Thompson: Surplus won't end tight agency budgets

Despite budget surpluses as far as the eye can see, federal agencies shouldn't expect their budgets to expand any time soon, a top Republican Senator said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Excellence in Government '99 conference in Washington, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., said the rising costs of Social Security, Medicare and defense programs will keep pressure on federal managers to improve the efficiency of government operations.

Americans are disappointed in government in part because it "too often fails to produce results," Thompson said. Both Congress and the executive branch must focus on reducing government waste and inefficiency, he said.

Thompson said he is frustrated that many of the government's worst management problems seem intractable. Many of the programs on the General Accounting Office's high-risk list, for example, have been there for nearly a decade, he noted. Ten of the 26 high-risk programs have been on the list since 1990, and another nine since 1995 or earlier. Warnings about security problems at the Energy Department's nuclear laboratories have been issued in about 100 reports over the years, Thompson said, and only now is major action being taken to address the problems.

Thompson said his committee will use the Government Performance and Results Act, along with other management reform laws of the 1990s, to provide oversight and guidance to agencies trying to improve their performance. Thompson also made a push for reforming the civil service system, noting that Congress has freed Internal Revenue Service managers from civil service rules.

"If that's such a great idea for the IRS, what about everyone else?" Thompson asked. "We may need to revisit the one-size-fits-all civil service system."