OMBlog

Reorganizing Government for the 21st Century

With all the disagreement and discord that tends to dominate Washington, it’s easy to lose sight of areas where Democrats and Republicans can make common cause. One important example: the need to update and reorganize the Federal government for the 21st century.

Today, I co-authored an op-ed on this topic with former Republican Governor of Michigan and current president of the Business Roundtable, John Engler. Governor Engler and I don’t agree on everything, but we both recognize that we’re competing in a 21st century economy with a 20th century government – a government that often suffers from overlapping and duplicative responsibilities that waste taxpayer dollars and needlessly complicate government.

In our op-ed, we echo President Obama’s call for Congress to reinstate the authority that would allow him to submit to Congress proposals to streamline and reorganize the Federal government. Importantly, any such proposal would have to either reduce the size of government or cut costs and help reach our deficit reduction goals.

Every CEO has the flexibility to restructure his or her company to keep pace with the competition and meet changing customer demands. Likewise, many Governors have reorganization authority, which has allowed them to achieve remarkable efficiencies and cost savings at the state level.

As we argue in today’s piece, granting this same authority to the President at the Federal level is not a partisan cause – it’s just common sense and good management.

Check out the full piece here.

Jeff Zients is Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget 

The Ryan-Republican Budget: The Consequences of Imbalance

Ed note: This post is updated with a correction on the number of workplace inspections to protect worker safety.

Yesterday, House Republicans released their budget resolution for FY 2013. While many of the proposals require more analysis, one thing is absolutely clear: this budget does not ask all Americans to do their share to get our fiscal house in order and create an economy that is built to last. Instead, the GOP plan gives those making over $1 million per year an average tax cut of at least $150,000 and preserves tax breaks for oil and gas companies and hedge fund managers. These tax breaks are then paid for by ending Medicare as we know it and implementing deep cuts in what we need to grow our economy and create jobs in years to come.

Others will go into deep detail on the tax and health proposals in the budget resolution.  I want to focus on funding known as “nondefense discretionary spending.”  It deserves a better name.  This is annual funding that pays for many of the investments most critical to expanding economic growth and opportunity, including education, research and development, and clean energy. 

With his strong focus on cutting waste and unneeded spending, the President has already signed into law several rounds of cuts that will bring non-security spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Put another way, we are cutting this category of spending as a share of economy by 50 percent from 2010 to 2022.

But when it comes to annual, non-defense spending, the House Budget Resolution is not about cutting fat.  It is cutting deep into the muscle that America needs to compete and win in the 21^st century. 

CBO: The President’s Budget Will Bring Down the Deficit

Today, the non-partisan, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the President’s 2013 Budget, and it confirms that the President has a balanced plan to reduce our budget deficits and put the country on a fiscally sustainable path, which is critical to constructing an economy that is built to last.

CBO found that by 2016 deficits as a share of the economy would be below 3 percent – a key milestone of fiscal sustainability. It found that after implementing the President’s Budget, debt held by the public will decrease and then stabilize as a share of the economy, also a key indicator of improving fiscal health. Finally, relative to CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario representing what happens if current policies are continued, the President’s Budget reduces the deficit by more than $4 trillion, according to CBO’s own estimates.

What’s important here is not just where the Budget takes us, but how we get there. CBO shows that we can achieve this level of deficit reduction by pursuing a balanced plan that asks everyone to shoulder their fair share. For instance, in line with the bipartisan budget deal agreed to last August, the Budget brings discretionary spending to its lowest level on record, and to do that, includes scores of cuts, consolidations, and savings totaling more than $24 billion in 2013. The Budget details more than $360 billion in savings to Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs that will make these programs more effective and move our health care system to one that rewards high-quality care without violating our obligation to seniors and people with disabilities. To that, the Budget also saves an additional $270 billion through other mandatory savings such as through changes in agriculture subsidies and direct payments and federal civilian worker retirement benefits.

Recognizing that all Americans have a responsibility to do their part – especially those who have done so well these past several years – the Budget also calls for individual tax reform that: cuts the deficit by $1.5 trillion, including the expiration of the high-income 2001 and 2003 tax cuts; simplifies the tax code, lowers tax rates, and protects progressivity; eliminated inefficient and unfair tax breaks for millionaires while making all tax breaks at least as good for the middle class as for the wealthy; and observes the Buffett Rule that no household making more than $1 million a year pays less than 30 percent of their income in taxes. Moreover, the Budget does not raise taxes on the 98 percent of families that make less than $250,000 a year.

As we make these cuts, we also need to recognize that to have an economy that is built to last, we must invest in those areas critical to long-term economic growth and job creation. That is why the Budget has more than $350 billion in short-term measures for job-growth, starting this year as well as critical investments in education and skills for American workers, increases in research and development, investments in advanced manufacturing and clean energy; and a bold plan – fully paid for – to create a 21^st century transportation infrastructure that will create thousands of new jobs.

This balanced approach is one that the American people support, and – as the CBO confirms – will reduce our deficits and put the country on a sustainable fiscal path. It’s now up to Congress to act on these policies, and lay the foundation for an economy built to last.

Jeff Zients is Director of the Office of Management and Budget 

Let the Sunshine In

This week is Sunshine Week, a joint project of the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.  Held in mid-March, Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote discussion about the importance of open government and freedom of information.

The theme of this year’s Sunshine Week is “Put Sunshine in Your Government,” and so now is an appropriate time to reflect on the Obama Administration’s strong commitment to open government over the past three years, and more particularly to provide an update on implementation of the U.S. National Action Plan on Open Government. 

President Obama unveiled the National Plan in September 2011, as part of the United States’ commitment as a founding member of the Open Government Partnership – a global effort to promote more transparent, effective, and accountable governance in countries around the world.  

Now Live: The Updated IT Dashboard

Earlier today, we updated the IT Dashboard, sharing publicly for the first time detailed IT investment information in support of the President’s FY 2013 Budget.

The Administration first launched the IT Dashboard back in 2009 as part of our effort to create a more transparent and open government. By publicly posting data on more than 700 IT investments across the Federal government, we armed agencies with the tools needed to reduce duplication in IT spending, strengthen the accountability of agency CIOs, and provide more accurate and detailed information on projects and activities. We also gave Americans an unprecedented window into how their tax dollars were being spent.

Today’s release builds on these efforts, bringing even greater transparency to IT investment performance and empowering CIOs to intervene in troubled projects sooner. Some improvements you can expect to see include:

Supporting U.S. Economic Growth through North American Regulatory Cooperation

As part of the President’s ambitious regulatory reform initiative, the Administration is working to reduce unjustified regulatory barriers to exports and to strengthen international regulatory cooperation – a critical tool for promoting job creation and economic growth here at home. By collaborating with key trading partners to promote free and open trade and investment, we can further reduce unnecessary burdens on U.S. businesses, as a recent report from the President’s Jobs Council emphasizes. Regulatory cooperation is an important mechanism for reducing regulatory roadblocks to U.S. exports. To this end, we are pleased to announce the launch of the United States-Mexico High-Level Regulatory Cooperation Council (HLRCC) Work Plan.   

Bilateral commerce between the United States and Mexico reaches more than $1 billion daily. This Work Plan identifies a number of areas of mutual interest – food, transportation, nanotechnology, e-health, oil and gas, and conformity assessment – and outlines activities to be carried out by the United States and Mexico over a period of two years. Among other things, the Work Plan will seek to:

• Develop common approaches to food safety in ways that will benefit consumers and the food industry on both sides of the border;
• Reduce burdens on U.S. and Mexican businesses, while maintaining the safety and reliability of products, by bringing the two countries together to develop compatible electronic certification programs for plants and plant products;
• Improve the safety of our citizens by ensuring that all trucks in each country are inspected to a consistently high standard, regardless of the vehicle’s country of origin;
• Foster innovation while reducing risks to environmental and human health by ensuring that the United States and Mexico share information about each nation’s respective regulatory approaches to nanomaterials at an early stage;
• Decrease costs and reduce the time required to implement electronic health record systems in each country, by increasing cooperation and sharing best practices on Electronic Health Record certification; and 
• Minimize risks in oil and gas exploration, production activities, and drilling, by developing a common approach to managing contingencies in the Gulf of Mexico that will ensure coordinated actions between the two countries.  

Contracting Smarter, Saving More

From the start of the Administration, President Obama has charged agencies to cut waste and give the American people a government that is not only more affordable, but also more efficient and effective. One critical area for those efforts has been contracting.  

Last year at this time, we reported that agencies turned the tide on contract spending – cutting spending for the first time in 13 years. Collectively agencies spent a remarkable $80 billion less on contracting than would have occurred had growth continued at the same rate as under the prior Administration. Today, we are pleased to report that we sustained this new era of fiscally responsible contracting in FY 2011, maintaining the reduced spending level of $535 billion achieved in 2010 as we have continued our aggressive campaign to keep costs down and deliver better value for the American taxpayers.

This marks the first time in almost two decades that spending has either declined or remained unchanged for two years in a row. In fact, had contract spending continued to grow at the same pace as it did in the last Administration, we would have spent $690 billion on contracts, or $155 billion more than agencies ended up spending in FY 2011. While there is much still to be done, we now can confirm what we’ve had good reason to believe for some time: that the promising results of FY 2010 demonstrated that we have moved in a sustainable way into an era of more accountable contract spending and getting a better return for every taxpayer dollar. 

Regulations.gov: Remaking Public Participation

On January 18, 2011, the President issued Executive Order 13563, in which he directed regulatory agencies to base regulations on an “open exchange of information and perspectives” and to promote public participation in Federal rulemaking.  The President identified Regulations.gov as the centralized portal for timely public access to regulatory content online. 

In response to the President’s direction, Regulations.gov has launched a major redesign, including innovative new search tools, social media connections, and better access to regulatory data.  The result is a significantly improved website that will help members of the public to engage with agencies and ultimately to improve the content of rules.

The redesign of Regulations.gov also fulfills the President’s commitment in The Open Government Partnership National Action Plan to “improve public services,” including to “expand public participation in the development of regulations.” This step is just one of many, consistent with the National Action Plan, designed to make our Federal Government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are technical interfaces/tools that allow people to pull regulatory content from Regulations.gov. For most of us, the addition of “APIs” on Regulations.gov doesn’t mean much, but for web managers and experts in the applications community, providing APIs will fundamentally change the way people will be able to interact with public federal regulatory data and content. 

Making It Easier to Do Business

On Thursday, the President called on Congress to partner with him on reforming and consolidating the Federal government for the 21^st century, to make it leaner, smarter, and work better for the American people and America’s businesses. The Administration sent Congress the Consolidating and Reforming Government Act of 2012 to reinstate the authority Presidents held for decades to put forward, for expedited consideration by Congress, plans to consolidate and reform the Federal government. And to guarantee the authority would only be used to make government more efficient, the President’s proposal adds a new requirement that any reorganization plan must save money or reduce the size of government.  

As many of you know, the President announced last month that, if Congress gives him consolidation authority, his first action would be to make it easier for America’s job creators to access the services they need to grow and export. The President laid out a plan to bring together six agencies focused on business and trade and a handful of other related programs in a single more efficient and effective department with a laser-like focus on promoting American business, exports and competitiveness, while saving taxpayers $3 billion dollars.