Reinventing Government

Traditional Government Review

In a traditional government review process the previous years expenditures from an existing budget are reviewed and adjusted upward for future expectations. Such a review identifies only additional, incremental increases to the existing budget.
Such traditional government review does not address the fact that bureaucracies have a tendency towards excessive red tape and resistance to change. Also, the traditional review process encourages not only a ‘use it or lose it’ approach by managers, but also a ‘that is the way we’ve always done it’ mentality.

Osborne and Gaebler’s book

David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s 1992 book “Reinventing Government” addressed concerns about the state of public administration.
Rather than ‘rubber stamp’ the previous year’s budget, Osborne and Gaebler proposed that government agencies need to measure the outcomes of their policies and revise those policies accordingly. Such a process would result in efficiency and accountability.
Programs that had unsuccessful outcomes would be reconfigured or abolished. Successful policies could be expanded.
The use of strategic reviews, consolidation of similar programs, and reorganization of agencies would result in an efficient, effective and economical delivery of services.
The process of measuring results and readjusting efforts is known as ‘performance-based budgeting’.

The Clinton/ Gore Administration

In their 1992 campaign Bill Clinton and Al Gore promised public administration reform that would ‘reinvent government’.
Clinton created, and Gore headed up, the National Performance Review initiative. The goals of the NPR were to treat taxpayers as customers, cut unnecessary red tape requirements, empower employee creativity, and refocus government on the basics.
The National Performance Review would also re write government in simple to understand language, coordinate federal and state efforts, and implement new technologies. In 1997 Gore would publish ‘Access America: Re-engineering Through Information Technology’, which predicted that the internet would change how the government would deliver services.
The work of the National Performance Review continued under Clinton’s second term as the National Partnership for Reinventing Government.

Results

The National Performance Review proposed 1,200 changes, including the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act setting performance targets, and the elimination of over 400,000 federal positions.
In 1994 the Internal Revenue Service began electronic tax filing. An online source of federal information has evolved into today’s USA.gov.
Cutting over 600,000 pages of unnecessary regulations resulted in over $130 billion in savings.
250 programs and agencies were discontinued, resulting in 2,000 field offices being closed and 78,000 management positions eliminated.
Procurement reforms saved almost $250 million a year in processing costs alone.

Concerns

Although Gore’s team cut personnel positions with a scalpel rather than a chainsaw, the reduction of over 400,000 swept away some employees with needed special skills.
Even more concerning, the successes were short lived. Following administrations did not sustain the ‘reinventing government’ efforts of Clinton/ Gore. As social scientist Robert Michels put it in his ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’, “He who says organization, says oligarchy”. Without constant commitment, oversight, and direction, bureaucratic organizations tend to become little fiefdoms.

Today

As with the Carter Era’s attempt at Zero Based Budgeting, The Clinton Era efforts to Reinvent Government could benefit from the in depth analysis made possible by today’s Artificial Intelligence. Also, it is critical that any effort to reinvent government has stable, consistent, and mature leadership.
The Clinton/ Gore scholarly, measured attempt to re-imagine government stands in stark contrast to the unfocused, reckless, thoughtless, and extremist chainsaw approach of the second Trump administration’s DOGE debacle.

Sources

https://www.govexec.com/management/2013/04/what-reinvention-wrought/62836/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/lessons-for-the-future-of-government-reform/
https://www.governing.com/archive/gov-reinventing-government-book.html


Thanks and a tip of the hat to DonkeyHotey at Flickr for the image.