rnment extends beyond budgetary problems. The very structure of governmental bureaucracy has come to discourage efficiency and innovation. The country is not just suffering from a budget deficit, but a performance deficit as well (Dilulio, et. al, 1993, p. 79). Federal agencies have remained in place that were first established as early as in the 1930s. These agencies tended to be structured after the major corporations of the age: hierarchical organizations with multiple layers of workers, each layer assigned to a separate task with specific rules and procedures. As subdivided agencies with countless rules defining standard procedures of operation, government bureaucracies became unresponsive to the public and slow and cumbersome performers in an increasingly rapid telecommunications environment.
And as agencies that have a virtual monopoly over the services they provide, the structure of government bureaucracies offers few incentives for efficiency or innovation. Customers (the public) are captive, unable to walk away from a governmental agency and take their business to a competitor. Most government bureaucrats are guaranteed lifetime tenure, facing few extra rewards for good performance or penalties for poor performance. A government agency simply is not designed to be competitive, efficient or courteous.
In order to address these deficiencies in the federal government, Vice President Al Gore and the National Performance Review unveiled nearly 800 recommendations for "reinventing" government, saving $108 billion in federal expenditures over a period of five years, and trimming 252,000 federal jobs by 1998 (Ifill, 1993, p. 1). The report outlines ways to cut wasteful government spending by streamlining the budget process, giving the president enhanced rescission powers, and instituting a two-year budget cycle. The rep
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