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94–486 PDF 2004

S. Hrg. 108–672

TRIMMING THE FAT: EXAMINING DUPLICATIVE

AND OUTDATED FEDERAL PROGRAMS AND

FUNCTION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT 

OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

May 6, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

AMY B. NEWHOUSE, Chief Clerk

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

ANDREW RICHARDSON, Staff Director 

MARIANNE CLIFFORD UPTON, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

KEVIN R. DORAN, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2004

Hon. Sam Brownback, a U.S. Senator from Kansas ............................................. 3

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

and Budget ........................................................................................................... 8

Hon. Dick Armey, Co-Chairman, Citizens for a Sound Economy ........................ 16

Paul Weinstein, Jr., Chief Operating Officer, Progressive Policy Institute ........ 19

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Armey, Hon. Dick: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 16

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 51

Brownback, Hon. Sam: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27

Johnson, Clay, III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8

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

Weinstein, Paul, Jr.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 19

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53

APPENDIX 

Chart entitled ‘‘Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, A Governmentwide Perspective,’’ of areas of Fragmentation and Overlap Discussed 

in GAO Products, submitted by Senator Voinovich .......................................... 57

Letter from Clay Johnson, III, Deputy Director for Management, Office of 

Management and Budget, to Senator Voinovich ............................................... 58

(1)

TRIMMING THE FAT: EXAMINING DUPLICATIVE AND OUTDATED FEDERAL PROGRAMS 

AND FUNCTION 

THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2004

U.S. SENATE, 

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in 

room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. George V. 

Voinovich, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH. The meeting will please come to order. 

I thank all of you for coming. 

The Subcommittee is going to be hearing today Senator 

Brownback’s legislation, S. 1668, the Commission on the Accountability and Review of the Federal Agency Act. 

This bill would create a commission to evaluate domestic Federal 

agencies and programs to maximize the effectiveness of Federal 

funds. The commission would attempt to identify duplicative, 

wasteful, outdated and irrelevant Federal programs. Upon completion of its work, the commission would report back to Congress 

with draft legislation to implement its recommendations. Congress 

would subsequently be required to vote either up or down on those 

recommendations. 

I will leave it to Senator Brownback this morning to discuss the 

proposal in greater detail. 

Senator Brownback’s legislation focuses our attention on an important question facing Congress as we attempt to allocate scarce 

Federal resources: How do we identify and reform or eliminate 

wasteful, ineffective, and outdated government programs? 

When I was governor of Ohio, the first year we said gone are the 

days when public officials will be judged by how much they spend 

on a problem. The new realities dictate that public officials are 

going to have to work harder and smarter and do more with less. 

Coming here to Washington, the Federal budget is now well over $2 trillion, it maintains 15 cabinet-level departments, 63 independent agencies, 68 commissions, 4 quasi-official agencies, and 

over 1,000 advisory committees. Many Federal agencies and programs were established to address specific problems and have outVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:32 Nov 17, 2004 Jkt 094486 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94486.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
2

1The chart referred to appears in the Appendix on page 57. 

lived their usefulness. Some programs were established as bold experiments but never quite achieved their goals. Several programs 

and agencies have such overlapping responsibilities that they get 

in each other’s way. Finally, there are even a few government programs that are in direct conflict with other Federal programs. 

This chart on my right was developed by the General Accounting 

Office in 1999 and it outlines the areas of fragmentation and overlap.1 Although it is several years, I doubt that very much has 

changed. Clearly, there must be a better way to allocate Federal resources and provide taxpayers with a more positive return on their 

investment in government. 

I faced exactly this problem on a smaller scale when I became 

governor of Ohio. The State Government was bloated and spending 

was out of control. I recognized that Ohio could never get its financial house in order unless we substantially improved program management and reduced outdated and duplicative programs. 

One of my first actions was to establish an Operations Improvement Task Force. And one of the many positive actions we took as 

a result of that task force was to eliminate more than 60 obsolete 

State boards and commissions. We even managed to close the 73-

year-old Ohio Department of Industrial Relations. By some estimates, the Operations Improvement Task Force saved us about 

$430 million a year. 

When I first became Chairman of this Subcommittee in 1999, 

succeeding Senator Brownback, I examined overlap and duplication 

in Federal early childhood programs. The General Accounting Office found literally dozens of them across Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and other agencies. Although my Subcommittee has since focused mostly on human capital management, I have also been interested in the issue and am looking forward to discussing it with 

you this morning. 

The biggest problem we must overcome in this effort is that almost every program in the Federal Government, no matter how effective or spendthrift, has its own core of supporters. It is probably 

impossible to eliminate or reform any Federal program without 

stepping on at least a few toes. It would be wishful thinking, at 

best, to believe we can restructure or shut down large numbers of 

programs across multiple Federal agencies without provoking a 

firestorm of opposition. 

Nevertheless, that task must be undertaken if we are to have 

any hope of providing taxpayers the most effective and efficient 

government possible. 

That is the goal of this legislation before us today. 

Again, I would like to welcome Senator Brownback, who will be 

the first to testify today. 

On our second panel we have the Hon. Clay Johnson, Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget. 

And I would like to say Clay, that when I first came here, it was 

OMB but there was not any M. You have brought the M to the Office of Management and Budget. Clay is going to discuss the Bush 

3

1The prepared statement of Senator Brownback appears in the Appendix on page 27. 

Administration and what they are doing to evaluate Federal programs. 

On the third panel we have the Hon. Dick Armey, former majority leader of the House of Representatives, and Paul Weinstein, a 

senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, who are going to 

offer additional views on this proposal. 

Again, I want to thank you all for coming here today. Senator 

Brownback, we look forward to hearing your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK,1 A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM KANSAS 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Voinovich, I appreciate your willingness to hold this hearing. 

This is the first hearing in either the House or the Senate on the 

piece of legislation in front of you now, the CARFA Act, Commission on Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies. 

I applaud your willingness to address this issue. This is one of 

those issues that most people just duck away from. They are not 

interested in addressing it because there is going to be some pain 

and difficulty in the process. 

And yet, it is a grave disservice that we are doing to taxpayers 

to waste Federal money. We waste the funds of hard-working taxpayers, and they do not like it and none of us do either. It is time 

we start to address waste, fraud, and abuse. 

Government bureaucracies, unfortunately, are riddled with 

waste, whether through unnecessary, duplicative, inefficient, outdated, or failed agencies and programs. 

I am afraid that Congress has not been nearly as scrupulous as 

we ought to be when it comes to spending hard-working taxpayer 

dollars. 

Mr. Chairman, every year the Congress legislates various programs into existence. Whether individual members agree or disagree with the substance of these programs is one issue. But I 

think most of us would concede that most of these programs are 

well-intended at the outset. 

The trouble is that once a program comes into existence, experience tells us that the program is here to stay, whether it is successful, unsuccessful or outdated. 

To quote President Reagan, ‘‘There’s nothing so permanent as a 

temporary Government program.’’

The problem is epidemic. The evidence abounds that programs 

simply do not go gently away in the night. 

Examples of government programs that have failed to address effectively the problems that they have targeted unfortunately 

abound. People of course, can cite the $600 toilet seat, but the 

problem is actually much bigger than that. 

To illustrate, I want to point out an OMB chart and you will 

have an OMB witness here later to illustrate this. 

The OMB did a process of grading various Federal programs for 

efficiency and effectiveness in addressing the targeted objective 

that the program was put forward to address. The chart that I 

have shows scores for PART, the Performance Assessment Rating 

4

Tool. It has completed its first two rounds. It has not appraised 

nearly all of the Federal programs but it has gone through its first 

two rounds. 

As we look at the scores that PART puts forward, I put up a corresponding academic score of how my children in school would be 

graded if they performed at this level of performance. Now keep in 

mind that not all the agencies have been reviewed by this program 

yet, but I think you can see the trend. 

The median score in the chart indicates the percentage of programs within each agency meeting their goals. You can look down 

there, the Department of Transportation, of the 10 programs reviewed, had a median score of 78. And that is the best we have so 

far. So at least we are getting about a C or C plus on transportation dollars. 

But you can look up or down through the programs. There are 

only four scores that would rank within the C range. No A’s or B’s. 

There were nine D’s. There are eight F’s. 

Education, of all departments, had 33 programs reviewed and 

only scored a 44 percent on this appraisal where they go in and 

they judge the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs. 

You can see that most of the scores were in the D, D- or F, by 

our own government scoring these programs. 

You quickly have to ask the question when you look at this chart: 

Are taxpayers really getting their money’s worth out of these programs? And the answer is clearly no. We would not tolerate this 

in a school. I would not tolerate this of my children’s performance. 

We have to change something. Something has to be done better 

here. And yet, we let this go on year after year, program after program. 

The Congress needs to take steps to deal with this. 

As I go home and talk with my constituents they tell me look, 

I do not mind paying my taxes. I would rather they would be less. 

But it is infuriating to me to see my hard-earned money being 

poorly spent by the Federal Government. If I am going to work 

hard to earn this money I want it to be spent wisely. And that is 

what we need to address. That is what the CARFA solution intends 

to put forward. 

Mr. Chairman, I have an overall presentation but what I want 

to say about the CARFA design model, we have a good model that 

has been used in the past. It is the BRAC Commission, the Base 

Realignment and Closure Commission. And what we basically have 

done with CARFA is we have taken that design and put it on all 

non-defense programs and entitlement programs. 

This is a design that has worked in the past. It is one that can 

work now in this process. And I am afraid, Mr. Chairman, if we 

do not have a process like this, we will not do anything to address 

wasteful spending programs. 

Because of the design of the program it only addresses about 25 

percent of the Federal budget. The military portion is already being 

addressed, at least the base portion is, and we are leaving out the 

large entitlement programs. So you are only talking about 25 percent of the Federal budget in addressing this. 

The operation of the program is relatively straightforward. A 

commission is appointed. The commission reviews this 25 percent 

5

of the Federal budget, these programs, for efficiency, for effectiveness, for duplicativeness, or maybe, just maybe, we actually accomplished the objective of the program and it needs to end. We got 

it done and we need to go on. 

It will appraise these programs and then determine which ones 

should be eliminated because they accomplished their purposes, 

they are duplicative, or they are wasteful. 

And then it presents that to the Congress for an expedited vote, 

up or down, non-amendable procedure of saying OK, we have reviewed all these programs. We find these 63 should be eliminated 

and list the reason for that. And then give Congress, in the House 

and the Senate, one vote on whether they agree with the package 

to be eliminated or they think the package should not be eliminated. This is the same procedure as BRAC. 

The BRAC procedure was done so that we could consolidate our 

money in fewer places because the military was saying we just 

have too many bases. We need fewer bases, but the bases that we 

have we need to upgrade. That is what we have got in our Federal 

spending programs now. 

We have a number of people saying look, we have enough total 

money in the budget but it is not in the right places. We need more 

money in this program or we need more money in that program. 

This allows us a procedure where we can take those funds from 

less effective, inefficient programs or programs that have been successful but need to move on, and put it in places of higher priority 

like paying down the national debt or reducing the Federal deficit, 

or in other higher priority spending areas. 

This has historical legacy. As I noted, it has historical success. 

You will hear from former Congressman Dick Armey who led this 

process in the BRAC. It was a successful program. 

Without this, Mr. Chairman, I believe we will continue to spend 

the money as we have, that we will not reallocate the funds. We 

will continue to frustrate the people of America with wasteful government spending, and will not earn their trust that we are spending their money wisely or effectively. 

A final comment that I would put forward, this is true conservative governance. We have enough total money we are spending in 

the government. We are just not spending it in the right areas. But 

most people believe we do not have the will to actually reallocate 

the resources. Most believe that we do not have the political will 

to do it and that it is just simpler or easier to raise taxes on hardworking Americans rather than making the tough choices that will 

step on some toes and some programs. 

But if the program has not been effective, if it is rated as an F 

by our own government in effectiveness, there may be some people 

to stand up for it. But you have to ask the question: Why are you 

defending this? And then put a vote on the line. Make members 

vote. Make me vote, whether we keep the whole group or we throw 

the whole group out. 

I think this is really necessary for us to have the trust of the 

American people that we are spending their money wisely. And 

that is why I put forward this legislation, and I appreciate your 

holding a hearing on it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. 

6

I think back to the initial effort that I wanted to look at all the 

education programs because I think there were 500 or more of 

them. They were not even sure how many of them. 

We had GAO look at them. But they finally came back and said 

that they did not have what they considered to be objective standards to determine whether these programs were really getting the 

job done or not. 

I think that one of the real challenges here, and I would be interested to hear when former Congressman Armey speaks and perhaps Clay Johnson, the administration has gone through and evaluated the programs. But one of the areas where you always have 

some real controversy is what are the standards that you are going 

to use to judge these programs? 

Have you given any thought to that? What kind of standards we 

would use? 

Senator BROWNBACK. Yes. You will hear from Clay Johnson, we 

have already got one set of standards that have been put forward 

by this PART review and they have got a set of specific items that 

they use to judge. Is the program hitting the targeted pool that it 

was intended to hit? What are the results that are being received 

from the targeted pool? And they go through a series of appraisals 

there. 

But on the issues of objective standards, however you want to develop them I think is critical that we develop them. 

Senator Moynihan taught me before he left the Senate that we 

have rarely found a way to change something in government until 

we find a way to measure it. 

He was pointing this out on unemployment. He was here when 

we came up with unemployment figures and standards. And he 

said you know, it was hard to come up with an objective standard 

because what if a guy is working full-time but he is just not even 

making a living? Is he employed or not? Well, he is working but 

how do you measure that? Or maybe a person is working part-time. 

But he said eventually all of the economists came together and 

they came up with a set of standards. It was not perfect but people 

generally agreed with it. And now the government and the country 

moves by what happens on unemployment numbers. 

We will have to do the same process here on developing objective 

standards. We have got to be able to come up with a way to measure the effectiveness. And we can. PART, what OMB does, is one 

way. If people do not agree with that, let us do another. 

But we have got to be able to measure it and then we will be 

able to react off of that objective standard. 

Senator VOINOVICH. How does the legislation deal with that issue 

on the standards? 

Senator BROWNBACK. We put forward a series of tests in the legislation. Let me go through that set of items. We measure based 

on three key areas: First, duplicative, whether two or more agencies or programs are performing the same essential function. The 

function can be consolidated or streamlined. 

Second, wasteful or inefficient, if the commission finds an agency 

or programs have wasted Federal funds by egregious spending, 

mismanagement of resources or personnel. Here you have a numVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:32 Nov 17, 2004 Jkt 094486 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94486.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
7

ber of IGs that are out reviewing agencies, OMB and others. Third 

is outdated, irrelevant or failed. 

Those of the three categories that we have. One would have to 

develop specific standards for review under each of those, but those 

are the three categories we put forward in the legislation. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So the commission would be the one that 

would establish the standards? 

Senator BROWNBACK. I would suggest that. If others do not want 

to leave that up to a commission and want to have a more prescriptive nature from Congress, I can see doing that. I do think we 

would be wise to give that commission some flexibility in measuring that. 

Or perhaps we can review more closely the BRAC process. What 

did they set up for measurables on their commission before it went 

out and make its findings and determination and go off of that 

model. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I think it is really important because if you 

do not have standards to judge what you are doing, you discredit 

the whole thing and people start attacking the standards and say 

it is not fair and so on and so forth. 

And it would be interesting to see how the BRAC process got 

around that because I am sure there were some people that took 

a shot at the standards in the beginning and somehow they were 

able to justify what they were doing. 

And then the issue became they had good standards, they looked 

at it, here is our result, and then you felt comfortable that it was 

done on an objective basis. 

Why did you leave out the mandatory spending? 

Senator BROWNBACK. We thought it was too big of a bite to take, 

that if we got to this portion of the Federal budget, 25 percent was 

a good start. Plus, what I think you will find is once we would go 

through this and you flesh these out and you showcase it to the 

public, you start to gain credibility with them that you are actually 

being serious about dealing with their dollars and being efficient 

with it. And they may allow you the credibility then to deal with 

something that affects a broader scope of the public in entitlement 

programs. 

But we have not earned that right to be able to do that yet. 

Senator VOINOVICH. As you know, Senator Nickles has been very 

interested. In fact, the last Budget Committee had asked for recommendations from the departments that deal with mandatory 

spending. And that is where the lion’s share of the money is going 

right now. 

But you are basically saying let us deal with this. It will probably be less controversy than getting into those major programs. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Absolutely. It is not the bigger share of it, 

as I noted in my presentation. But I think we have a credibility 

gap for us to be able to take on. Plus, I did not know, just given 

the makeup and the nature of the way Congress is, whether you 

could get something through like that that actually would have 

mandatory program spending review as well. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So you are just dealing from a practical 

point of view, looking at reality and saying let us do this. And 

8

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

these other need to be done but probably they would be too difficult 

to be successful with them. 

Senator BROWNBACK. If you think you can get it into legislation, 

I am fine. I just think that is a bridge too far at this point in time. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator, thank you for coming. We look forward to working with you on this legislation. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you very much. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Our next witness is Clay Johnson, the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and 

Budget. 

Clay, as you know, and our other witnesses here today, we have 

a custom in this Committee of swearing in our witnesses. If the 

witnesses will all stand, I will read the oath. 

Do you swear the testimony you are about to give before the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 

so help you, God? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I do. 

Mr. ARMEY. I do. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. I do. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Clay, it is really good to see you here today and to congratulate 

you and the administration on your management agenda. I think, 

from my observation over the years, that you genuinely are doing 

something about management. And I am very grateful for that effort. And I think that, from a partisan point of view, I think it is 

one of the issues that people should consider when they are selecting the next President of the United States, that this administration truly has taken some, not PR moves, but some real substantial 

moves to try and improve the efficiency of our government. 

I can testify from my experience as both a mayor for 10 years 

and as governor, a lot of the things that one wants to do cannot 

be done in 4 years. If you are taking on a large Federal bureaucracy or State bureaucracy, you just cannot do it in that period of 

time. 

I think that the President really should emphasize—I know it is 

not real exciting to be talking about management and efficiencies 

and taxpayer dollars and so forth, although Ronald Reagan did a 

pretty good job with it. But I think that it is really important that 

you convey to the American people what you have done in this 

area. Because I think it is significant and I am looking forward to 

your testimony today. 

TESTIMONY OF CLAY JOHNSON, III,1 DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR 

MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

Mr. JOHNSON. Chairman Voinovich, thank you for having me 

here. 

Senator Brownback’s bill, the CARFA bill, suggests very strongly 

that the Federal Government is results-oriented. You do not normally think of the Federal Government as being results-oriented. 

The bill suggests that the Federal Government is. And if it is not, 

it should be, and we agree. 

9

Departments, agencies, and Congress ask if we are producing the 

desired result at an acceptable cost. And if the answer is no or, as 

is the case in many of the programs, we do not know, we figure 

out what to do about it. 

We are focused on results because it is what our citizens and taxpayers expect us to do. 

The administration is interested in working with Congress to ensure this focus on results becomes a habit, becomes what the Federal Government is all about, and becomes irreversible. We believe 

the question is not whether but when and how the Executive and 

Legislative Branches should more formally partner together to realign or eliminate duplicative, wasteful, outdated or failed programs. This is something we need to, should, and can do. 

We also believe that expedited Congressional consideration of 

any resulting proposals is very important for any such formal partnership to be most effective. I applaud this Subcommittee for assessing how we can become even more results-oriented and I look 

forward to working with you and Senator Brownback and others to 

craft a proposal that will help us do that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Would you like to share with us some of the 

things that you have done in terms of evaluating programs? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Program assessment? 

Senator VOINOVICH. Yes, and maybe get to the issue that I raised 

with Senator Brownback, the issue of standards. How do you go 

about judging these programs and evaluating them and grading 

them? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have devloped—as referred to earlier—the 

PART, Program Assessment Rating Tool, that is a series of 25 or 

so questions that we ask of all programs. In 40 percent of the cases 

we cannot tell whether a program is demonstrating results. 

In many cases that is because we cannot either define what the 

program is supposed to do or we know what it is supposed to do 

but we do not know what to measure to determine whether it is 

doing it. 

DEA is an example. How do you measure the effectiveness of the 

Drug Enforcement Agency? It is not the number of interdictions. Is 

it the price of drugs? Is it the quality of drugs? We are in some 

businesses that are very hard to measure. 

So we even, with the help of this commission or something similar, are always going to have less than perfect measures with a lot 

of our programs, just because of the nature of the business—and 

I use the word business colloquially. It is just the nature of the activities that the Federal Government is involved in. 

But nevertheless, that should not keep us from doing everything 

possible to assess to the best of our ability whether or not programs 

are working. And if they are not working or we do not know if they 

are working, we need to figure out what to do about them. 

The Program Assessment Rating Tool, and this whole process, is 

something that requires a lot of work. Former OMB Director Mitch 

Daniels and Sean O’Keefe, who conceived of this back in 2001, laid 

out a 5-year timetable to evaluate all of the 1,300 programs that 

exist in the Federal Government. 

The original PART called for 20 percent of the programs to be 

assessed each year. The goal is to assess if the programs work. If 

10

they do not work, at an acceptable cost, let us figure out what to 

do about it. And so there are recommended next steps. 

One of the recommended next steps might be to restructure the 

program to make it effective. Another possible next step might be 

to change the management, or combine it with another program. 

Another possibility is to come up with more relevant performance 

measures. We may be measuring how it performs in one direction, 

and it really should be going in a different direction, so we are 

thinking about the wrong performance measures. 

Our focus on this is to make programs work better. For example, 

appropriators and authorizers have decided that we want to be in 

the adult literacy business. We want to teach illiterate adults to 

read. And the appropriators have gotten together, with the agencies’ input, and decided, for instance, we want to spend $500 million a year on adult literacy. 

Well, we assessed the adult literacy programs and we found that 

they work 25 to 30 percent of the time. Well, that is not a good 

score. That is not a good performance. So do we drop that program? 

Our approach is somebody else might decide that we are not interested in adult literacy, but the program exists. Congress and the 

Executive Branch have decided that we want to be in the adult literacy business. Our responsibility, as management people, is to figure out how to make these programs work. 

We believe that there needs to be more accountability at the 

State level and so we try to restructure programs to incorporate 

more accountability measures. 

Separately, you might decide that we want to really be in the 

adult literacy business or we do not want to be in it. In the meantime our job is to make the programs work. 

So the PART process is a way to ask if it is working? Is it achieving the desired result at an acceptable cost? If the answer is no, 

or if the answer is we do not know, we figure out what to do about 

it. 

Now, nothing automatically occurs because a program is considered to be an F or a D and have a low score. The agencies were 

originally very afraid to evaluate these programs because they 

thought things would automatically happen and anybody associated with a failed program would be tainted for life. 

The point we have tried to make to agencies, and I think they 

have come to understand this now, is nothing happens automatically with a bad grade. Our goal, as we use the PART, is to get 

programs to work. 

During this process we often find that some programs duplicate 

one another, or some programs work but they have already accomplished their stated objective. Or they work, as you said, contrary 

to some other programs. And in some cases the remedy we suggest 

is to eliminate or to combine or to restructure. 

But it is not always the case that a program that does not work 

should be eliminated. Money does not, nor should it, automatically 

flow from programs that do not work to programs that do work. Oftentimes the recommendation is to take ill-performing programs, 

change them, combine them, and get them to work. When eliminating programs—this does not happen unless Congress decides 

and the President decides we are not effective in a certain arena, 

11

1The information for the record appears in the Appendix on page 58. 

and that we really should not be in this particular business. Let 

us get rid of all the programs associated with it. That is a separate 

drill that we go through as we try to assess whether programs 

work or not. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The thing is that, one of the things that I 

always said to my directors was if you cannot measure it, do not 

do it. That is a nice thing. If you cannot measure it, then you force 

your people to say how do you measure whether or not this program is getting the job done? 

The other issue is that at budget time to show cause why we 

should not eliminate the program. In other words, to force them to 

come in and say this is a good program. And why is it a good program? And why is it that—through the budget process of putting 

the pressure on, so often what happens is budget time comes 

around—in fact, one of the things I do not like about this place is 

that you have got the annual budget so everybody just spends their 

time just regrinding the material and then we do not have time 

here to do the oversight because we are so busy with the budget 

and appropriations that it is just a very frustrating situation. 

Do you do that kind of thing at budget time with some of these 

agencies? Ask them about whether or not these programs—from 

your point of view, you are running them. Are they working or not 

working? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have evaluated 40 percent of the programs and 

we are this year evaluating the next 20 percent, so it will be about 

60 percent of the programs and probably about 70 percent of the 

money. 

So where we have good performance, medium or bad performance, that information is included in our budget submissions to 

Congress. We are trying to, working with agencies, factor performance information into more and more of the President’s management and budget recommendations. 

And we recommended that 13 programs be dropped this year primarily because of performance. There were another, I think, 50-

some-odd programs that were recommended for elimination for reasons other than performance. They were duplicative, they had run 

their course, etc. 

So yes, performance information, results of these PART assessments, are included in our budgets. And 40 percent of the programs have that information referred to for this year’s budget and 

it will be 60 percent next year. 

So in another 2 years we will have evaluated 100 percent of programs, 100 percent of the money. By then we also will have worked 

and helped the Appropriations Subcommittees make the transition 

to budgets that are more focused on program performance, agency 

performance, and less so on category of expense. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Have any committees, appropriations or authorizations committee, reduced or eliminated the funding for any 

programs that you have identified as not effective. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. I do not have a list of those now but we can 

get those for you.1 But then there are some that we have recVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:32 Nov 17, 2004 Jkt 094486 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94486.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
12

ommended that they reduce or eliminate funding that they have 

not agreed to, as well. 

Senator VOINOVICH. That would be interesting, I think, just as 

a matter of information for the Members of the Senate, as to where 

you have made some recommendations and what has happened to 

them. 

The other thought that I had is that if this commission got going, 

what is your thought of how the administration could use the findings to help you in dealing with your management improvement 

initiatives? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We are very close to agencies and very close to 

these programs. The value that I see in a commission similar to 

what has been proposed is we could use our PART assessments and 

offer recommendations to any commission—if that was the structure we agreed on—as to what programs ought to be combined or 

restructured or eliminated, etc. 

The commission could provide a different, fresh independent view 

of all that, perhaps a little higher level, more across the government view. So it might provide a quality assurance check for Congress that programs have really been looked at seriously and objectively. 

So that if a recommendation comes to Congress from the Executive Branch, it could be helpful for a commission to perhaps provide 

recommendations that were not included by the Executive Branch. 

But the Congress can be assured that this thing has been looked 

at most seriously. So it should have a higher level of confidence 

that if it takes this up with an expedited consideration measure 

built in, that it is doing so with a lot of confidence that it has been 

very well thought out. 

Senator VOINOVICH. If you think about this, what would your 

opinion be, and I do not even know in terms of the BRAC process 

how it works and we will find out from our next two witnesses or 

maybe you are familiar with it. 

But it seems to me that as the commission would be doing its 

work, what would you think about the Administrative Branch of 

Government being privy to that information so that it could use it? 

Or do you think that it would be better to just let this thing run 

its course and have them come back with the recommendations 

fresh without any kind of relationship with the administration? 

In other words, they are going to be discovering things as they 

go along. And the issue then becomes do you wait until the commission is over to then make the recommendations and it is an up 

or down vote? Or would it be advantageous that that information 

is shared with you so that possibly you would be able to take advantage of that work? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The PART information now is——

Senator VOINOVICH. By the way, they are going to have to work 

with you anyhow. 

Mr. JOHNSON. The PART information is available to the public 

now. It is on the web and it is there for all the world to see. So 

there is no smoke, no hidden anything. It is there. 

So if agencies, the public, or Members of Congress want to take 

exception to ratings, they can. It has to be very public. The evaluaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:32 Nov 17, 2004 Jkt 094486 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94486.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
13

tion of these programs cannot be secretive. Our recommended next 

steps are public. 

So I would hope that we would not be any less public than we 

are now. 

Then I think the deliberations by the commission, that is to be 

decided how open to the public that is. But the evaluation of these 

programs is out there for the world to see. So if they can see that 

some of their pet projects are consistently rated results not demonstrated or ineffective, yes, they will be inclined to mount their 

lobbying efforts or to work through agencies to reassess their evaluations and so forth, and work with OMB. But that, to me, is just 

the nature of the beast. 

I think these evaluations have to be able to stand the test of public scrutiny and so far I think they are. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Have you had any ‘‘outside organizations’’ 

look at your methods for evaluation of the departments? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have had outside groups look at the PART and 

the questions and the methodologies we are using, GAO and the 

National Academy of Public Administration has looked at it. 

And the questions, the use of the questions, they have done consistency checks, quality control reviews, and so forth. There is no 

assessment process that is perfect. This is a darn good one, and it 

has gotten better each year. It is something that I think Congress 

is developing an increasing confidence in. Agencies are also more 

confident, including OMB. 

You asked earlier if the commission should rely on PART information, rely on evaluations from the Executive Branch, from OMB 

or the agencies. I think to do anything other than that is nuts. 

These are very hard to do. Evaluations of programs take a lot of 

time. They take a lot of time from the agency, a lot of time from 

members of OMB. 

And I think if a commission starts with something similar to the 

PART, basically they start somewhere between second and third 

base and on their way to get home. There is no point in starting 

at home base to try to make it all the way around. 

So it is a wonderful beginning. They can then challenge some of 

our initial assessments, challenge some of the conclusions that 

have been made, and add fresh perspective to it. 

But I would like to think that no matter what the instrument is 

the initial assessment, should be done by the Executive Branch and 

then brought to a commission to consider and to poke holes in or 

to challenge. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So you would suggest that the commission 

would pay attention to the PART tool that you have established? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Or whatever it is called or however it is structured. And it will get better every year. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Would you think it would be a good idea—

I know when we started to work on the issue of human capital that 

we worked with the National Academy of Public Administration, 

the Council on Excellence, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government and some of the other organizations to develop kind of a 

consensus on the areas where we needed to have change. 

Do you think it would be worthwhile for the commission to take 

and get some of the top groups in the country, that are respected, 

14

to help them develop and take into consideration some of the work 

that you have already done in coming up with the standards and 

procedures so that we start out with standards that most people 

would agree that were fair and impartial and did not bring to the 

table some bias? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure. I do not think that an outside group is going 

to be able to look at something like DEA and say oh, it is obvious 

that the best performance measures to use for DEA are X, Y and 

Z. Because if they were obvious, we would be using them by now. 

But I think outside groups can be brought in at the initial stage 

of a commission’s life to look at the PART process as other good 

government groups have looked at it, and give the commission confidence that it is well thought out or that it ought to be modified 

in some form or fashion. 

I would not ask an outside group to start from zero and tell us 

what we should be doing. I think that we probably know 85 percent—I am throwing that number out—of what we ought to be 

doing, what the questions ought to be, what the process ought to 

be, how the commission ought to work. 

So an outside group coming in at the beginning of a commission’s 

life, I would suggest, would be to give the commission members 

confidence that we have got a really good start and fill in that last 

15 or 20 percent. I do not think they should be asked to come in 

and say I know nothing, tell me what we should be doing. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I am not talking about—it is the issue of are 

the criteria that you are using, your standards to evaluate programs, ones that a major corporation in this country would say are 

the kind of things that they would be using to evaluate whether 

or not their operations, understanding that government is different 

than many corporations. But a lot of it is very similar. 

Mr. JOHNSON. But what the PART examines is if we have a clear 

definition of what success is. And do we have good performance 

measures to use to determine whether we are achieving that success? It does not declare what the performance measure is for DEA, 

for instance. 

I think any outside group would agree that is a good question to 

ask—if we have a definition of success and do we have a good performance metric to use? Now, what is the best performance measure to use for DEA? 

My guess is an outside group is going to find it as difficult as 

we find it is to develop those good performance measures. It is an 

ongoing process to find out what they are. My guess is an outside 

group could question if we are asking ourselves the right general 

questions, but that what performance measures are best for each 

of the 1,300 programs. That has got to be a program by program 

decision. 

One of the things that is referenced here is that there ought to 

be common performance measures developed for common programs. 

And we agree totally. We are in the process of doing that. But if 

an outside commission could do that with gusto and with the highest levels of objectivity, that is something that definitely needs to 

happen. 

And there is a lot of duplication from program to program. 

15

Senator VOINOVICH. The reason I am raising it is when I got involved in the educational thing and asked the GAO to do it, they 

basically said they did not have the criteria in place to go ahead 

and evaluate it. So it is a big deal. 

Mr. JOHNSON. It is a big deal. With education in general, as you 

know, I think something like less than 10 percent of all money that 

goes into education comes from the Federal Government. So most 

of these education programs, and generally the Federal Government is providing a very small amount of money to make very 

large things happen. 

So it is hard to determine exactly what impact our Federal monies have on the overall goal which is not just how is our money 

working but how is the overall bucket of money working. 

Again, it is an example of the fact that we are in some very difficult businesses to measure. That does not mean we should say no 

need to measure performance, no need to hold these programs accountable. We need to ask ourselves do they work or not? And if 

they do not or we do not know, let us make a decision accordingly. 

Again, there are some things that could give us a sense of whether these programs are working and in other programs it will be 

very clear whether they are working or not. And so any commission 

or any group we set up to help us do this—and we must do this, 

we must figure out a way to establish some expedited consideration 

by Congress with the help of a commission or some kind of input 

device. There is too much money and the results are too important 

for us to let this opportunity go by. 

We are going to be plagued with fuzzy information about whether some of these programs work just because of the nature of these 

programs. And we are going to have to do the best we can. 

Senator VOINOVICH. It will be interesting. Have you identified, 

when you start out on the things you get priorities. But it seems 

to me that if you really looked at some of this whole gamut of 

things that are out there, that there is some low-hanging fruit that 

you could get at pretty fast that would be less controversial and 

put it into categories about this is an area and then say this looks 

like it might be more difficult. 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have looked at that same list that the Senator 

put up earlier, that the GAO had developed in 1999, I think it was. 

Economic development is one, job training is one, food safety is one. 

We are going to look at them here in the next several months and 

make sure we understand the programs and which programs that 

are in these similar lines of business have been evaluated and 

which programs have to be evaluated so that we have assessment 

of all the programs. 

There is some low-hanging fruit in that it is clear that there is 

a lot of duplication or a lot of overlap. It may not be as clear what 

the answer is or what the solution is. But it is clear, I think, and 

we can agree pretty quickly on where we ought to start. 

Senator VOINOVICH. If we get this thing going there is going to 

be a lot of time spent on making sure we do it in a very thoughtful 

way. 

Thanks very much for being here and again congratulations on 

the good job you are doing. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I appreciate it. Thank you for the kind words. 

16

1The prepared statement of Mr. Armey appears in the Appendix on page 51. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would now ask our next witnesses to come 

forward, Mr. Armey and Mr. Weinstein. 

Mr. Armey, I want to commend you for your continuing commitment to the American public beyond your distinguished career in 

the House of Representatives. You have established a very high 

standard for public service and it is nice that your interest in this 

continues with Citizens for a Sound Economy. 

Mr. Weinstein, thank you very much for being here today with 

us. We will start with Mr. Armey. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. DICK ARMEY,1 CO-CHAIRMAN, CITIZENS 

FOR A SOUND ECONOMY 

Mr. ARMEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me thank you for inviting me today. We at Citizens for a 

Sound Economy take our work seriously and I saw my association 

with them as an opportunity to continue my work outside of membership in Congress. 

I was just reviewing in my mind, there is a legacy of broken 

hearts and broken promises, ingenious counter legislation, and broken bodies in the effort to control spending in Washington. 

And I was just thinking in terms of my own adult memory of 

things I actually was as an adult, able to observe, beginning with 

Kennedy and Johnson, who pursued base closing with some enthusiasm. 

That gave rise to legislation which blocked it for over a 10-year 

period, legislation incidentally sponsored by, I believe, Senator 

Kennedy’s successor in the House, who went out to be Speaker of 

the House, Tip O’Neal. 

As we watched the process go on, we remember Richard Nixon’s 

impoundment and recissions which gave rise to the—I always like 

to say the full title—Budget Reform and Impoundment Control Act, 

because indeed it was impoundment control that was the object of 

their affection. 

This is probably one of the most colorful ruses in the history of 

legislation, the budget process created just in response to Nixon’s 

efforts to control spending. 

President Carter made himself extremely unpopular when he 

tried to advocate zero-based budgeting in Washington and I think 

it contributed a great deal to his frustrations. 

Ronald Reagan had the Grace Commission. Senator Gramm had 

Gramm-Rudman. We had, in the House at one time, a merry bipartisan band of people called the budget commandos that was sort of 

put together by myself and Chuck Schumer, now a Senator, where 

we tried to go after expensive spending. 

It is in the legacy of this frustration that I think Congress turns 

to commissions. Certainly, I did turn to a commission when I did 

the BRAC Commission in 1987 and 1988. 

I am generally skeptical of the possibility of commissions working, and I am always a little bit sad to see us need to go to commissions because to some extent Congress should pick up this ball 

without the commission. But clearly there are areas, and public 

choice theory tells us cutting spending is clearly an area where 

17

these difficulties will plague you to the point where a commission 

may be your best option. 

The two most successful commissions that I have seen operate in 

my adult lifetime have been the Greenspan Commission that by 

and large did the wrong thing with Social Security, but still gave 

Congress a chance to act on a subject that is considered the third 

rail of American politics and one not to be trifled with. And then 

the BRAC Commission. 

When we set up a BRAC Commission I think the most important 

job—and I should say for over a year of my life I did what I called 

hand-to-hand persuasion. I had to talk to members on the Floor, 

in their offices, hand-to-hand, and assuage their reality-based 

fears. 

There were too many Members of Congress—Joe Moakley being 

one of my favorite examples—who knew of base closures having 

been used as political reprisals in the past and quite rightly wanted assurance that would not happen in the future. 

In the process of giving that reassurance, I had to explain to 

them that there would be an objective criteria and the information 

processing that would bring the results would be done on a professional basis by professional people. 

The clear inference in this, as we discussed it prior to enacting 

the legislation as we have seen it operate in the various commissions we have had, was that the professionals at the Pentagon 

would provide the information and make recommendations. And to 

a large extent, that would be the database around which the commission worked. 

But I must say I have had the privilege of having recent conversations with two members of the early commissions, former 

Congressman Jim Courter who chaired the first commission, maybe 

the first two commissions, and my colleague Harry McPherson at 

Piper Rudnick. Both of these fellows tell me, and I think they probably speak for all the members of the commission, that it was the 

hardest work they ever did in their life. 

For the process to work, then, you must have professional information, professional data, and serious hard-working members of 

the commission that will not allow politics to impinge on their 

thinking. And Congress needs the assurance that it will not be political. The commissioners need to have the encouragement to keep 

politics out of it because it will be their instinct to keep it out. And 

to keep to the professional data. 

Also, as you go forward on this, I found in the process of enacting 

BRAC that one of my most colorful, and frankly most enjoyable opponents was then-chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jack 

Brooks, former chairman of the Government Operations Committee. 

Jack was a wily guy. Jack tried very hard to get us to bring back 

the committee recommendations for a motion of approval. Something, maybe intuition, maybe instinct, or maybe just my admiration and amusement of Jack Brooks, something triggered an awareness in me that caused me to insist that it be a motion of disapproval. It makes all of the difference in the world. 

18

I do not believe there would have been a single based closed after 

the passage of BRAC in 1988 if it had been a motion of approval 

as opposed to a motion of disapproval in the two houses. 

Also, the all or nothing proposition is very important. It was very 

important to the members. I do not believe they would have voted 

to enact the legislation without it. I think that they were willing 

to live with the results in affirmation of the recommendation. The 

commission makes a recommendation to the President. The President accepts the commission’s recommendations and moves them 

on to the legislative bodies without tampering with them. 

Now I think if this legislation makes a provision, an exception 

for national security for the President, it will probably be judged 

a reasonable exception. But the most important thing you must 

have is insulation from politics so that the members will not be 

concerned about having political reprisals taken against them, the 

need of a professional criteria and professional judgment by a serious hard-working commission that commands the respect of the 

members. In the case of Jim Courter, you had a highly respected 

former member of the Armed Services Committee known by both 

the Democrats and Republicans in both bodies to be a serious and 

objective fair man. These were the kind of reassurances you need. 

I should say we have a wealth of information going way back to 

the Grace Commission. But more currently the work that has been 

done under the Results Act has given us a good deal of criteria by 

which we can measure. GAO is, I think, clearly an able and professional organization that gives reliable data and information. So if 

you take the work of the GAO and the OMB I think you have the 

objective professionals with skill and ability that can provide the 

information that is needed. 

As I said from the beginning, it always saddens me some to see 

Congress resort to a commission. I always kind of live with the 

naive hope and dream that Congress will pick up the ball of its 

own responsibilities and carry it over the line. There are areas of 

governance, spending reduction being one of them, that have such 

a legacy of failure and frustration, even after so many different efforts, approaching so many different methodologies, that the commission probably is the best alternative. And if done properly can 

be effective. 

I, too, agree with you that it is unfortunate that we are only confining this to a small percentage of the budget. The mandatory 

spending areas of the budget will be addressed soon enough. There 

will be an addressing of, for example, Social Security’s pending insolvency and the impending financial overburden of Medicare. 

These things will happen. My guess, they will happen by commission as well sometime in the future. 

We did, for example, do a fairly decent job at agricultural reform 

in 1995 or 1996. Even when you do, by legislative action, fairly 

substantial reforms in mandatory spending—and agriculture policy 

illustrates this—you can soon discover that backslider’s wine is still 

the favorite drink of most Members of Congress on either side of 

the building, either side of the aisle. So agriculture policy now is 

as large a mandatory spending burden on the budget as it has ever 

been and makes no more sense than it ever did. 

19

1The prepared statement of Mr. Weinstein appears in the Appendix on page 53. 

So again, I think you have a chance to gain some ground but 

then subsequent to doing that we will have to discover how to hold 

the ground. And in the final analysis, in the end, it will only come 

down—even after the good work of a commission—to the responsible work of Congress. Congress will eventually have to carry the 

responsibility of maintaining a more sane budget. 

I finish with two observations. I cannot resist myself. Armey’s 

axiom is that nobody spends somebody else’s money as wisely as 

they spend their own. Congress proves that every day. 

My other axiom is a fool and my money are soon parted. Congress proves that every day. Thanks. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks very much. Mr. Weinstein. 

TESTIMONY OF PAUL WEINSTEIN, JR.,1 CHIEF OPERATING 

OFFICER, PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My name is Paul Weinstein. For 8 years I served in the Clinton 

Administration White House and worked on a variety of issues including reinventing government and the National Performance Review. 

I am pleased to be here today to testify on S. 1668, the CARFA 

legislation, and in general on the need for reorganization and reform of the Executive Branch of Federal Government. 

It is a fact of life that every entity needs to reinvent itself continually in order to improve and survive. If government is to be a 

force for good, it too must reinvent itself on a continual basis. 

Unfortunately, more than half a decade has passed since we really have had a complete governmentwide reform of government. Not 

since the implementation of the Hoover Commission’s recommendations in the late 1940’s and 1950’s has Congress and the President 

worked together to put in place comprehensive governmentwide reform. 

And despite the efforts of the many good people within government who try to make it work, we are paying too much for the failure to remake the Executive Branch more efficient, effective and 

less costly. 

Simply put, 50 years is too long to go without more than just a 

tune-up. The Executive Branch needs a top to bottom overhaul. 

That is why I am pleased that the Subcommittee is considering 

legislation to create a commission on government reform and accountability modeled on the military base closing commissions of 

the past. 

The Progressive Policy Institute, where I am Chief Operate Officer, has long advocated creating a commission to reinvent government and eliminate corporate welfare. Our organization has believed that the best way to achieve comprehensive reform in the 

Executive Branch is to combine the commission function with a 

mechanism to require Congress to vote on its recommendations. 

Senator Brownback’s CARFA legislation would provide for this type 

of commission. 

However, we also believe that in order to assure that the legislation truly achieves the goal of reform and efficiency, S. 1668 needs 

20

to be modified in several key aspects: The first area, bipartisanship. It should come as no surprise that most significant government reform effort of the past 50 years, the Hoover Commission, 

was led by a former Republican president appointed by a Democratic one. 

A true bipartisan commission, with its membership split between 

both parties, should increase the likelihood of both broad congressional and public support, something quite honestly, when you are 

going to undertake the endeavor you are about to, you are going 

to need. 

I believe the CARFA legislation should follow the model established by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990. 

This law required that the BRAC Commission consisted of eight 

members selected by the President with the advice and consent of 

the Senate. But more importantly, it effectively divided the membership of the commission among Republicans and Democrats. 

Expanded scope. When companies choose to remake themselves 

they look at all aspects of their operations, not just a few departments. Yet, as currently written, the legislation limits the CARFA 

scope to non-defense domestic agencies and their programs. Imagine if the Hoover Commission had been charged to only review domestic agencies. Without its recommendations, the President and 

Congress might never have created a National Security Council or 

a unified military cabinet level agency, the Department of Defense, 

both key players in winning the Cold War. 

Multiple rounds. The 2-year timetable set forth in the CARFA 

legislation, I believe, is appropriate. However, in order to give the 

commission members the needed flexibility to meet its congressional mandate, I would suggest that it be allowed to submit more 

than one round of recommendations, maybe two or three. A multiple round approach would also help CARFA to build public support and increase the likelihood of its success. 

I would like to remind the Committee that the original BRAC 

Commissions did not make all their recommendations in a single 

bill. They were reauthorized to do several rounds. And that was 

important to achieving their goals. 

Additional criteria. S. 1668 sets forth some very important criteria for CARFA to follow, many of them which I agree with, such 

as identifying programs and agencies that are duplicative, wasteful 

or inefficient, outdated, irrelevant or failed. But I think we need to 

add some additional criteria to these as well. 

One should be reorganizing agencies into mission focused departments instead of programmatic ones. 

Two, CARFA should be given the authority to recommend simplifying programmatic regulations if it would help the relevant departments better meet the objectives of the germane authorizing 

statutes that Congress passed initially. 

Three, CARFA should be required to identify and propose for 

elimination corporate subsidies that do not serve in the national interest. 

Four, a provision should be added to the legislation that encourages it to improve the health and safety and security of the American people. 

21

Again, I want to thank the Subcommittee for its attention and 

look forth to answering any questions you might have. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks very much. We really appreciate 

your being here today, Paul. 

Paul, you got into some thoughts on recommendations, how you 

would improve the Brownback legislation. 

Mr. Armey, do you have any thoughts on that? 

Mr. ARMEY. Yes, I do. First of all, I want to thank Paul for his 

recommendations. I think they were all very good. 

The one thing that I would like to see, and this becomes a very 

difficult thing that would have to be dealt with with some care, is 

some latitude for the commission to at least recommend programs 

for elimination on the basis that they are not necessary nor an essential function of government. 

This becomes somewhat problematic and it would be a difficult 

section of the bill to write, because in effect what you are doing is 

saying to the commission we are now taking you a step from eliminating waste and inefficiency or duplication in what we do to telling us what it is the government should do. And that is our prerogative. 

But it strikes me, and I think you would find, certainly among 

conservative thinkers in America, a great deal of the taxpayers 

money is spent on government doing things government should not 

be doing in the first place. And a great many people in America, 

I think, would feel that the legislation is somewhat incomplete if 

the commission has no latitude to at least address this by way of 

recommendation. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, I would also like to add that I 

think it would be helpful, too, if some positive criteria were put 

into the legislation, as well. 

What I mean by that is not only would you might want to merge 

or eliminate an agency because it is duplicative, but you might 

want to eliminate it if you thought the performance of government 

in general would be improved. 

So rather than just sort of a negative-based criteria, why not actually look at this from a positive point of view as well? 

One of the problems that we had back in the Clinton Administration was where we wanted to actually do positive changes, merging 

or consolidating things. And we were not allowed to do so. And 

some of those changes would have actually helped improve these 

programs and made servicing taxpayers more beneficial. I think 

the legislation maybe needs to be revised along those lines. 

Senator VOINOVICH. In other words, what you are saying to me 

is that the way the law is written, that the flexibilities available 

to the Administrative Branch of Government for improvement are 

not there. That is a separate issue, is that if you had some more 

flexibility to look at that? 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. I agree. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Has anybody ever looked at that in terms of 

recommendations, in terms of flexibility? 

Mr. ARMEY. I was going to say it is another good recommendation. It is not uncommon to find an agency under the management 

of the Executive Branch enforcing regulations that they themselves 

believe to be foolish or counterproductive even to their own mission 

22

simply because they must do so under the law passed by Congress. 

I think this is what you are saying. 

To give that agency a chance to make itself better by being relieved of the burden of some mandate that was maybe slipped into 

a bill some time ago because an individual Member of Congress 

had an individual constituent with a particular irritation and all of 

a sudden there is a red tape stricture wrapped around the agency 

that either forces them to do something that they think to be unnecessary or counterproductive to their own mission or forces them 

to do something that they think is just plain foolish. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. One of the things we did in the Clinton Administration was give out of a number of waivers when we had the actual authority from Congress to do so. But we were actually rather 

restricted in some other areas. And I know one of the things that 

we always wanted to look for was additional authority to give more 

flexibility, especially to local governments and State governments, 

where we could have allowed them to actually meet the program 

goals or mission goals without being tied up with red tape. 

Often, as Congressman Armey points out, there are statutes that 

have been developed over time which basically are at counter purposes. And lawyers at agencies tend to be conservative because 

they want to stay in the black. They do not want to get into the 

gray area. 

So greater flexibility in allowing departments to actually achieve 

the true mission, the intent of what Congress wanted it to do, is 

actually a good thing. And I think the legislation should look at 

that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. That is a very good point that you made because I was very much involved, as one of the governors that did 

the welfare reform. And I really believe that had it not been for the 

waivers that we had gotten from the Clinton Administration, we 

would never have got that legislation passed. Because States were 

able to show with the waivers that we were able to do some things 

better than what the law allowed us to do. And that set the stage 

for it. 

I know I am looking at health care reform right now, working 

with Stuart Butler and Hank Aaron over Brookings, and how do 

you deliver a new health care system in the country. And one of 

the things that they are looking at is providing more waivers to 

States that get started. The State is the laboratories of the democracy. 

The point you are making is if you had more flexibility to do that 

you might allow some people to do some things to achieve them differently than maybe the way it has been laid out by Congress, because you are actually letting the people that are doing the work 

come back and say gee, if you let us do this this way, we could 

probably do it better. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Absolutely. We did a lot of welfare waivers but 

one area where we could not do as many was Medicaid. That is 

really an area I would encourage you all to look at and basically 

see if we can create some more flexibility. 

I have talked to a lot of governors who are very frustrated right 

now because of the mandates that they are having to deal with and 

they would like to do the right thing. And one of the things that 

23

would enable them to do so would be get some more flexibility on 

how to meet those goals. 

Senator VOINOVICH. We tried Medicaid, too. I do not know if you 

were around when we did. But we never got to the point where we 

could get everybody to allow us. 

Mr. Armey, you were very much involved with the BRAC Commission, the legislation. I was interested that you indicated that 

had you not done buttonholing in terms of this, it would not have 

gotten passed. Do you think this would be the same kind of thing 

we will have to do to get this done? 

Mr. ARMEY. I really think so. BRAC, we were really talking to 

individual members about their parochial interests. This is the 

base in my district. 

Most of what we are looking at here is where you are going to 

have programmatic constituencies. But still, nevertheless, I think 

the Member of Congress that says all right, maybe we have not 

been doing what we should have been doing with a lot of this stuff, 

but before we turn it over to somebody else I want to be assured 

that it is going to be done on a professional and objective criteria 

and this is not going to be shanghaied so that somebody can turn 

it around and use it as a political reprisal against me if they become disappointed in something I do. 

And of course, I was very naive and new to government, having 

never been in public office until I was elected, and having only 

been in office for one term when I did BRAC. My first impression 

was this was an irrational paranoia. But as you talk to people—

and Joe Moakley was so helpful to me in this—you could talk about 

Members of Congress who had really voted in a way that offended 

somebody and really had seen their base closed for what no reasonable person could conclude was any reason other than to straighten 

them up and putting them in their place. Some even subsequently 

lost their seat. 

That is why I use the term reality-based fears. There are going 

to be those reality-based fears. And unless somebody is willing to 

sit down and encourage members in both bodies—I remember Senator Sam Nunn was so helpful to me in the Senate, encouraging 

Senators to understand no, this is going to be a professionally done 

operation. And I think it has been. 

I think generally speaking, if you take a look at the history of 

BRAC, everybody would have to concede there has been virtually 

no politics crept into that process. It has been an objective military 

preparedness criteria and done on a professional basis without a 

single political axe having been ground. I think that is a fair assessment of that. 

If you cannot assure people this will be done on that basis, then 

I do not think they will vote for the authorizing legislation in the 

first place. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I can tell you that we had a dickens of a 

time going to the next BRAC recommendation and there were only 

34 of us in the Senate that voted for it when it first came up a couple of years ago. Then we brought it back again and finally got it 

done again, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that there was 

some wonderful opportunities to reduce the cost to government. 

24

So this gets to the other question. You are saying that the members want to know that this is going to be fair and impartial. How 

important do you think it is that we get started with this? That 

we do some background information in terms of the kind of standards that we would use? So that if somebody asks me the question 

or Sam Brownback, Hey, I am worried about this thing, how is this 

going to get done? 

Then we would able to say to them look, we have had some pretty top-notch people look at this, they are not liberal, conservative, 

or whatever it is. But just objectively say this is a proper way of 

getting the job done. 

Do you think that would help us at all? Or do you think we 

would get into a rat’s nest because we start talking about the 

standards? 

Mr. ARMEY. It seems to me that given the looming financial crisis 

that is coming with Social Security—I mean. I think by the year 

2018 you are relying on the Trust Fund which is not there, which 

has nothing in it. So that you are going to have to be preparing 

yourself for some budgetary accommodation to this new urgency. 

The fact of the matter is I had, during all of the years I was Majority Leader, worked with the Government Operations Committee 

on the Results Act. I believe we had a good legacy of information 

and background data and methodology already existing out there 

from which we can draw. 

I think there have been a lot of good efforts that are made that 

have laid the foundation. Senator Connie Mack came to me with 

an idea similar to this say 6 or 7 years ago, I did not think we were 

ready. 

I think, in terms of database and methodology, I think we are 

ready for this and we can move. I think somebody might need to 

go through these agencies and review the effort that we have and 

put together maybe a laundry list that demonstrates that capacity 

to the members. I think it would be a handy thing to have. 

I remember when I did what I called my hand-to-hand persuasion on the Floor and in the cloakroom and so forth in BRAC. I had 

a little card full of meritorious information that I could tick off 

quickly. The data on the card that I carried was born out of what 

I had measured as the concerns of the members. 

One of the interesting things you find in the process of lobbying 

to your membership on both sides is you will find a continuity of 

concerns. So that in the first early ventures you can find the five 

or six top questions that are almost inevitably going to come up by 

every member you approach. I think we have the database there 

to put together the answers that are reassuring to those members. 

But it is a job that needs to be gotten on with as quickly as possible because it is just one of the many things we are going to have 

to do to get ready to deal with the Social Security financial crisis 

that is just going to be devastating if we are not prepared for it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I agree with you. I have said to folks if we 

do not deal with this deficit and we do not deal with this looming 

crisis that is coming, there will not be anything for anybody. It will 

just consume almost the entire budget and there will not be anything left. 

25

So we have to start thinking about that and also getting back to 

in terms of how do you do something about the mandatory spending that we have got. 

What I am picking up from you, Mr. Armey, is that you think 

that with the administration’s PART effort and with the Results 

Act that there is enough stuff there that would help us to convince 

members that this can be done? 

Mr. ARMEY. Yes, and I think you can convince members on both 

sides of the aisle. You can talk about the good work done by the 

Clinton Administration on reinventing government. You can talk 

about the Results Act in Congress. The GAO is a professionally capable organization that deserves our respect and admiration and I 

think has that. OMB has done a good job professionally on this. 

So my own view is that we have a legacy of information. There 

is also the Congressional Review Act and we have some legacy of 

information that has been done from those efforts. 

The shortages in information that I would identify would be only 

shortages pursuant to Congress’s inability to fully exploit the capabilities they have had. But still, nevertheless, I think this Committee and your associate committee in the other body, the House, 

in pursuit of the Result Act, have put together an enormous legacy 

of information and data from which you can give a great deal of 

assurance to all the Members of Congress that yes, we can do this 

job. We have the data. We have the methods and we will have the 

objectivity. 

Senator VOINOVICH. It would be interesting, do you know of any 

committee over in the House when you were there that ever looked 

at the Results Act? 

Mr. ARMEY. Oh, yes. I tried to manage it out of my leadership 

office. Oversight is not something that congressional committees 

enjoy doing, as you know. It did not make me the most popular guy 

in leadership on those occasions when we encouraged it. 

But the House—we renamed all the committees in 1994 and I 

never got the new names right, so I am still living with the Democrat committee names. The House Government Operations Committee, Steve Horn from California had an enormous legacy, he put 

out a report card every year. There is a great deal of information 

in that committee. 

Steve Horn, unfortunately, retired because I would be very comfortable to refer you to him. But in your pursuit of information it 

might not be a bad idea to get in touch with retired Congressman 

Steve Horn. He was so active that he probably knows where all the 

good information can be found, and has a good deal of it at his fingertips. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I have been trying to get the folks over here 

to do the oversight in the Appropriations Committee. And I do not 

think they do it. 

Mr. ARMEY. In our body, the appropriators, quite frankly, do a 

good job of oversight. In some respects they may be the best people 

at oversight. Of course, oversight is a little more easily done by appropriators because the agency comes before the authorizing committee and says you can only give us life or death, the appropriators give us money. So the appropriators get much more attention. 

26

Senator VOINOVICH. I have talked to Ted Stevens about it, and 

he thinks it is a good idea. But you have to have somebody like you 

that says this is high-priority and then just keeps banging away at 

it, and then it gets done. 

Do the two of you both agree that perhaps this may be the only 

way that we can get to working harder and smarter and doing 

more with less and get the efficiencies and economies than the 

folks that put the money in the basket are entitled to? 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Yes. I agree with the Congressman that it would 

be great if Congress would be willing to give the President reorganization authority and other tools to do this job. But I think over 

time we have moved away from that. And basically I do think the 

BRAC model is really our best opportunity. 

I also do think with the current budget crisis that we have, we 

are slowly building up to a point where I think Congress may become more willing to take this on, which is why, of course, I encourage you to take a big bite of the apple because you do not get 

that many chances. 

So I think that thinking big here and using this opportunity that 

we have now, I would commend the Congress to do so. 

Mr. ARMEY. I agree. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks very much. 

The real issue is whether or not we can get enough of our colleagues to think this is a good idea. I think the most important 

thing that is to find out how leadership feels about it. 

Mr. ARMEY. If you can get Ted Stevens to vote for it, you can 

pass it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks, very much. 

The meeting is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:33 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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