriate for Congress to examine how the executive branch is organized. Congress already has the authority to reorganize Federal agencies under regular order. Granting broad reorganization authority to the White House raises serious concerns

regarding the balance of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government.

I too look forward to the testimony that will come from our witnesses today. Again, I thank you for calling this hearing and look

forward to its implementation. I yield back any additional time.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for conducting

this hearing today and also looking at the important issue of finding a mechanism to consolidate some of the duplicating agencies

and activities of our Federal Government. You have pointed out a

host of Federal program areas which may be in need of a review.

Sometimes Congress doesn’t conduct the proper oversight. Sometimes Congress only continues programs, does not sunset programs,

and continues to increase the funding of programs. This does give

our Chief Executive the opportunity to look at these programs, and

make recommendations, and then also seek a close examination of

the results and also in the light of duplication.

The worst part about these programs, for example, substance

abuse, where you cited we have 19 or 90 early childhood programs,

86 teacher training programs, like you said, they all have good intentions. But the worst part about this where they do, in fact, duplicate, we are spending an inordinate amount of money on administration and also operation and duplication, where our intent is to

help those who need childhood early education assistance, to help

those that need substance abuse prevention, helping the homeless

and others that you cited. So I think that the legislation is also a

proposal that is well-balanced because, again, it does keep Congress in the process.

38

I am anxious to hear the testimony. I thank you for encouraging

a review of legislation initiatives like this that will make a difference. Hopefully, we will be able to perform our responsibility

better, and these agencies will be more efficient and less duplicative in their operation and organization. Thank you.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you.

Congresswoman Holmes Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the focus of the subcommittee on efficiency in government. I

think that those of us who believe that government is important

and necessary have a particular obligation to see that government

is efficient. Those who don’t think government matters very much,

it seems to me, will take an inefficient government and have a reason for just getting other programs. So I feel a special kinship to

your concern here.

I also believe that I have seen a troubled agency up close. I came

to head an agency which was troubled, and I had to do very hard

things. At the time, it was during the Carter administration.

Among the things we had to do was consolidate parts from other

agencies.

And do you know what, Mr. Chairman? My party controlled the

Presidency, and it controlled both branches of government, and

that is how we did. Now, it does seem to me that you are in something like that position today. I find it very interesting that this

kind of proposal comes up at this time.

The harder the proposal, what you will find troubling many

Members, Mr. Chairman, is the notion of expedited procedures.

Now, the Congress has used expedited procedures. I have gone

back to Georgetown, where I was a full time professor of law and

still teach one course there as a tenured professor. I teach a course

about separation of powers.

The thesis is that separation of powers government is so unwieldy in a world of instant communication, instant technology,

global economy, that if we don’t make it work better, the very

structure we have could mean that we will be left behind. So I am

very interested in this notion of even expedited procedures.

We discuss the use of the expedited procedure for trade. We discuss how you better use it for trade because if the President is engaging in trade negotiations, and he says I can’t really tell you how

this will come out, we aren’t going to get very far in a world where

trade is done across global lines. We used it in BRAC, and Congress, itself of course, is responsible for the BRAC Procedure. Mr.

Johnson, whom we will be hearing from soon, has called a spade,

a spade here, that we are looking for something like that for our

programs, period.

The real question in a separation of powers government that is

also democratic is raised by how far you want to go in using expedited procedures. It is a very serious question. It is as if none of

us sat through the reorganizations we have just gone through.

We did them. We did the reorganization that, in fact, was the

largest reorganization since the Department of Defense was created. We did it in the way we usually do it. As a matter of fact,

if I recall correctly, it was the Democrats who thought that reorganization ought to occur, and the President said yes. Then when it

39

occurred, there were differences, and we did them the old-fashioned

way.

It takes me back to the cliche: Democracy is a terrible system except for all the alternatives. Mr. Chairman, I hope I am not looking

in the face of an alternative here. I would be shocked if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were as willing to give up as

much of their responsibility as would occur when all of these programs were put under BRAC-type procedures as would be indicated

if we approve this bill.

The notion that we are a very political body, yet that comes as

a democracy, and therefore we don’t want to get rid of many programs is, in fact, the case. Mr. Chairman, however, I don’t think

any of us are naive enough to believe that the only programs that

would somehow find their way off the table would be the inefficient

programs, and there would be no political content to some of these

programs, including programs that some members of this body

think never should have been enacted in the first place.

How many times do I have to hear that the war on poverty was

a total failure, that none of those problems should have taken

place? The whole notion that programs that one side favors, and

programs that another side favors would go into some kind of efficiency matrix, and that is how decisions would be made, and we

don’t need democracy any more, we don’t need oversight any more,

we don’t need the President cracking the whip on his own agencies

any more, that is very troubling to me.

Look, we can go to a parliamentary system if you want one because that is the way a parliamentary system works. I try to teach

my students, these are law students, and we are trying to learn

how to work more efficiency within the law and the system. I teach

them that a parliamentary system is better suited to a global economy, but I have not given up hope that a separation of powers

economy can work today. These bills appear to give up those hopes.

Essentially, we are talking about a kind of government-wide

BRAC, where the President puts it forward. Sure, we can overturn

him if you can get two-thirds here and two-thirds in the Senate.

My friends, when is the last time you saw that kind of a process

go on here? It should not be more difficult to deal with programs

that are inefficient.

It should not be so difficult to deal with programs that are inefficient that we would have to create a procedure that would make

it more difficult for some programs, and I submit many programs,

to survive than it would be to get on the Supreme Court of the

United States because you have to get two-thirds here and twothirds there. Or else, in effect, the Executive rules the roost. My

friends, the Executive will not always be you. One day, the Executive will be on our side, and I wonder what you would think of such

reorganizations if that were the case.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. I appreciate everyone’s comments.

I would like to add, for historical perspective, previous votes of

Congress on fast-track reorganization. If we go back to 1977, the

Senate voted 94 to 0, and the House passed by voice vote, with Mr.

Waxman voting in favor by the way, a separate bill, which was a

Democratic-controlled Congress, for fast-track authority.

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In 1984, the Senate by voice vote did the same and the House

the same by voice vote. There is no question that there is a time

and a place. To my friend and colleague, and actually my Congresswoman here in the District, I certainly respect her concerns, and

I also share that we have to be very, very cautious. Everyone wants

us to cut wasteful government spending, but no one wants us to cut

their program.

As we move forward, again in concurrence with my friend and

colleague from D.C., we want to make sure that the pendulum

doesn’t swing too far, because as we look at programs, certainly

there are duplications, and there is a concern, always a concern

about the political aspects, in that if there is a favored program or

a program that someone doesn’t like.

I share your concern. I think we have to be very cautious as we

move forward, but I think this is a program that we are trying to

emulate that has been very successful for multiple administrations.

But again, we have to be cautious because there are a lot of wonderful programs that we would not want to become a victim of a

political process.

We just want to make sure if we are helping unwed mothers, or

we are helping teachers or students, that we are able to give them

the best programs without unnecessary duplication because that

creates hardship to those individuals also. So again, I share similar

concerns with my colleagues. We want to make sure that we do it

right, and that is why we are having these hearings. So I appreciate your comments, and they are very well taken.

I would like to move into some procedural matters. I would like

to ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days

to submit written statements and questions for the record, that any

answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the record; without objection, so ordered. I would also ask

unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents, and other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be included in

the hearing record, that all Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks; without objection, so ordered.

It is a practice of the subcommittee to administer the oath to all

witnesses. So if you would all please stand, I will administer the

oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. Let the record show the witnesses have

answered in the affirmative. Of course, you can please be seated.

Because of the number of witnesses we will have here today, I

would ask that all witnesses tailor their oral testimony to 5 minutes. Again, we could talk about this for hours, days, weeks, and

months possibly, but your submitted statements will be part of the

record and part of the deliberation. So we would ask that you keep

your comments to 5 minutes. I would also like to make special note

that we had originally planned for Member Brady to testify today

on bill H.R. 3277, but with the recent events in his home State, he

was unable to attend. So he would be with us if he could.

On our first panel is no stranger to the committee and to Congress. We appreciate having here, Mr. Johnson, who is Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.

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Please, Mr. Johnson, if you would give us your testimony. Thank

you, Clay.

STATEMENT OF CLAY JOHNSON III, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR

MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Davis, members

of the committee, thank you for having me here today.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that we share the same

goal, which is we want to spend the taxpayers’ money wisely. A lot

of attention is being devoted today to how we spend going forward

and in the past month how we spend the Katrina moneys most

wisely. I would suggest that it is equally important for us to be focused on how we spend all of our money. The results and sunset

commissions can help us do just this, can help us spend the money

more wisely than we are spending it now.

I am going to make my verbal comments very, very brief because

I want to get into, with your questions, some of the issues that you

have raised here in your opening statements. But I do want to say

here at the beginning that these commissions, in our opinion, help

programs work better. These are more about getting programs to

work better, to remove duplication, to improve performance. The

focus is primarily on performance, than it is on getting rid of programs, and improving efficiency. The primary focus is on improved

performance. We want to get a better return on the taxpayers’

money.

Second, these programs are used by approximately half the

States. To my knowledge there is no concern, or history has shown

that there has been no diminution in the relative role of Congress

versus the executive branch in these States or the other way

around. There is no reason to believe that these commissions, the

sunset commissions and the results commissions, can’t work as

well here as they work at the States. The only reason that they

would work less well is if we are truly not interested in spending

money wisely, and I know that is not true.

Also, I would like to make the point that these commissions

should be popular with Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and

Conservatives. These programs are about improved performance.

Ron Martinson, this ties back to your comment to me a year and

a half ago, which is results are something that both sides of the

aisle can agree with.

If you are a big government or a little government person, you

want to focus on results. If you are a Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat, you want results. So this is maybe little, or

not, a partisan issue, what we are going to talk about in here. Most

of the discussion, I suspect, will be on how to best focus on getting

our programs and our money to be spent even more wisely.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Clay, and we appreciate your expertise.

How would you handle the criticism of creating these commissions

and this legislation, criticism that it is just another government

program; it is another commission; it is not going to do anything?

How do we handle the argument that one, they are not going to

be successful; it is just going to be business as usual? Then tag

onto that a concern that I, again, share with my colleagues, that

this does not become a political process. If in fact it does work, how

do we keep the politics out of it?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, there is no commission that will work automatically. You put the wrong people, or provide the wrong leadership, or create the wrong mission or charter for a commission, it

will fail. And so, there is nothing automatic. This is not a magic

bullet.

But these are both instruments that, if the executive branch and

the legislative branch both want them to be used successfully to

spend the taxpayers’ money, they can bring us together in a most

effective fashion to do just that. And if Congress doesn’t want this

to work, or if on the other hand the executive branch doesn’t want

this to work, it will not work because Congress and the executive

branch are brought together in terms of the formation of the commissions, in terms of what subjects and what programs the sunset

commission takes up, and Congress has to agree with the executive

branch on what results commissions objectives or areas would be

addressed by the results commissions.

There is a tremendous amount of interaction between the executive and legislative branches, and if either one of the two parties

wants it to not be productive, it won’t be. I have no concern about

the one branch of government reigning supreme over the other.

You wouldn’t allow that; the executive branch wouldn’t allow that.

These programs, these two commissions are structured to call for

equal involvement in focusing on how we are spending the people’s

money.

I am not sure it would have made sense to propose these commissions 5, 6, 7 years ago. One of the things that we have not had

in the Federal Government is consistent performance information

about how programs work. We have today, or soon, we will have

80 percent of the programs, and next year we will have 100 percent

of the programs, a good first step at consistent information about

whether programs work or not.

So we will have information to sit down and look at, Republicans

and Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives, legislative and executive branches, and have a most meaningful conversation about does

this program work. Does it achieve the intended result at an acceptable cost? And if there is some belief that it doesn’t, we can

then engage in a conversation about what we need to do to change

that; if it is not satisfactory, what we can do to change that.

Mr. PORTER. Excuse me, Clay. What about the argument that we

will lose congressional oversight and involvement?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, in the sunset commission, first of all, Congress has to agree on: What is a program? What will be looked at

every 10 years? Do we want the Defense Department at large

looked at every 10 years? Probably not.

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Do we want the Commerce Department, or do we want this size

of programs, or this conglomeration of programs? Congress is integrally involved and has to approve in expedited procedures what is

the list of programs that will be reviewed every 10 years. Then

every 10 years, one-tenth of the programs come up for review.

Then a recommendation is made, the commission reviews it,

makes their determination as to whether it is a good recommendation or not, and if it is not a good recommendation, how they would

amend it. That then presents certain recommendations to Congress

to followup on. Congress can agree with those recommendations,

can propose those reforms, or not agree. So Congress is integrally

involved in any changes that take place as a result of the sunset

commission’s work.

Mr. PORTER. Because of up or down?

Mr. JOHNSON. No. They say this program ought to be changed by

changing this statute or requiring more accountability or less accountability, whatever it is. Congress votes on that just like they

do now. The one thing that happens if they don’t vote in 2 years

time about whether that program should be continued, it goes

away.

Now, I can’t imagine that presents a problem for Congress. On

the Results Commission, Congress gets a vote and responds to a

proposal by the executive branch as to whether to even take up an

issue, whether it ought be job training or disadvantaged youth, or

preschool education, or whatever. They decide whether this is a

controversial or noncontroversial enough topic to even take up for

consideration in a Results Commission fashion.

Then once they agree that it should be, then a commission is

formed of experts. They get to have an input on who is on that

panel, that seven-member commission that looks at their experts in

that particular subject. Then when the proposal is put together,

and it eventually comes to Congress, that is considered in an up

and down vote.

So Congress’ input in that is: Is it a topic we want to take up

in the first place? And two, they have input as to who is on that

commission. And then they can reject the recommendation at the

end if they were on an expedited basis.

One of the things we have been asked is, well, why haven’t we

sought reorg authority like last existed, I think, in the early

eighties. One of the reasons we haven’t sought it is because we

knew there was zero chance of it ever being approved, just for all

the reasons that you talked about.

There is just no appetite for giving the executive branch reorg

authority as is, unless there is a strong plan, unless if we can demonstrate a strong reason why and how we would use reorg authority to get something specific accomplished. We can talk to very specific things we would get accomplished with the use of something

like the results commission.

You listed a whole bunch of areas where we have huge duplication. Maybe it is true that all these things do not duplicate, and

they are all wonderfully effective programs. I think we all doubt

that. GAO has listed in several occasions a long list of programs

where we have 20 programs or 30 programs; and we know they

work at cross purposes, they are inefficient, they overlap, they

47

don’t overlap. They need to be thought through more intelligently.

There is no mechanism now that brings us all together, all the interested parties together, to help us look at that in a meaningful

fashion.

We talked about overlap. The results commission is an instrument that allows us to address the degree to which there is overlap, and the opportunity we have to not necessarily right-size but

to wise-size these programs, and make them so that they are a

good effective delivery of goods and services to the American taxpayer.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Johnson, in trying to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of programs, and whether or not there is room or opportunity

for consolidation, what are we looking for when we make assessments? What are we trying to find out?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it would depend on the program. Maybe let

me talk a little bit in theoretical terms. If we looked at 20 or 30

programs, and we said: All right, do each of these programs have

designed goals, designed outputs? Do they have a target audience

and something specific that we are supposed to do with that target

audience, so that we can measure results and hold the program

manager responsible for the accomplishment of the desired goal?

We would look for that.

We would look for whether programs are trying to accomplish

the same goal, but it is the same target audience. Do they duplicate

each other? Is one more effective than the other? Can the less effective program learn something from the more effective program? Do

they have different definitions of who the target audience is? Do

they have different definitions of the most effective way of delivering the desired service?

If we have something to learn, let us learn it. If we have programs working at cross purposes, let us learn that and get rid of

that. If we need to bring some of them together because right now

a potential citizen to be served has to go to eight different places

to get all the different things related to training, childcare, or

something. Why not bring them together and give them one place

to go, so that we can make it easier for the customer to be served

by the Federal Government?

So you get into service delivery improvements. You get into cost

improvements. You get into minimizing duplication, minimizing

programs that work at cross purposes. It can be any number of different things. But I know that those problems exist.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Do you view the danger of simple budgetary concerns sometimes driving the ultimate decisions? I have always been amazed that we wiped out something called the OEO

Poverty Programs at a time when I thought they were just beginning to prove their worth. I always felt that they didn’t die, that

they were killed. And now, we are back talking about poverty in

a big way today.

I am saying one of the biggest discussions that we are having in

this country is about poverty. And yet, when it seemed to me that

we were moving in the direction of having some impact on the reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:58 Mar 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25616.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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duction of poverty, that we just iced the poverty programs and said:

These things are not working. They are no good.

We are spending the money, and it is not serving the purpose.

How much danger do you see there because I am still not convinced

that we did the right thing when we eliminated many of the old

OEO Poverty Programs?

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t know the specifics of that program, but let

me make a general statement and then answer that more specifically. I don’t think the amount of total budget issues will be any

greater or any less with the results and sunset commissions. We

are seeing less growth in our non-Defense, non-Homeland Security

budgets now, and I suspect that will continue in the near future.

So we are particularly looking now for programs that don’t work.

If they don’t work, let us get rid of them and send them on because

I have a new idea. I have a new program. We are looking for

sources of funds. So eliminating programs or making programs

work better is a way of finding new money, a way of getting more

for the money we have.

On the specific program, in what we proposed here, if a poverty

program came up, and it was scheduled to go through a Sunset Review, I am imagining that in general what would happen is, it

would come up. What would be proposed is, here is this program.

This would go before the sunset commission.

The definition of success as stated in the bill or as implied by the

bill is this: This program performs that, it performs it medium, it

performs it not at all, it performs it great. And we think it could

work better if this happened, or if that happened, or if we changed

some things, or tightened the law, or made this more accountable,

or combined with this, or whatever.

The goal, initially, would be to see if the program worked better.

I can imagine that the only time you would come up with a recommendation for eliminating the program is if it totally duplicated

something else, or it was just a total waste of money, and there

aren’t many like that. The Sunset Commission would say, we recommend that this be continued, but that these changes be considered by Congress.

So Congress would vote affirmatively that the program be continued. They would take up the proposed changes to the program.

They accept them; they reject them, but Congress has a lot of say

in this. That is why I think it is a misnomer here that this is a

creation of lot of executive branch mandates on what happens to

these programs. There is a lot of congressional involvement

throughout these two processes.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PORTER. Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. In looking at the proposed Government Reorganization

Program Performance Improvement Act, the summary, it looks like

you are doing most of your work in looking at programs just within

the Federal purview, is that correct?

Mr. JOHNSON. As opposed?

Mr. MICA. Well, for example, several times you talk about Hurricane Katrina and looking at, let me see here——

Mr. JOHNSON. For State and local? States?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

49

Mr. JOHNSON. Twenty-five or 24 States have Sunset Commissions or something akin to that, that was what I was referring to

earlier.

Mr. MICA. ‘‘Consistent with our focus on results, particularly in

the wake of Katrina, Congress and the executive branch should be

paying special attention to whether we are getting the most for taxpayers’ dollars.’’ But you are limiting that to Federal scope because

I mean you are not getting into duplication of programs between

Federal and State.

Mr. JOHNSON. No. Well, if I knew that we thought there was a

program that was duplicated by a State program, or it was in conflict with a State program, I think recommendations coming out of

that would be——

Mr. MICA. But that might be something that is considered also.

Mr. JOHNSON. Those conflicts would be recommended for——

Mr. MICA. I see you shaking your head, yes. Then the guy behind

you, I know what he does, and he is saying no. He isn’t? OK. So

you are saying, yes.

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t speak for this bunch behind me.

Mr. MICA. OK.

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t have the slightest idea who they are.

Mr. MICA. All right. But you are saying, yes, that would be a consideration, that you are looking not only at——

Mr. JOHNSON. We want the Federal programs to work, and if

there is something in the way the Federal program is

constructed——

Mr. MICA. Well, many times, we have difficulty in sorting out

what level of government is responsible. I mean Katrina, who is responsible for the levees and dams? Again, you used Katrina here

in a couple——

Mr. JOHNSON. What I meant by the Katrina reference is, there

is a lot of discussion now, relevant, highly relevant discussion. If

we are going to spend as much money as we appear to be ready

to spend on the response to Katrina, we need to make sure we have

the mechanisms, the extra preventions, and the extra resources in

place to ensure that we spend it wisely——

Mr. MICA. That is why——

Mr. JOHNSON. So there is a lot of interest on getting our moneys

worth for all this expenditure, and that mind set should exist, I

suggest, on everything the Federal Government does, just not what

we do in response to a natural disaster.

Mr. MICA. But again, as you approach that problem or other

issues that we get involved in, we also see this division of participation and responsibility at the Federal level. And again, I was trying to find out if you are just looking at Federal duplication in the

process that you——

Mr. JOHNSON. In the results commission, we would be looking at

Federal duplication, yes.

Mr. MICA. Of just Federal activities, not getting into whether the

State or local?

Mr. JOHNSON. We would be looking, yes, the Federal programs

focused on the same subject. Are they aligned with each other? Do

they conflict with each other? Do they support one another? Are

there ways they could be combined to be make it easier on the cusVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:58 Mar 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25616.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
50

tomer, easier for the delivery of goods and services to the intended

customer?

Mr. MICA. Well, again, I think we have a bigger problem in that

regard, and maybe we should look at expanding the purview of

this. One of the interesting things I have found, too, is where we

go in and assist in some of these programs. I have found that the

States turn around and reduce their participation. Substance abuse

is a good one. In Florida, we put more money into Florida, not to

mention——

Mr. JOHNSON. The State pays less, and so overall, no more is

spent.

Mr. MICA [continuing]. Duplicating Federal programs, but then

we put money in, and either the States or locals drop theirs back.

HIDTA is a good example, too, of a problem that we have had. In

the nineties, we created HIDTAs. It was supposed to be high intensity for focused Federal attention in an area.

Then we have ended up keeping these HIDTAs for years. If you

got in the mix, I happened to get one in the mix on a heroin problem back in the nineties. We are still getting the HIDTA, and it

does duplicate what is being done by the State. In some instances,

it completely missed the mark of what its original intent was, and

that was to go after a specific problem and target Federal resources.

If anything, I would like to see your proposal expanded because

I think it limits. At least as I understand it, I would like to see

it expanded, so that it could look at a wider range of problems.

Clay, I have been here 13 years. I have identified the problem in

most of these instances, and it is Congress; we are the guilty party.

I like some of the mechanisms that remove this a bit. We have had

some horrible votes here on the HIDTA issue that the administration wanted to eliminate some of the duplication, which is going for

administration and overhead, and the original program not used

for its purpose.

Another problem, Head Start, another very worthwhile program.

You have, again, a whole host of programs that have just sort of

gone along, and nobody looks at the duplicative things. Not to mention in Head Start, for example, now again, you see the States all

doing their preschool programs, and we are spending $8,000 on, in

many cases, a glorified babysitting program that has been part of

another era and not adjusted, neither with the duplication in Federal childhood programs, not to mention the new era we are getting

into with States getting into that mix.

I guess that is a question. Are you interested in taking it a step

further? Do you think that would be helpful?

Mr. JOHNSON. We are interested in programs working better and

if there are conflicts between how State and local and Federal programs interact with each other. The identification of that, which we

get at with the PART, if they can be addressed with this, in the

sunset commission or in the results commission, yes, we should do

that.

Mr. MICA. So we could add something that said that they would

also look at duplication beyond the Federal borders.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. OK. Thank you.

51

Mr. PORTER. Congresswoman, any questions?

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Johnson, the difficulty I am having is basically with your

submission of what amounts to an outline as testimony, as far as

I can get my arms around what you are even talking about. One

is left to wonder with such a drastic change that might effect each

and every program in the government, whether any self-respecting

congress would ever buy a pig in a poke with this kind of broad

outline with no indication of how this thing would work.

For example, to use your, since you like broad concepts——

Mr. JOHNSON. We also like specific legislation which has been

submitted.

Ms. NORTON. OK. Well then, you will be able to answer my questions very easily.

Using your concepts that help people to understand because if

you conceptualize something, then people understand what you

mean. You said that what was being proposed in the results commission was ‘‘much like the Military Base Realignment and Closure

Program.’’ As I listened to you explain to the chairman the program, I couldn’t see a dime’s worth of difference between what you

were saying and BRAC. Could you tell me if there is anything different between, for example, your results commission and BRAC,

in the way it would operate?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. First of all, in the results commission,

let us say we propose that food safety be addressed because there

are X number of programs dealing with food safety, and there is

reason to believe that they work at cross purposes, or are not properly configured, or something.

Congress can say, we are really not interested in food safety; or

we are, but it is too controversial; or we have more important

things; or they could decide not to even bring up the issue of food

safety. In BRAC, you don’t get the choice. There will be base realignments brought up. You don’t get a choice to say you are not

interested.

Ms. NORTON. Excuse me, who brings up food safety?

Mr. JOHNSON. We would——

Ms. NORTON. You bring it up. How then do we communicate to

you that we don’t want to hear it, and that is the end of it? How

does that happen?

Mr. JOHNSON. I was——

Ms. NORTON. This is a results commission. You bring it up. That

must be with a proposal.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. You come up with a proposal.

Mr. JOHNSON. We propose to Congress that a results commission

be formed to deal specifically with the issue of food safety. If Congress agrees to look at the issue of food safety by means of a results commission, then we set about to create a seven-person commission with input from majority and minority leadership.

Ms. NORTON. OK. So you are saying, as with a BRAC Commission, Congress has to set it up by legislation, right? In other words,

you can’t just do this unless a bill is passed allowing you to do it?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

52

Ms. NORTON. All right, OK, fine. That is exactly what we did in

BRAC. Once the commission is set up, and that is really my question, not how it gets started. This is still a Democratic Republic,

so I didn’t think you all could just fly off and do it without some

authorization. I am trying to find out how it works, Mr. Johnson.

Once it gets started, what is the difference between BRAC and this

commission in its operation and in its relationship to the Congress

of the United States?

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. Let me explain something that I don’t believe

is quite clear just yet. You can accept or reject specific areas of inquiry. You have no choice with BRAC. You will receive a recommendation on base closure.

Ms. NORTON. Just a moment, that much I do understand. Suppose we say, OK, we want you to look at food safety, or we want

you to look at programs of one kind. When I say I am trying to understand how it operates, that is really what I mean, Mr. Johnson.

I am not saying, how do you set it up.

Let us move to the next step. Once it is set up, how does it operate, and what is the difference between how it operates and BRAC?

I don’t think what you have told me is any different than in BRAC

because we set up BRAC. So I assume we have to set up whatever

is this inquiry, fine. Once we set it up, is there any difference between it and BRAC?

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. I am sorry. I am not here to upset you.

Ms. NORTON. I am not upset. This is just my way of cross-examining you. [Laughter.]

Just ask them.

Mr. JOHNSON. OK.

Ms. NORTON. Especially when you came back to me with the

same thing, Mr. Johnson, when I was real clear, I thought. I am

an operational person. I told you I had an outline. I just want to

know whether there is any difference between how it operates. The

word, operates, the operational word, I thought, that is what I

want to focus on.

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t know the mechanics of BRAC, but let me

describe to you the mechanics of the results commission. We

propose——

Ms. NORTON. You didn’t know the mechanics of BRAC, but of

course, I just quoted when you cited BRAC as the way in which the

commission would operate. That was your analogy, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. The analogy is that a proposal comes to Congress

to vote on in its entirety, up or down. That is the similarity with

BRAC.

Ms. NORTON. That is what I wanted to get understood. Now let

us go to what you wanted to focus on, which is how it gets set up.

In your testimony, there is a reference. The word bipartisan is

used. Who appoints the results commission? Who appoints the sunset commission?

Mr. JOHNSON. The President with input from majority and minority leadership in both houses.

Ms. NORTON. When I say bare bones, I mean for example, one

of the things one might have expected to have in your testimony

is whether this would look like other commissions or any different.

For example, a commission on which I served when I was in the

53

government, there were more members from my party than from

the minority party. So my question is this: Would this commission

reflect that way of organizing?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, there is to be a seven-member commission. I

think there are three and three. There are three members appointed by the President, and four members who are appointed by

majority and minority leadership in the two houses.

Ms. NORTON. So there would be a majority always of the President’s party.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. What appeals certainly to me and I think to most

people is when you talk, as you do in your testimony, about performance. I understand that the performance of agencies is the

President’s chief responsibility. So one expects him to have agencies that perform. And if he doesn’t, the buck passes to him, as the

President found out about FEMA.

I want to know if in the process, for example in the sunset commission, we are told a 10-year schedule for the administration to

assess the performance of agencies, does the legislation that you

say has been submitted to the Congress indicate that these agencies will be given recommendations as to how to improve and that

they will be judged based on whether they improve, whether or not

they improve? After all, we are talking to the President about his

own agencies. Is there any part of the legislation that would help

agencies that are not doing as well as they should to do better?

Mr. JOHNSON. This legislation is not needed to do that. At the

end of next year, 100 percent of the agencies will have clearly defined and have clearly available the assessment that was developed

by them and OMB as to whether they work or not, what their performance goals are, what their efficiency goals are, the extent to

which they are achieving those goals, and what opportunities they

have for improving performance whether they are a top program,

medium program, or bad program.

So new legislation is not required for there to be lots and lots of

clarity for agency management and for Members of Congress to

know whether programs are working or not.

Ms. NORTON. So by next year, you will——

Mr. JOHNSON. Eighty percent——

Ms. NORTON. You will know how many programs shouldn’t be

here and how many should, and you will be prepared to submit legislation to that effect because you have been doing this?

Mr. JOHNSON. We recommend every year programs to change——

Ms. NORTON. Have we gotten on the 10-year schedule? You said

10-year schedule here.

Mr. JOHNSON. We undertook, beginning in the summer of 2001,

a 5-year program to evaluate all programs, a 5-year effort to evaluate all programs, 20 percent a year. Next year will be the 5th year.

So we are finishing up the evaluation of the fourth quintile.

Ms. NORTON. You are in the process of helping these agencies to

improve so maybe they will continue to exist.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, the goal is that programs not go away. The

goal is that programs work. This is not about getting rid of programs. This is not about making government smaller or larger or

sideways. This is about spending the money more effectively.

54

What happens in the State of Texas is a few things go away in

the Sunset Commission but, most importantly, Congress and the

executive branch—well I guess in Texas it is primarily an executive

branch function—they look at ways to change the enabling legislation, to tighten the specifications, to combine them with other

things, to better serve the citizens of Texas. This is not about getting rid of things or allowing things to exist. That is one possible

outcome, but that is the outcome in a minority of the cases.

Ms. NORTON. Well, I take it then that you would conclude that

the huge reorganization underway in DOD, the reorganization of

the Department of Homeland Security, neither of which used this

process, was a failure. And for that reason, you believe we need a

whole new process, BRAC process, for the entire government.

Mr. JOHNSON. No. This sunset and results commission is designed to look at, first of all, whatever Congress wants to look at.

Our suggestion is that it look at programs, that it not look at entire

departments. We think looking at the entire department of whatever is not a very worthwhile exercise because a department is a

combination of a whole lot of different programs, some of which

work, some of which don’t. What we would recommend to Congress

is that we focus on programs. If Congress wants to focus on overall

departments, they can guide us in that direction. We suggest a programmatic focus, not a department focus.

Ms. NORTON. The sunset commission, on the other hand, would

not operate that way.

Mr. JOHNSON. No. They would all be focused at programs. Sunset

would focus on programs, and then the results commission would

focus on areas addressed by multiple programs. So the results commission would look at job training, or rural water safety or something, rural health, an area that is served by multiple programs.

So it would be a subject matter served by multiple programs. We

would look at the best way to accomplish job training, and the way

to make all the programs that work on it make sense with each

other. So the results program works on an area of delivery, and the

sunset commission focuses on individual programs.

Ms. NORTON. Fine. I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman. Mr.

Johnson, you are going to find Members like me who have been on

the inside of the Federal Government very favorably disposed to

the notion of trying to get rid of bad programs and consolidate programs.

I began my opening statement by saying, I believe in government. I believe we would have been better off if we had continued

to improve FEMA, as it was found on its knees by the last administration, broke up, and there it is right back down. I think this notion of looking at programs constantly would help that.

I say that because you have presented this proposal to a Congress that has just done a reorganization of the two largest agencies in the entire Federal Government, where almost all the Federal employees are. It was contentious the way things are in a separation of powers government, where the parties are divided, but

we somehow did it.

And I am left to wonder if you are as serious as you seem to be

about improving these programs, whether you could think of a less

contentious way to go about it. I think this is a radical, a radical

55

assault on separation of powers. I can’t imagine this Congress

doing it. I really can’t. I can’t imagine them coming up with an

agreement on a set of programs and then saying, on this set of programs, up and down.

Were you watching the BRAC stuff? I mean this is the way to

get people at you from all directions.

Mr. PORTER. Excuse me, Congresswoman. Because of time, if you

would like to answer that question——

Ms. NORTON. It is just some friendly advice, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PORTER. I think it is a good question. If you would like to

answer the question, then we will move on. This will be your last,

if you would please, Mr. Johnson.

Ms. NORTON. You are absolutely right, Mr. Chairman, and you

have been most gracious.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. I just ask you to look at the notion of whether or

not you want to superimpose expedited procedures on what is a

very important notion. When you pile that on it, it seems to me,

people, large numbers of people, will look the other way.

Mr. JOHNSON. My one comment in response to that is when we

were playing this out, we tried to think that Congress is not going

to allow this to be one way. So at what different points should Congress be involved to have significant influence over the final decision? And we think we have done that, but obviously, we have not

made our case. Quite clearly, we have not made the case to you,

and I apologize for that.

Mr. PORTER. There will be further opportunity. Thank you very

much for your testimony today, Mr. Johnson. Thank you.

Mr. JOHNSON. OK.

Mr. PORTER. We will move on to the second panel. On our second

panel, we will hear first from Mr. Paul Light, a Paulette Goddard

professor of public service at the Robert Wagner School of Public

Service at New York University. Then we will hear from Mr. Tom

Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste; third, we

will hear from Mr. Maurice McTigue, vice president for Outreach

at Mercatus Center. Last, Mr. Robert Shull, director of regulatory

policy, OMB Watch. We have approximately 55 minutes left to be

able to use the room. So I welcome all of you.

Mr. Light.

STATEMENTS OF PAUL C. LIGHT, PAULETTE GODDARD PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC SERVICE, ROBERT WAGNER SCHOOL OF

PUBLIC SERVICE, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY; THOMAS A.

SCHATZ, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT

WASTE; MAURICE P. MCTIGUE, Q.S.O., VICE PRESIDENT FOR

OUTREACH, MERCATUS CENTER; AND J. ROBERT SHULL, DIRECTOR OF REGULATORY POLICY, OMB WATCH

STATEMENT OF PAUL C. LIGHT

Mr. LIGHT. It is my pleasure to be before you today. I went down

to the full committee room and thought for a second that all that

media was for this important topic. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

As I say in my testimony, I believe in the importance of reorganization as a tool to improve government performance. I believe in

56

the notion of establishing some sort of bipartisan commission to examine the organization of government. To a certain degree, I argue

that the sunset and results commissions are too tepid for the task,

that we ought to look at the organization of government as we did

in the early 1950’s, late 1940’s, and take a look at how things are

structured around mission. This was a central recommendation of

the National Commission on the Public Service which was chaired

by Paul Volcker and gave its report to the Government Reform

Committee in January 2003.

I think the administration has gone toward the results and sunset commissions as a way of breaking this down so that it is more

manageable. My general view is that, by breaking it down, you expose it to the same controversy and potential delay that you would

have in any situation where you are starting reorganization from

scratch.

As my colleague from OMB Watch rightly notes, Congress can

currently reorganize at will; it just doesn’t. And the fact that it can

doesn’t mean that it shall. And I think that some sort of a BRACstyle, action-forcing mechanism can be a very useful piece of legislation to improve the organization of government.

What I recommend in my testimony is that we proceed with a

much more aggressive government-wide assessment of the organization of government, and rather than starting with programs as

our focus, that we start with organization. Ultimately, we will get

to programs. Because if you adopt a mission-centered approach to

looking at reorganization, you are going to start down the same

path that the administration has ended up on by looking at how

programs overlay each other.

But the assumption in looking at organization first is not that

programs are functioning well or not well; it is whether or not we

have the organizational structures in place to allow them to function well or not well. In other words, we start with organization as

our focus and look for the possible culprits, organizationally and

otherwise, that might explain poor program performance.

It may well be, for example, that the reason an agency fails is

because we have under-invested in its human capital. It may be

that the program results are poor not because of program design,

not because of poor intentions, but because we haven’t invested in

the organization; we haven’t given it the tools and resources to do

its jobs.

As I looked at the Federal Human Capital Survey that was done

in 2002, looking at the data on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, I was struck by the fact that over and over we find

FEMA at the bottom of the list in terms of employee attitudes regarding access to resources, access to budget, access to the basic

tools that they need to be successful.

My general argument here is not to disagree with the overall notion that we need some sort of action-forcing device, and we need

to get on with this task. It has been recommended to Congress repeatedly over the last 20 to 30 years. Rather, my recommendation

to you is that you take a much more comprehensive approach and

that you also consider the possibility that such a commission could

be created within the remaining years of this administration, but

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whose report would not go to the President until after this administration has left office.

That is what we were able to do in 1988 when the Senate and

House agreed on creating a National Commission on Restructuring

for Government. We left the decision about whether to trigger the

commission into existence to the first administration to follow the

Reagan administration. It happened to be the administration of

George H.W. Bush and his Director of the Office of Management

and Budget decided that it was not a wise investment of the administration’s time.

With perfect hindsight, I wish we had not given the administration that option to trigger or not trigger the commission, and I

think we missed an important opportunity to take a look at many

of the problems that this subcommittee is examining today.

I will submit my full testimony for the record and be available

for any questions you might have after my colleagues have testified. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Light follows:]

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Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Light. We appreciate it.

Mr. Schatz.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS A. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Davis,

and Ms. Norton. I appreciate the opportunity to testify here today.

This is certainly a topic that has been the subject of much discussion over the years, not just whether we should have additional

commissions, but also how to reorganize and restructure the government.

I would like to give some tribute to the Office of Management

and Budget for its effort under the Performance Assessment Rating

Total or the Program Assessment Rating Total. It is at least something that is there for people to look at to determine whether programs are operating efficiently or inefficiently. We would certainly

like to see Congress respond to those ideas a little more expeditiously.

The President has submitted lists, as he does every year. Every

President submits lists. And perhaps, it is the frustration, or in

some ways lack of response, that has led to the establishment in

legislation at least of sunset and results commissions. Sure, Congress could do a lot of this, but we haven’t seen enough of it, and

I think that is reflected in the response to the costs of the hurricanes.

People are saying: How are we going to pay for this? One way

might be to eliminate low priority programs. How do we determine

what those are? Whether it is the sunset and results commissions

that determine that, or whether it is Congress itself, whether it is

OMB, there must be some way for us to get to providing a better

return on the tax dollars that we pay.

Mr. Johnson mentioned a number of States have Sunset Commissions: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut; they

are listed in my testimony. Texas has had a very successful Sunset

Commission over the years. As he pointed out, and as we note,

those recommendations do go back through the legislature. This

doesn’t just happen because the executive branch asks for it.

And I would just like to respond briefly to the BRAC discussion.

Congresswoman Norton, you are correct; it was controversial, but

it did get done. What happened was the Pentagon’s recommendations were probably altered more than past BRACs have been. I

think that shows that this process does work over a period of time,

in that when you are talking about the military or you are talking

about serving low income individuals, one of the ways to do that

is to make these programs work more effectively. We can provide

more help at less expense to the taxpayers by making them work

in a way that gives that money out instead of having 16 or 18 or

30 or 40 different ways of trying to do the same thing.

So, as I said, I think if Congress had been doing this all along,

we might not be sitting here today, but that has not been done in

a way that has satisfied a lot of people on both sides of the aisle.

However we do it, whether it includes expedited procedures or not,

which we think it should, whether we go to the reorganization—

and I would never argue with Paul Light who has been doing this

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probably longer than I have—there has to be a comprehensive way

to look at this.

The last real comprehensive look at the overall structure of government from an outside commission was the Grace Commission,

which is the predecessor to Citizens Against Government Waste.

Congress took up a lot of those proposals. The administration took

up a lot of those proposals. The first three were actually adopted

by Congressman Rostenkowski as Head of the Ways and Means

Committee, including a tax refund offset proposal and a computer

matching program so that you could determine if somebody who

had become ineligible in one Federal program could get money

from another.

Some of these are simple management initiatives; some of them

are complete overhauls of programs; some of them include program

eliminations. But I hope we have moved beyond the discussion

about whether people like government or don’t like government. I

think it has been made very clear by this administration that they

are not going to go out and close the agencies and departments

that were proposed under President Reagan’s administration. We

don’t hear that discussion any more.

So if we can agree that these things should be done, I hope we

can agree on legislation or some way to get them done, so that taxpayers will feel a little bit better about all the money that they

send here in Washington. We would like to see a further analysis

of what the Office of Management and Budget has proposed under

PART, what Congress’ reaction has been, and at the very least

which of those programs could or should be eliminated even before

we get to the commissions because this work needs to be done before we get to these commissions. We have, according to the Louisiana delegation, a $250 billion bill to pay for just Louisiana. Whether that is true or not, we really have to find some way to offset

those expenses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and I am happy to answer any question.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schatz follows:]

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Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Schatz.

Mr. McTigue, welcome back. We appreciate you being with us

again.

STATEMENT OF MAURICE P. MCTIGUE, Q.S.O.

Mr. MCTIGUE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, what I am seeing with this piece of legislation is something

that I would call a continuum that derives from the passage in

1993 of the Government Performance and Results Act. What that

act did was require that agencies start to identify results in terms

of public benefits produced with the money expended on programs.

And then we saw OMB starting to use that information in its

PART, its Program Assessment Rating Tool, to decide whether or

not programs really were effective.

Now I think we are moving to what I would call the next stage,

and that next stage is to start to look at outcomes. Say, in the area

of literacy, let us look at all of the programs on literacy at the same

time and see which of them are most successful at making people

literate; then make some assessments about whether or not if we

invested more heavily in those that were most successful at making

people literate, we would get a much greater public benefit.

The issue in my mind is certainly not about cuts. The issue is

about benefits. Can we maximize the public benefit in each of these

areas, so that we do more for the people than we are currently, and

maybe we can do it with the same number of resources.

Mr. Chairman, I spent 10 years as an elected Member of Parliament in New Zealand, 4 years as a Member of Cabinet, and 4

years as an ambassador. During my period in Parliament and as

a Cabinet Minister, one of the things that I was responsible for was

some of this kind of reorganization.

And this is an actual case: As Minister of Labor, I had 34 programs that were designed to help people back into the work force.

When we assessed those programs on how effective they were at

getting people back into work, we found some of them were highly

successful, some of them moderately successful, and some of them

did very little at all.

By looking at those programs and identifying the four most effective programs and putting the resources into those programs, we

were able to get 300 percent more people into work for the same

quantity of money. Those are benefits we can’t afford to give away.

We did an examination here in the year 2000, and there is a report here on it, a research project that the Mercatus Center did,

and we looked at vocational training programs in the United States

under the same kind of liens. You currently spend $8.4 billion on

those programs, and you get 2.4 million people into work.

Of the 45 programs that are devoted to vocational training, if you

picked out the three best programs, and you invested that resource

in those programs, you would get 14 million people into work for

the same quantity of money. Or you could maintain the current

public benefit of 2.4 million people into work and free up $6 billion

to spend on a higher priority. Those are choices that should be

placed in front of Congress as options in my view.

And what you should be getting from results commissions are options, well-researched and well-thought out. A legislature is not the

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place to do research. A legislature is the place where you make

choices between different options, and that those options are soundly based and well-researched by the time that you get them.

Can I just spend a moment or two now talking about what I see

as the role of the sunset commissions because I see it slightly differently to Mr. Johnson? I see it more in the light—sorry, I didn’t

intend the pun—of Paul Light’s comments that there needs to be

an examination of organizations, and certainly a wise manager constantly looks at the organizations that he or she uses in managing

their enterprise to see if they are capable of doing the job.

One of the things that is not happening in the American Government at the moment is that there is nobody who is responsible for

monitoring capability. If something went wrong with FEMA, and I

am not sure that it did, but if something went wrong with FEMA

in Louisiana, it was that it had lost some of the capability that it

previously had to respond to natural disasters. And that might

have been because of the emphasis that it was placing on being

able to recover from terrorist acts. But there was a capability lost

there in all probability.

In my view, something like the Office of Personnel Management

should shift from thinking about itself as the manager of the Federal work force and think about itself in terms of: Do we have the

capability in each of the government’s organizations to be able to

do this job effectively? The 9/11 Commission made it clear that one

of the intelligence failures was something as simple as the FBI and

the CIA not having translators who could convert the raw intelligence into stuff that analysts could work with. If there was somebody watching for capability, that weakness would have been

picked up, and maybe September 11th wouldn’t have happened.

A sunset commission that could look at organizational competency, to look at its guiding statutes and see whether or not

those statutes were relevant to contemporary society, in my view

could do a great deal to improve the competency of the government

in delivering better services to the public at large.

If we were to do that, then it doesn’t make sense just to do it

once and think that it is done for all time. It is something that you

have to do constantly; go back and look and your organizations and

see that they are rightly structured to meet the needs and demands of today’s society. If that had been happening in my view,

we wouldn’t be having the current debate that we are having in the

United States about poverty. We would have solved that problem

a long time ago.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McTigue follows:]

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Mr. PORTER. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. Shull.

STATEMENT OF J. ROBERT SHULL

Mr. SHULL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee.

We have just heard that organization should be our focus, not

programs. I think that neither focus is the correct focus. The correct focus is whether or not public needs are being met. The word

tool has been used by several witnesses here, and I think it is a

good word because public institutions are the tools that we use to

act collectively in order to address the needs that we cannot meet

as isolated individuals, needs like building schools, building levies,

checking private behavior like pollution that causes harm for innocents.

Now the problem here with this sunset and reorganization approach is that it does place its focus on organization, and that is

entirely the wrong focus because it is as though we are looking at

government management and government programs without any

regard for the social context in which they were created, without

any regard for any outside information whatsoever.

That is just not the way that we should be looking at things because government programs exist for a reason; they exist to meet

our public needs. That is the reason why some of the themes that

have come up here have taken on such a wrong focus. When we

take public needs as the bottom line, it turns all of these arguments on their head.

Let us look at duplication. Now there are some programs that

are effective on a national basis in the aggregate, but there are

some populations that are so subordinated, disadvantaged, or discriminated against that they cannot enjoy the full benefit of those

programs, even when they are truly effective nationwide.

And that is why Congress sometimes needs to create duplicative

programs, the Appalachian Regional Commission, for example. The

severely disadvantaged populations of Appalachia have not been

enjoying many of the benefits that come from the EPA, from welfare programs, from all of the programs that should be addressing

their needs. That is why Congress created the Appalachian Regional Commission: to coordinate resources, to target new resources, to serve that population.

I think the same is true for women’s health programs. When the

standard is the average male, our studies and our health programs

are not going to serve women very well. That is why Congress has

created special programs targeting women’s health, targeting

breast cancer. They may, on their face, look to be duplicative, but

they are duplicative for a reason.

I think what is duplicative is taking on, adopting new institutions and new approaches that duplicate what we can already do

and already do effectively. Congress, for example, can already reorganize government when it needs to do so and prove, with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, that it can do so

swiftly when the need arises.

I just heard that apparently legislatures are not the place for research, but the fact is this legislature has an enormous capacity for

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research. The GAO is unparalleled in the quality of the studies

that it conducts, and this Congress has the ability to convene hearings, to bring the public in, and to bring experts in to combine expertise and democratic participation, so that we can arrive at the

best solutions for meeting public needs.

Multiplicity, we have heard about. There is a shared number of

programs that serve the homeless, that serve the same issues.

Think of an issue like foster care. There are many programs that

serve foster care. Abused and neglected children in foster care benefit from the Title 4E Entitlement; from Title 4B Adoption Assistance, if they are that lucky; from the Chafee Independent Living

Program, if that is the outcome for them; they benefit from Medicaid; they benefit from many non-profits, which are created by and

thrive because of the tax code administered by the Tax Exempt Organizations Office in the IRS. It goes on and on and on.

I think we couldn’t say that the sheer multiplicity of the programs serving foster children somehow means that we are doing

too much for foster children, that we are devoting too many resources because I can tell you as a former child advocate, that is

just not the case.

And when it comes to waste, I think that forcing programs to

plead for their lives every 10 years is a waste because we will be

forcing programs that we know, without a doubt, meet public needs

and exist for a reason to make the case for their existence. We

know we need Department of Education programs to help families

put their children in college. We know that we need OSHA to keep

workplaces safe. We don’t need them to make the case for their

continued existence.

I see my time is up, and I would be happy to answer any additional questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shull follows:]

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Mr. PORTER. Thank you very much. I would like to commend

staff. I think you have put together a panel made of very diverse

opinions, and I say that out of respect. It is a very valuable part

of our debate today as I try to summarize some of the things that

I have heard today about whether we should look at programs.

I think Mr. Johnson said we should look at programs. I think Mr.

Light said we should look at organizations. Mr. McTigue, I think

you said we should look at capability. Mr. Shull, I think you said

that we shouldn’t have them forced into saving their lives every 10

years. And Mr. Schatz, you mentioned the Grace Commission.

So having done a quick little summary, I would like to hear more

about the Grace Commission. That was in the Reagan administration? Could you cover that for a moment, please?

Mr. SCHATZ. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The Grace Commission was established in 1982. President Reagan established it upon Executive

order, and he asked J. Peter Grace, who was then head of the

Grace Co., W.R. Grace and Co., to lead this commission. They

added about 2,000 volunteers, about 160 senior executives, and

other leaders to examine the operations of the Federal Government.

The report had 2,478 recommendations with 3-year savings of

about $424.4 billion. A number of those recommendations were implemented by President Reagan by Executive order. Others went

through Congress.

Just some quick examples: BRAC itself was a recommendation of

the Grace Commission; the public sale of Conrail was a recommendation; Civil Service reform; there is a long list. And of

course, we have made recommendations for many other ideas to

make the government more——

Mr. PORTER. Excuse me. That was initiated by President

Reagan?

Mr. SCHATZ. That was initiated by President Reagan in January

1982. The report was issued in June 1984, I think March 1984 actually, and soon after that, Citizens Against Government Waste

was established to followup on the implementation of those recommendations.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you.

Mr. McTigue, back to your comments. Do we have the capability?

How do you see Congress interacting with the capability portion

with a sunset commission, or even the efficiency? How do we get

to that point? I think that is actually very similar to saying: Is the

program actually being run properly and is it needed? But let us

talk about capability. Explain that a little bit for how Congress can

get more involved in the capability aspects.

Mr. MCTIGUE. I think that one of the things that Congress

should question executives about every time they come before a

committee is: Do you actually have the capability to succeed at this

task? For example, one of the critical questions that wasn’t asked

of the intelligence agencies was: Do you have the capability to be

able to translate and utilize all of the information flowing in? And

the answer was: No, they didn’t. So there was a fatal flaw.

One of the accountability provisions for executives should be that

they have to account for the capability that their organization has

now, that it needs in the future, and how they are going to be able

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to get there. Those are all in my view for somebody like OPM to

be thinking about the issue of human capital, human capital being

the capability of an organization to achieve its goals, and reporting

to the President on a regular basis saying: This organization is falling behind in its capability needs, and it needs to do all of these

things if it is going to be able to meet and carry out your agenda.

Congress also should be saying the same to organizations. Have

you got the human capital in place to be able to give you the advantage necessary to be able to complete all of those tasks as assigned to you? In my view, it is a new part of the management paradigm for people working both in the private sector and the public

sector, but it is going to be an essential part of being able to complete tasks going into the future. And something like sunset commissions could have that as one of their charges when they look at

an organization to see whether or not the capability was there to

be able to carry out the particular agenda that was set.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you.

Mr. Shull, you mentioned: Are the public needs being met? I

think that is actually very similar to Mr. McTigue in the capabilities. If I understood you correctly, a program should remain because it was established for the right reasons and should continue.

But don’t you think that we need to have a little more oversight

in some of these programs that maybe have outlived their necessity, and we need to have a review of that program and that organization?

Mr. SHULL. I think that oversight is the key word. These proposals don’t really create the oversight that we need. Mr. McTigue just

said, or said earlier in his statement, that when he was considering

capabilities as the bottom line, he suggested that something like

OPM should be a single office that could ask whether or not all of

our agencies have the capabilities that we need.

I just don’t think that these are sort of generic questions that can

be asked by neutral generalists. I just don’t think that is possible.

As I think members of the House, in particular, know because of

their expertise that they gain through the committees of jurisdiction, that it takes a long time to learn, to master a body of knowledge in order to exercise the oversight that is necessary. This is not

a neutral task that a sunset commission, that might hear claims

of programs that inspect grain versus programs that protect abused

and neglected children, has the expertise to do across the board. So

I think that those are different questions.

Now when it comes to asking whether or not programs have outlived their usefulness, I think I would like to suggest that we have

that now through the reauthorization process. Agencies like take

the National Highway Safety Administration, it comes up for reauthorization every 5 years. Congress has the opportunity——

Mr. PORTER. It is supposed to come up every 5 years. I just

thought I would add a little editorial.

Mr. SHULL. Right, right. And Congress, actually on a year to year

basis through the budget and appropriations process, has the ability to cut things off whenever Congress determines that the need

is no longer there. I think that in some cases we will find that the

needs never go away. We never stop having a need for safe workplaces for the men and women of America who work for a living.

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So I think that we will never run out of a need for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I think that there are

some needs. Education, we will always need a Department of Education. There are some needs that are eternal.

Now, the ways in which those needs manifest themselves, and

the ways in which programs need to address those needs, may

change over time. That is something that can be addressed on an

ongoing basis. The White House certainly doesn’t need a commission or this sort of fast-track take it or leave it process to send proposals to Congress. The White House certainly didn’t need this

process when it suggested the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. I think we have processes in place right now, processes that work.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Shull, I was somewhat intrigued with your notion that duplicate programs may serve a purpose and just because they are duplicate, that does not necessarily mean that they are not of value.

I guess I was thinking of that because of the fact that I have been

trying to deal with the specific needs of a population group called

African American males, as an example.

Mr. SHULL. Right.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Generally, when I come to a hearing

room like this, there are very few, and I hardly ever see African

American males in any substantial numbers. Or when I go to college and university campuses and look at the population there, I

see very few. Then, of course, I go some other places, and I see

quite a few, such as the prisons and jails and traffic courts and unemployment lines.

Yet, there are certain kinds of programs that are designed, for

example, to provide opportunities for people. And yet, somehow or

another, those programs, unless they are specifically designed and

have some special components, will often times miss this population group. I am wondering, could you expound a bit more on

your rationale for this theory that duplication need not necessarily

mean that you have what you need, or you don’t need something

special in some instances because of all of the factors that make

up an environment?

Mr. SHULL. Right. I think it is actually one of the problems that

is endemic to any program design because programs are designed

with a standard in mind. Unfortunately, that standard isn’t always

representative of the full range of a population that is supposed to

be served. That is why we see it again and again and again. That

is why we see recurring needs for programs that target women’s

health, programs that target specific populations like rural populations, very specific populations like Appalachia.

And that is why this neutral approach or this general approach,

that somehow we can adopt certain standards like duplication, they

have one meaning in every context. Or we can look at activities like

management and somehow managing grain inspectors and managing programs that benefit foster children, somehow that is all the

same activity.

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Every time we take these sort of neutral government-wide approaches, we run the risk of reinscribing these same old problems.

We could always run the risk of resubordinating the very populations who are supposed to be benefiting from these targeted, or

supposedly duplicative, programs because they were subordinated

in the first instance.

We run the risk of recreating the very problems that we have

been trying to solve over the years, as actually you just mentioned

when it comes to poverty programs. We were apparently on the

right track, getting something accomplished, and now we need new

programs targeted at the poor because we are just not doing the

job any more, and because we got rid of the programs that were

in place.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I also saw the same thing sort of in how

we used to approach what was called community health, where we

had outreach workers and people who would go out and try and

bring people in because somehow or another people were not coming to the clinics and they had never any experiences.

All of a sudden, that became passe. We were spending too much

money. And yet, when we look at health status, we see a tremendous difference with that population group in terms of what was

happening with them when the outreach was being done, and we

actually saw the reduction in infant mortality, and we actually saw

reduction in certain disease entities among that population group.

I wanted to quickly, though, Mr. Light, ask you. When we think

of the executive branch, which is designed to propose, and then the

executive branch dispose. Do you think that there might be opportunity for greater interaction in the process of development between the two as we look at what might be taking place with programs and the extent to which they have been effected?

Mr. LIGHT. I think that Congress has to be a partner in the conversation about performance assessment. The Achilles Heel to the

results commission is the PART, the rating tool that OMB has developed, and I have not yet seen a credible evaluation of how good

PART is at getting to the issue of performance. I would guess that

it is uneven, and I would urge this subcommittee to ask the Government Accountability Office to take a look at how good the measures are and how they are done.

I would guess that they are uneven across the departments if

they represent the unevenness that we have seen in the Government Results Act implementation that the Mercatus Center has

been so effective in documenting. I am a believer in congressional

participation and oversight, and I think you ought to get more

deeply involved in these questions about how we evaluate performance.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you.

Congresswoman, questions?

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate all the testimony, and the qualifications, and the several options you have

brought to the table.

Local governments have accepted the beast that is the Federal

Government. In many ways you see so-called one stop shopping

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places. If you go in some of those places, you would have a hard

time figuring out how all of those things can be consolidated.

You look at the tragic growth of children who are raised only by

their mothers, and you know that some of what she gets and must

have to sustain her children must come from HHS. Some of it must

come from the Labor Department because you want her to become

a productive citizen. Some of it must come from the Education Department. I hope more of it would.

Most of these women are not even, under the present legislation,

allowed to go to college if they are ready, so that they can do something other than the minimum wage work they have. I will tell you

if you try to sit down and to consolidate these programs, I think

you would have an awfully hard time.

At the level where the programs operate in the States, they have

begun to understand that they are dealing with a human being,

and that is not what the Federal Government is there for. The Federal Government is essentially there to provide the States and locality with what it takes to deal with human beings.

I have just a couple of questions. Mr. Light, there is a certain

kind of appeal in your proposal, although one would wonder about

such a proposal in the Congress today. But there certainly is a lot

of appeal because it says: Look, let us look at the whole ball of wax.

But it is so comprehensive. The government has become so vast.

One is left to wonder whether or not, even under the best of circumstances, such a comprehensive review would allow people to get

much beyond the boxes to reach the substance of these programs.

What is really appealing about what the administration says it

wants to do is to look at these programs to see what works or

doesn’t work. Of course, it doesn’t tell us much about how they do

that.

At least, there is some assessment going on here. If you are looking at the whole government, you are hardly in a position to go bit

by bit. What is it? We have how many employees? We have 3 million; 2 million? A lot of them are in this city, I will tell you that

much.

Mr. LIGHT. That is if we can count them all.

Ms. NORTON. In any case, have you considered the difficulty of

getting into the nuts and bolts of what makes government effective,

if what you are looking at is everything there all at one time?

Mr. LIGHT. Well, let me first say that your notion that the modern caseworker is kind of a self-contained results commission is

quite accurate. The best caseworkers are doing this analysis all the

time to figure out what works and where they can get their clients

the most help.

The issue about comprehensiveness and discreetness, the balance

between the two, is the following, that there are some factors that

clearly effect program performance that are, in fact, governmentwide. Earlier this week, a colleague of mine at Princeton released

a report showing that the PART scores of bureaus heading by political appointees—and I am not talking about Democrats versus Republicans; I am just saying in the bureaus headed by political appointees—were significantly and statistically lower than the PART

scores headed by career civil servants.

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Now, we have to drill into that more deeply to see whether or

not that is, in fact, a verifiable predictor of agency performance,

but it would lead us toward addressing some comprehensive issues

surrounding the Presidential appointments process, which your

committee as a whole and predecessors in this room, subcommittees, have struggled with, how to improve this appointments process that is so sluggish and difficult to navigate. You are trying to

balance, and I think a comprehensive look at government every 50

years isn’t a bad idea. Not a bad——

Ms. NORTON. It is not a bad idea. You didn’t think you would

have to break it down from there to go——

Mr. LIGHT. You have to break it down. You have to go down into

mission. So you start with organization, but you are eventually led

to mission. What is the mission of government? Could we do things

better if we eliminated duplication, or is the duplication in fact intentional and purposeful? I would argue, and I haven’t seen a good,

aggressive study of this, that a great deal of duplication in government is quite unintentional and harmful, but it would be interesting to actually take a look at it.

We have a bias against duplication that our colleague from OMB

Watch is rightfully arguing may actually be beneficial, not our bias,

but the duplication. I think you have to drill down after you look

comprehensively at the specific missions that we are aiming to

achieve.

Ms. NORTON. I would like to ask Mr. Schatz a question. He

speaks about the independence that the commissions would have.

Of course, the commissions are still majority party commissions in

a country which is very evenly divided, where there is a great distrust across party lines with frankly, a huge polarization even

about whether government should exist or not.

Let us assume that, for the moment, you somehow get a commission that would have the confidence, enough of the confidence of

the government, that one would want to listen to its recommendations. Then you say, sunset and results commissions—I am looking

at your page unnumbered, but it is in your testimony—like BRAC,

‘‘such a commission would have its recommendations and proposals

subject to review by Congress before they could be adopted.’’

Now, Mr. Shatz, when in fact, let us say our subcommittee comes

to the full committee and even to the floor, in fact, there often are

changes. There are amendments, even amendments proposed by

the minority.

Do you think that the process we go through where somebody

may have a difference, even a small difference, that she would like

to offer as a change, but was told sorry, you have to vote against

the whole thing or for the whole thing. I didn’t know what in the

world you meant when you said people like me, or somehow would

be sent to review by Congress before they would be adopted, since

in ordinary parlance we do usually mean that we have something

to say about the guts of the proposal.

That is how compromises get done here. In order to keep the

whole thing from going down, Republicans and Democrats go at

various bits and pieces. And guess what? Something that neither

of us really wanted, but this is a vast country with people thinking

in thousands of different ways, we have somehow succeeded in getVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:58 Mar 20, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25616.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ting a bill out of it. Would you really want Members of Congress

who might indeed be willing to vote for such a proposal be forced

to vote against the whole thing, rather than have some opportunity

to offer a change that the other side might take?

Mr. SCHATZ. Ms. Norton, the way this particular legislation is set

up, and the up or down, what I was referring to as the sunset commission, there is a lot more opportunity for input there because you

are not forced to vote up or down on the sunset commission’s recommendations. In the results commission, that is the case. And I

think I tried to make that clear in my statement. If I didn’t, then

I am making it now.

Ms. NORTON. I know I am reading from it. However, sunset and

results commissions would not have unilateral power to cancel or

modify questions or programs alone. ‘‘Like the Grace Commission

and BRAC, such a commission would have its recommendations

and proposals subject to review by Congress before they could be

adopted.’’ Yes, subject to review like everybody else who reads the

newspapers. The only difference is we could say yea or nay to the

whole thing.

It is a terrible, terrible misunderstanding of how this body works

because the only way we are able to get bipartisanship on really

hard things is to keep talking back and forth until each side gives

up a little, takes a little. But when you go to up or down, you see

the polarization we have in this country now. All this does is up

the ante 10,000-fold because it says: In your face, take it or leave

it; I don’t care whether you want small changes or large changes.

The only way we can get something done—I remember what you

said, get it done.

Well, at least we got it done. Because you folks just can’t get it

done later for democracy, and this is the way the House and the

Senate have worked for 200 years, absolutely 200 years. We give

up on it. We are going to a procedure which allows for no compromise. There is not a single piece of legislation that would ever

get out of here without compromise, and I don’t know why any

piece of legislation should ever get out of a legislative body which

governs a country as complicated as this without some compromise

from the legislative branch.

I would like to hear if you think that there is some way that we

can modify this, so that you wouldn’t be faced with that up and

down choice, but could go with what the majority wants some of

the time, and not be asked to go with it all of the time or none of

the time.

Mr. SCHATZ. We just did that on BRAC.

Mr. PORTER. Excuse me, we have about 8 minutes left.

Mr. SCHATZ. OK, I will be very brief. We just did that on BRAC.

As you mentioned earlier, it was controversial, but it was done. The

point here is to extend that to other opportunities to reform the

government, and that is what this is intended to do.

Ms. NORTON. I understand what we are doing here. I posed you

a question, and you did not answer. I posed you a question about

our system, and compromise, and how we get legislation done here.

I posed you a question about Red States and Blue States. I posed

you a question about how to bring people together. And you tell

me, well, we did it in BRAC.

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You know what? BRAC was the most contentious process of all

time, and the notion that is the model for how we should run the

United States of America. If that is your answer, thank you very

much.

Let me just go on.

Mr. SCHATZ. I didn’t say that is how we should run the United

States of America, Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Well, we are running it——

Mr. SCHATZ. I said, this is a particular issue that needs——

Ms. NORTON. It is not a particular issue. Virtually any programs

could be in it. I just have to go on. He says we have 8 minutes.

I have a question for Mr. McTigue because I heard the hint of

a compromise. Forgive me for looking for things that, ways to make

common cause because of members who might not agree with me

on everything. You said something about, and I looked for it in

your testimony and didn’t see it, how Congress should be given options.

Of course, with those options and the explanation for those options, it should be asked to decide from those options, it does seem

to me that would be terribly helpful. We often have to get those

options from hearing testimony from various people who come before us. But the whole notion that somebody, let us take it that one

of these commissions, has studied something, and here are a half

dozen options. They might even say which ones they like and

which.

But the notion that somehow you don’t weed Congress out of the

process might be more appealing to people on both sides of the

aisle. I would just like to have a little more explanation of that as

some kind of perhaps middle ground between the in your face, up

and down process that is being offered here.

Mr. MCTIGUE. My response to that is that Congress is master of

its own destiny at all times. As Members of Congress, you can vote

for and against resolutions.

But I would imagine that when you actually get a report from

a commission, a results commission, it is not just a one line report,

saying these things are eliminated and these things are kept. It

should have with it a great deal of detail that explains the thinking

of the commissioners when they arrived at that particular resolution. It is quite within the hands of every Member of Congress to

personally introduce legislation themselves, to implement part or to

reject some of the recommendations that are made by the commission.

In addition to that, the budget process provides

Congressmembers with the same option at a later date to decide

to vote for or against appropriations, to increase appropriations, or

to refund something that was previously defunded. It happens

every year.

In fact, at the moment, Congress has in front of it about 154 recommendations from OMB in the budget that would change the traditional funding of programs. A number of those Congress has already changed. So in my view, this is a resolution that you would

see that is based upon research that says: In the view of the commissioners, this will produce for Americans a better result than the

current mix of programs that we are funding.

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You can agree with that, or you can disagree with it. You can

pick parts out of it later on and decide that you are going to implement it. It is a process that, I think, moves you forward because

it brings the debate into sharp relief in terms of where are you

going to get the greatest benefits.

In addition to you talked about BRAC a lot during the commission’s hearings this afternoon, you also use for trade negotiations

fast-track procedures that give to Congress exactly the same choice.

And I think that you put together some deals with countries

around the world that would never have gotten done if you didn’t

have that process. So it has been valuable in those circumstances,

and it has allowed Congress to be able to make progress in improving relationships with many countries that wouldn’t otherwise have

been able to make that advance.

Ms. NORTON. It has been valuable in those processes, and I think

those are appropriate processes to use. The real question is, is this

up and down process the most appropriate process for other programs?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. We appreciate it. And to the full panel,

we appreciate your input, very diverse, but that is what the process

is all about.

In summary, I know there are some concerns about the involvement of Congress. I think Mr. McTigue is right, that the commission provides a lot of analysis for Congress to work with. But separate from the congressional body, the American people are demanding today, demanding that we reduce wasteful spending. They are

demanding that their hard-earned, their dollars—the tax dollars

are theirs—are spent wisely.

They also are demanding, now more than ever, that it be delivered in the most efficient, the most up to date in technology and

in efficiency, that we have ever seen in the history of this country.

They are demanding it, and they should expect it. That is our job

as Congress, to make sure that we look at these programs and

weigh the balance of what is a duplication.

And Mr. Shull, you may be right; some are probably duplication

by design, but others are duplication by accident and by the system

itself. We want to make sure that those foster kids get the best

they can. We want to make sure that the least among us get the

services they deserve. But we don’t want to waste any more of our

constituents’ tax dollars and make sure they are done properly.

This commission does not take Congress out. It is an ability for

Congress to work with the administration, whatever that administration is at the time, to come up with the best and the most efficient, but also the most capable, delivery of systems to the American people.

So I thank you all very much. It is really historic in that we are

now moving and looking at legislation that has been passed in the

past that has worked quite successfully, and I hope that we are

able to move this forward. So thank you all very much for being

here, and we appreciate future input. We appreciate it.

[Whereupon, at 4 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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