Posted on 10/13/2001 12:36:55 PM PDT by forest
We've all heard of outcome based education, that bureaucratic nitwitery dumbing down American scholastic abilities. But few of us remember that the 1993 Democratic Congress also created an outcome based federal bureaucracy -- complete with "portfolios."
If you didn't remember, don't feel bad. Federal bureaucrats (and their sycophantic national media) are keeping that very quiet. That's because, by law, we taxpayers get to grade the portfolios. And, to put it bluntly, bureaucrats most definitely do not want us to see their reports on setting goals and measuring outcomes. One reason is that the portfolios must explain exactly what each agency is doing and why. The Heritage Foundation summed up the problem nicely in their 1997 report: "Too many federal agencies do not know and cannot articulate in plain English the reason they exist."
The controlling law is the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, commonly referred to as the "Results Act." The Act requires federal agencies to submit strategic plans to Congress each year by September 30 -- reports that clearly specify their missions and goals. The problem is, so far few of the agency honchos can correctly define their missions. Their goals, of course, are to control us serf-citizens. But that often has little or nothing to do with the real reason the agency exists.
House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-TX) said that the Results Act enables Congress to ask the proper questions, specifically: "What's working, what's wasted, what makes any difference, what's duplicative?" The problem is, federal bureaucrats never had to explain their mission -- their agency's reason for existing -- before 1997. And clearly, the leadership of most federal agencies are still not very good at it.
For instance, as one federal agency manager told Rep. Armey in an initial report: "Why worry about results? Nobody seems to care as long as we spend the money." Wrong answer!
In the early reports, EPA thought it was a "public health organization." HUD identified one of its two key missions as "restoring the public trust by achieving and demonstrating competence." The Department of Education said their mission included "monitoring and enforcement of civil rights to ensure that the U.S. education system is accessible and fair for all students." The Army Corps of Engineers said it is there to promote "prosperity and democracy, and to strengthen national security" in conjunction with "responsible stewardship of its water resources infrastructure."
Of course, all of these answers were wrong. Which means that these bureaucratic turkeys did not even read their own agency handbooks.
Anyway, agencies were required to submit their first five-year strategic plans to Congress and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 1997. Their strategic plans must contain all of the following:
"A comprehensive mission statement on the major functions and operations of the agency; outcome-related goals and objectives for the major functions and operations of the agency; a description of how goals and objectives are to be achieved, including necessary resources; a stated relationship between general and annual performance goals; an identification of those key factors external to the agency and beyond its control that could affect the achievement of the general goals and objectives significantly; a description of program evaluations used in developing the strategic plan and an explanation of how these evaluations will be used in the future; a description of agency functions and programs that are similar to those of other agencies, including an explanation of how they will be coordinated; suggested treatment of major problems of waste, fraud, and mismanagement affecting the agency and its programs; an evaluation of data collection systems used to implement the plan; and, an explanation of how the agency solicited and responded to the recommendations of Congress and other stakeholders."
Not one federal agency submitted a proper report. Four years later, they are still not much better.
Still, all federal agencies must file these reports. So, feel free to call for the one or two of your choice. Then, please, report what you learn.
Congressman Dick Armey has updates on the "Results Act" at: <http://freedom.house.gov/results>
END
The controlling law is the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, commonly referred to as the "Results Act."
Not report has been submitted.
At least he was honest about the way bureaucrats think and work.
CRS compared activity of the 105th and the 104th Congress in
applying the Results Act and observed that the Results Act
activity level had increased dramatically. CRS reported, among
other things, that:
In fact, in the 105th Congress eight House committees
either enacted Results-Act-related provisions or included
them in committee report language, doubling the committee
action seen in the 104th Congress;
The number of relevant laws doubled for the 105th
Congress versus the 104th; and
The number of relevant committee reports tripled; and
"The volume of provisions identified by CRS shows that the
Results Act has firmly taken root," Burton said. "I am particularly
pleased with the sharp increase in Results Act usage during the
last Congress," he added.
No, it was a perfect answer. And one that goes right to the heart of the issue. This is a congressional "pass the buck" scheme where Congress - which created the agencies or approved of their creations - gets to absolve itself from any guilt. Or at least tries to.
Fact is, Congress is the body which holds all of the power and thus it is Congress who must decide what constitutional authority any agency is created to carry out, and it is Congress that is charged with overseeing their work.
Congress has not been doing its job.
| GOALS | STRATEGIES | VALIDATION | PRESENTATION | TOTAL |
| 30 Points | 30 Points | 30 Points | 10 Points | 100 Points |
| GOALS 30 points STRATEGIES 30 points VALIDATION 30 points PRESENTATION 10 points TOTAL 100 points TRANSPORTATION 25 20 16 10 71 VA 22.5 18 14 7.5 62 EDUCATION 20.5 14.5 19 7 61 NRC 17 10.5 23 8 58.5 SBA 18.5 19 16 5 58.5 AID 22.5 12.5 13 5 53 NSF 13.5 11 19 8 51.5 JUSTICE 16 13 17 5 51 TREASURY 18.5 15.5 8 7 49 FEMA 17 10.5 12 8 47.5 NASA 20.5 12 10 5 47.5 LABOR 16 10 7 9 42 OPM 10.5 9 15 6 40.5 HHS 13 7 12 4.5 36.5 AGRICULTURE 15 13 5 3 36 HUD 12 12 5 6 35 EPA 10 7 13 4.5 34.5 COMMERCE 16.5 6 3 7.5 33 INTERIOR 13 5.5 9 3 30.5 ENERGY 8.5 5 10 6.5 30 DEFENSE 10 10 7 2 29 STATE 9 8 2 5 24 SSA 7 4 2 4 17 GSA 5.5 2.5 4 2 14 AVERAGE 14.9 10.6 10.9 5.8 42.2 Front Page | Get Updates | Features | News & Info | Search Freedom Works: Home Page of the Office of the House Majority Leader |
Au contraire, it has everything to do with the real reason the agency exists.
It's time to hold the agency heads and noses to the grind stone of truth. Those that don't hack it are toast! The agencies that are consistently unable to hack it should be eliminated.
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