Administrative Clean-up Needed

Op-Ed Contributor
Fast Track to Efficiency
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/opinion/12light.html

By PAUL C. LIGHT
Published: November 11, 2008
BARACK OBAMA is about to inherit a deeply dysfunctional government: the appointment process is nasty, brutish and not at all short; departments are clogged with red tape and reporting chains to nowhere; the civil service fails at nearly every task it undertakes; and contractors roam freely under the loosest oversight. To carry out the large-scale bureaucratic reform that is badly needed, Mr. Obama should revitalize the president’s fast-track authority to get reorganization plans through Congress.
From 1932 to 1983, presidents had this authority and used it frequently to create, merge or terminate agencies, streamline administrative procedures and even raise federal employment ceilings. Congress went along because it had a “legislative veto” — that is, either house could block a specific presidential action with a simple majority — on these reorganization plans.
When the Supreme Court declared legislative vetoes unconstitutional in 1983, reorganizations had to go through the normal legislative process in Congress and, increasingly, without the president’s input. The hopelessly muddled Department of Homeland Security is a prime example of how well this works.
With a new variation on the old authority, the administration would form a commission of management experts encouraged to address all things organizational, no matter who might be angered.
This commission would draw up long-overdue reorganization plans, like the consolidation of the government’s various, overlapping teenage-pregnancy programs, job training programs and homeless programs, or the creation of a federal management office (to help prevent, yes, future duplication and waste). These plans would go to the president for review and formal submission to Congress.
Congress would have to respond within 45 days, as it does with proposals to close or reorganize military bases. The longer reorganization plans linger on Capitol Hill, the longer committees and interest groups have to tear them apart.
It’s important that there be an up-or-down vote on each reorganization plan, no amendments allowed. If Congress is permitted to pick and chose among the mergers, break-ups, transfers, terminations and administrative reforms, each plan will fall like a house of cards.
Congress has as much to gain as Mr. Obama from a well-functioning federal bureaucracy. Reorganization authority, which Congress should take up in its lame duck session, offers the best chance for real reform.
Paul C. Light, a professor at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, is the author of “A Government Ill Executed.”