National Performance Review & Federal Government

Public confidence in government has been steadily falling since the New Deal era, reaching record lows in recent years. In response to survey questions in 1958, 43% of Americans felt the federal government "wastes a lot of money." In 1988, that figure rose to 63% of Americans. By 1992, the average American believed that the federal government wastes 48 cents of every tax dollar. In 1958, only 23% of Americans said that "you cannot trust government to do right most of the time." By 1992, a full 80% of Americans did not trust the federal government most of the time (National Performance Review, 1993).

The widespread disenchantment with American government stems partly from burgeoning federal budget, with a debt in excess of $4 trillion. Even with such a massive federal budget, there does not seem to be enough funds to go around. The federal government spends $25 billion on welfare, $27 billion on food stamps, and $13 billion on public housing-yet more Americans fall in

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federal employees whose job it is to manage, control or audit other workers. Not counting military employees, this management strata amounts to one-third of all civilian federal workers, consuming nearly $35 billion a year in salary and benefits (Donlan, 1993, p. 10). Under the reinventing government program, the executive branch will decentralize decision-making and expand the scope of a manager's responsibilities to an average of one manager for every 15 employees. Decentralizing decision-making necessarily entails more authority in the job descriptions for each employee as they assume many of the supervisorial tasks previously given to sub-managers. Hand-in-hand with greater authority will come greater accountability. All government agencies are to be instructed to develop measurable task objectives and report their results. The president will establish performance agreements with department and agency heads, who in turn will establish performance objectives and results for lower-level federal workers. Management scrutiny and rules of behavior would be loosened so as to allow workers with the independent initiative to find new and more efficient methods of accomplishing tasks. Accordingly, all time sheets and time cards
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Approximate Word count = 1860
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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