I am taking a risk. Where debating the 2018 budget. They are requesting billions of dollars for Immigration Enforcement as well as building a wall. Good morning. Welcome to the Heritage Foundation. We welcome those who rejoin us on the website. For those inhouse, we ask mobile devices be silenced or turned off as we prepared to begin. For those watching online it, you are welcome to send questions and comments. Eating our discussion this theing is dr. Mo house and, Research Analysis chairman. He testifies frequently before congress about federal programs. His commentary and analysis has publications in and he appears on National Television as well. Scientificallys rigorous National Studies and unanimously finds it that are all programs fail to solve the problems they were designed to address. He serves as a professor at George Mason University where he teaches program evaluation. Please join me in welcoming david. [applause] good morning and welcome. Online, we areu organizing the federal government that to be done and how to do it. Have panelists with extensive experience in the workings of the federal government. Is a Research Fellow in. Conomics she is leading the Heritage Foundation reorganization project, that is the subject of todays events. She was a senior economist from the staff of the joint economic committee. Donald is the senior scholar at the fund for americans dollars. The served as Ronald Reagans civilservice direct your. During that time, the Washington Post labeled him reagans swift sword. Excesses andcratic reduced billions in spending. To new book is a guide reforming. You can purchase this online. I look forward to reading it. Robert, a principal at the center. Communications and is a member of the performance transition team. He was appointed to the commission in policymaking. Previously, he was associate director for administration and government performance at the office of management and budget are in budget. Administered the Program Rating tool. For thed as Counsel Committee on government affairs. Pleasure to be here today. I am working on production of our blueprints for reform. We begin with the blueprint for balance. The blue plant for reform and new administration, we will put in a plug at the beginning. The blueprint for balance was the first one. We spelled out 100 different recommendations that lead to 10 trillion lesson federal spending. Is a lot of here those recommendations we included in the blueprint are part of the blueprint for reorganization. We set aside the pathways you can have reforms. We noted if the president has the authority for what would need to be done. That would need to take ways to implement the recommendations weve presented here. In annualillion spending and 19 trillion in public debt and 22 different cabinet level agencys, americans are in need of a government wide reorganization. Our government does few bounds. We did the government to focus on core constitutional responsibilities. We need a government that is looking out for the interest of everybody. Providinge that is Efficient Services with accountability attached to it. In his blueprint, the first one is focused on the analysis of federal departments. We have 100 different recommendations. I will give you examples of those. I wanted to clarify that not everything in here is something that the executive department has the authority to take on. Require the things will buyin from congress. Our second edition of the blueprint specifies what the executive can do already, what changes can be made and what things will need congressional buyin. We also look at some cost cutting issues. In the second one, we look at reforms like modernizing changes to personal policy. Our 110 recommendations we include, i will start with eliminating coal departments, such as the federal Housing Administration and the Financing Agency and the Consumer Financial protection bureau. There are often some Core Functions we would hold an transfer them to a more appropriate department or agency. There are some functions we consider nonfederal should he transferred to state and local government, such as low income housing. Stated local governments have utter knowledge of their own local communities and more are providing services. We have departments and services we recommend eliminating. That the ahaz the two different offices the v. A. Has 42 different offices. These things have been a bureaucratic nightmare for veterans. To fored one shop to go all of their needs instead of 42 different offices, taking documentation from one office to another. Without shutting down entire agencies, we recommend closing some offices like the department of educations 24 field offices. We did not have the net in the Tech Knowledge he we do today. Technology we do today. These offices are no longer necessary today. We recommend streamlining functions within agencies. The department of justice as four separate criminal divisions. They haveated their criminal Section Group in the division itself. Cases, programs like efficiency because they are in the wrong agency. We recommend things like moving the food and Nutrition Services from the department of agriculture into the health and Human Services with other for takinggrams programs out of education and putting them in treasury, treasury has the information they need and they are distributing the funds. What we dont recommend our cuts to defend spending. Irs s room to optimize highest priority luncheons first. Excessested eliminating infrastructure that is costly to maintain. We dont take the department of defense should be spending money on nondefense programs like Ovarian Cancer research. The programs benefit a select few instead of working across all americans. Thats why we recommend asminating programs, such community services, public broadcasting, the arts and humanities, the import export bank, minority business development. Aboutency isnt just rightsizing the government and eliminating and moving programs around. Its making sure the government is doing its job through oversight and accountability. Toulation should be subject meaningful review. We also recommend evidence based on policymaking. We do have places where there are plenty of accountability programs, such as the v. A. There are 31 different programs there and yet they are scattered. If you put them into one place, you are better serving veterans and taxpayers. Finally, because personal has such impact on efficiency and accountability, we recommend abroad package of reform to a prove improve accountability and let managers do their jobs. We also want to bring compensation in line with the private sector, so the government is in a more Competitive Position to retain the best workers. With that, i am going to hand it over to don. Donald devine. I am the serious part of the program. The first thing i want to say is i very much recommend both of these books. The cost cutting one is just super, one of the best things i ever look that. Background. Emic in some crazy way after the 1980 president reagan called me up and said got a job for you. It was head of the office of Personnel Management. Job for ad of a funny libertarian conservative like me, running the bureaucracy. He said ive got a good sense of humor. Backid i want you to cut 100,000 nondefense employees, i want you to reduce their loaded benefits and make them work harder. Just run the harry truman said about doing a tough job in washington, in either washington when youre doing a tough job. I bought two dogs to be on the safe side. The crazy thing is we did do it. Nobody thought this was possible, to reform government. We did reduce 100,000 nondefense employees. They tried to hide it. No conservative wants to know that, but we did it. We cut bloated benefits. A x my enemy said ice billion dollars, which in todays money is 60 billion. We made them work harder. It was a miracle. It happened. Introduction by me reaganscall terrible swift sword. That was one of the nicest things they said about me. Rasputin ofme the the reduction in force. Thats what we called getting rid of people. We werent clever. We did the first ones at christmas, not a good time to do this in terms of public relations. Times did a big mery on me, calling rasputin. Suitrinch in the pinstripe , trying to celebrate christmas. We did that. Nobody i am a professor, nobody cares about that. All they care about is that i knew Ronald Reagan and what a guy he was. What did i learn in this . The book was mentioned. Nothing has changed very much. Thats a book i wrote almost 40 years ago. Publisher and said this is still pretty much all true, why dont you republish it. Things havent changed. All the reforms we did are gone. Most of them were gone by the next administration, a republican ministration. Administration. Government today simply doesnt work. Dont take it from a libertarian conservative like me. Lets take it from a professor of public relations, many serious reviews with congressional background. The government doesnt work anymore. It cant execute its laws. Thats a basic fact. He says there are 60 levels between the secretary that set the policy and doing something on the street. Its impossible to runs such an organization unless you have some measurements. Sciences saidal they dont have one in government. In the private sector, you can have 60 levels, although they have learned cant do that. There is no private company that does that anymore. They did it back in the 30s. You can go down even 60 levels and say is that making a profit or not . If it does, you keep it. In the government, you go down the 60 levels and if they are failing, you spend more money on it. The whole thing in the Public Sector is different than the private sector. How did we get his thing . The biggest revolutionary in American History is a guy named Woodrow Wilson who said that what we have do is bring all in the center and we can run everything with the experts. Phd whenad to read his i went to graduate school. He went over to prussia, why does it work . All power is centered in the government and was chancellor says we do it, we do it. He wrote a book. The problem with American Government is it divides power rather than bringing power together to do good. System, a retirement its got an educational system, its got a welfare state. Weve got none of that in america at the national level. He comes back, he convinces the intellectuals thats the problem. It, thelem is dividing solution is bringing it together. He starts the American Society or administration. He changes the intellectual opinion from saying that divided the power is good and bring it dividing is good in bringing together is good. Every president since then except my boss bought into that very. Thiss why we cant run government. Itts why we cant run it or run it. The only thing we can do is decentralize it back to the way the founders created. Ronald reagan said the secret to the success of america is federalism. Contributioncas to the history of freedom. Ive got a solution. Rather than relying on all these institutions and having an ,ffice of management and budget ive got a simple solution. The first book i mentioned was this cross cutting thing. The other thing divides up the agencies and departments and goes down each one. Ive got a simple answer. Just send these out to the agencies. Tell them to do it. If you dont like it, have a good reason. These are serious recommendations they have given. Normalet this to the process of omb. Robert is a big exception here. If you just turn it over to the careerists at omb, this will go on for years. Dumbll come out with some thing. What we should do is go back and reinvent cabinet government. Turned to the agencies. Thats their job. You guys did it here in thats the solution. Thats what i have to say. Could edit with just a couple of bullets. Talk to me later if you want me to take out what i disagree with. That thetainly true government has proliferated to such a degree that it could not accomplish what we ask it to do. With a lot ofo it restrictions on the management of people, money, systems, contracts that make it almost impossible to get the job done. Someone who is getting something done in government, that is a true talent. It is also true that the only thing we have close to Eternal Life Fund government is government program. To repeal orficult eliminate the program. Work,s work, rachels evaluating programs. Logicalthink the conclusion is to eliminate everything that isnt effective. Programs not having their intended impact. There is enormous room for improvement. Every president until the 80s had the authority to reorganize the government. I think its high time we reempower administrations with that authority. It is so hard to do it otherwise. Congress, at least from the oversight committee, is supportive of this authority, where you trip up is in authorizing committees and the appropriations committees. Power,ve jurisdiction money assigned with specific agencies under their jurisdictions. What tends to drive reorganization is crisis. The most recent example of that is the establishment of the department of Homeland Security. Could it be strengthened if we consolidated the programs responsible for securing the homeland. That was fought until 9 11. Youll will recall immediately workers11, contract could not adequately secure airlines, airplanes. Commercial travel. Fairly soon thereafter, we created the department of Homeland Security, bringing all of these entities together. It is true that terrorist attacks on american soil have then, im note sure we can measurably say our security has been strengthened because of the chaos the department creates. There has been an enormous struggle to combine these cohesive, well honed organization. In giving the president the authority to do Something Like that is trust. Congress would need to trust the executive to use that authority responsibly. We have not had that kind of trusting relationship and a long time. Congress in the 90s passed a law called me government performance and results act. That was my first job, to oversee implementation of that. Damn aboutly gave a it. Whom wee people for need to drive Government Agencies to think more about out come. Its too easy to come to work and satisfy yourself with just producing inputs or wants. Outputs. Measure whether that has an impact on the ultimate out come, you wont know if what youre doing has a public positive outcome. Struggled tos identify the out, they are trying to outcome they are trying to establish. That,has written about getting insight into whether we out comesng important and if the programs are having the intended impact. Theyose evaluations show are effective, the vast majority of programs and the federal government are not the subject of that sort of evaluation at all. During the Bush Administration, the focus on outcomes was not we devised a rating tool, a set of 25 questions that asks of each program, is its purpose clear and is it well designed to achieve its objectives, does it have shortspace and longterm objectives, is it wellmanaged and is the program achieving its results . Established the tool because we wanted to have some bases with which to allocate funding. And we insisted through this tool that agencies and programs would begin a process of subjecting their programs to these of valuations. It was the beginning what we call the evidence agenda and led to the commission on evidencebased policy making that i am involved in today. I have to admit we did not make a lot of progress integrating this data into the budget decisionmaking process. Policymakers do not have a huge appetite for listening to evidence when figuring out how to make funding decision is. There is a lot of those decisions that are highly political, so there is room for improvement, i would say, a matter of understatement, in making more and more of our budget decisions and other policy decisions based on the evidence. Far as reorganizations are concerned, we were able to say among the government programs, these are the ones that share a similar mission, these are the common or conflicting measures of performance. And one area we decided to do a deep dive in was in the Economic Development. There are dozens of programs throughout the government that blightended to address in our cities, to improve the Economic Conditions of the communities across government. We proposed to take all of those programs and consolidate them into the economic element administration at the department of commerce, because many of the programs were found to be ineffective. It was hard to get an ineffective rating with this tool. Because the community and economic developer program, the biggest of those programs was found to be ineffective, and moved that into the economic element administration which we thought was more results oriented. While the overall effect was lower, we thought moving them to entityoutcomeoriented would mean you can get more with less. Well, there were people who disagreed with the president s proposal. Oftin omalley, as result this great proposal that i had recommended, called the president the Osama Bin Laden of american cities. That was a highlight not a highlight of my political career. But it just goes to show you the entrenched interests need to be considered when you are developing and trying to enact these kinds of proposals. So if i step back, i would say the lessons that i take from my combined experience in driving these kinds of initiatives are leadership. Wasof the advantages i had my boss