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Without cooperation from Congress, the Bush administration will have difficulty prompting federal agencies to get the most bang for their budgets, a NASA management adviser said Tuesday.

President Bush's five-part management agenda asks agencies to consider the performance of past projects when formulating budget requests. In turn, Congress is expected to base funding decisions partly on agencies' progress at meeting goals.

If Congress fails to do so, it sends the wrong message to agencies, said Lloyd Blanchard, senior adviser for financial management at NASA. Agencies will have no incentive to manage programs efficiently and prepare thorough reports documenting their results if they believe that lawmakers are not paying attention, he said. Blanchard, formerly the chief operating office of the Small Business Administration, spoke at a Capitol Hill workshop hosted by the Mercatus Center, a Fairfax, Va.-based policy institute run by George Mason University.

"It really is important for those who work in Congress, especially appropriators, to take this seriously," Blanchard said. In addition to appropriators, who divide up federal funds, congressional authorizers, who set parameters for various programs, should outline clear expectations for agency performance, Blanchard said.

While authorizing committees already do this to some extent, they need to be much more detailed and explicit in their demands, Blanchard said. Philip Joyce, associate professor of public policy and public administration at The George Washington University, made a similar recommendation in a research paper published recently by the IBM Center for the Business of Government.

Administration officials could also place more pressure on Congress to abide by President Bush's budget request, which should reflect agencies' success at meeting performance standards, Blanchard said. At one extreme, the administration could even recommend that the president veto appropriations bills that continue to fund poorly performing programs when more efficient alternatives exist, he said. But budget officials may be reluctant to use such a "big stick" for enforcing a management initiative, he acknowledged.

Administration officials have used the threat of a veto to show support for other management initiatives. During the fiscal 2004 budget process, the administration has repeatedly threatened to veto budget bills containing language perceived as impeding its plans to subject thousands of federal jobs to competition from private firms.

A lack of dramatic action in linking budgets to performance doesn't mean the effort has failed, said Maurice McTigue, director of the Government Accountability Project at the Mercatus Center. There is often a "lag time" in implementing broad government reforms, he noted.

During that time, agencies can still benefit from completing detailed analyses of how they are spending their budgets and what they have accomplished for each dollar spent, Blanchard said. This will help them better allocate financial resources, and provide lawmakers and administration officials with documentation of areas where money is spent wisely, and areas where improvements in efficiency are possible, he said.

COMMENTS

• You have run into the difference between government and the private sector! Congress should not set or evaluate progress against specific goals for executive agencies. The President (through OMB) should evaluate programs and make recommendations to Congress. Congress only should respond by approving or changing the budget that is requested (in a timely manner!). There are goals that need to be quantified and for which Congress is not qualified to quantify. For example, the Army needs X infantry soldiers ready to go. Who is to determine X - is it Congress or is it the administration working with DoD and OMB? It definitely should involve a discussion of a plan between the President and the military and not be determined by Congress. Then if we have no war to go to, is it waste to pay 500,000 infantry soldiers to be sitting around doing nothing? The Congressional goal should be that the military should be ready to go to war at a moment’s notice - that is the policy. The President should determine that that means 500,000 soldiers sitting around waiting to go. If the public determines the President's interpretation of the policy is wrong - they fire him in the next election! That is how representative government should work! Congress is far too involved in the nitty-gritty of running the government and not involved in the establishment of meaningful policy for the USA. Congress cannot even pass a budget for a fiscal year until the year is almost half over! How will they ever set goals? Academics have to get real - Congress should set policy and the executive branch should carry it out! Congress should not micro-manage! If the administration is not doing what the public thinks is necessary, they vote out the administration. Congress controls he purse strings so they may inflence the extent of the administration's activities. Congress should not set performance goals for agencies! GovExec.com reader Posted December 3, 2003 7:32 AM