The Future of Federal Reinvention: Congressional Perspectives

Abstract

The future of federal reinvention depends in part upon congressional action (Foreman, 1995). Setting aside normative and operational questions about the National Performance Review (NPR), the general approach and many activities of the NPR will be of limited effectiveness over time without the support or at least the acquiescence of Congress. In the constitutional and political scheme of shared power, congressional action in budgeting, personnel, organizational structure, and program design and management continues to be of fundamental importance to federal administration (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995c). Congress was not extensively consulted by the team assembled by Vice President Gore to develop and implement the NPR, with the notable exception of enactment of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993. GPRA was a congressional initiative which the NPR endorsed and supported. The NPR, particularly the basic document initiating it (Gore, 1993), generally portrays Congress as a negative force in administration. It argues that Congress, for political reasons, imposes dysfunctional rules and restrictions on programs and budgets. As a result of these rules and requirements, as well as restrictions imposed by political executives and others, the discretion of managers to manage effectively is constrained. Congressional actions force the executive to establish bureaucracies, adopt procedures, and employ staff to process red tape. The symbiotic relationship between Congress and bureaucracies (Congress creates rules which require bureaucracies to administer) contributes to a rule-based, hierarchical form of administration. This form of administration is dominated by wasteful processes and staff positions designed to comply with rules rather than to produce direct program results, in the form of customer satisfaction. In the NPR, the primary purpose and mission of the federal government is to deliver services to produce customer satisfaction. The NPR generally disavows concern with what the federal government does other than deliver services. It does not examine other purposes or missions of the federal government such as to pursue a more perfect union, justice, defense, domestic tranquility, and liberty. The NPR's negative view of Congress seems to derive as much from differences in institutional perspectives and calculations of institutional and personal power, as from party affiliation. Congress was controlled by the President's party when the NPR was initiated in 1993. The effects of Republican control of Congress, a result of the election of 1994, on the NPR are difficult to separate from inherent institutional differences in power and perspective between the President and Congress. Many of the questions raised by the NPR, such as what constitutes effective administration, transcend institutional and partisan convictions and calculations of power. However, how administrative questions are defined and how they should be answered often depends on the position, perspective, and beliefs of the viewer. In 1995, the new Congress pursued the agenda articulated in the Contract with America (Gillespie and Schellhas, 1994), an agenda to restrain rather than expand federal power. The initial agenda of the Clinton administration envisioned an increased federal role in investments in education, training, research and development, the environment, and other activities. In the context of this agenda, the NPR implied that in some areas an expanded federal role is important but should be pursued through new forms of entrepreneurial administration. In the new Congress, Stephen Horn of California, an accomplished political scientist, was appointed chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology, of a reorganized House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. In early 1995, the Horn subcommittee decided to review federal administration. It initially intended to review the NPR. …