[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 32 (Tuesday, February 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1957-H1961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REINVENTING GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 1995, the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney] is
recognized for 46 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to convene tonight's
special order to discuss dramatic improvements in how the Federal
Government does business. These improvements have come thanks to the
Clinton administration and the 103d Congress' efforts to reinvent
government. The American people's faith in government is at a historic
low. Recent surveys show that only 17 percent of Americans believe in
the ability of their government. Outcries for change in both the 1992
and 1994 elections speak for themselves. But stump speeches denouncing
government have successfully obscured the fact that government is
changing. It is getting smaller, more efficient and more user friendly.
For the past 2 years, we have been working to implement the
recommendations of Vice President Gore's National Performance Review.
Implementation of these major reforms involves hard and patient work in
the nuts and bolts of government management.
It is not flashy or eye-catching, but it is getting results.
Tonight my colleagues and I will offer real-life examples of how
government for the first time in a generation is actually working
better with less people and fewer resources than it did the year
before. As I mentioned earlier, the restructuring was first announced
by Vice President Gore in a report of the National Performance Review
from redtape to results, creating a government that works better and
costs less.
{time} 2230
This ongoing initiative has four main themes: customer service,
procurement reform, eliminating obsolete programs, and reducing the
Federal workforce.
Think back for a minute to a memorable sporting event, the Super Bowl
or the World Cup. Think about the size of the stadium, like the Rose
Bowl, one of America's largest, filled to capacity. That is the net
number of people, over 100,000 to date, that the Clinton administration
has taken off the Federal payroll, 100,000 people whose salaries and
benefits the taxpayers no longer have to pay.
Madam Speaker, 2 years from now, that number will grow to 272,000,
enough people to fill nearly three Rose Bowls. This year, Penn State
won the Rose Bowl, but Vice President Gore deserves the national
championship for leading this downsizing effort.
Today the number of employees of the Federal Government is at the
lowest level since the Kennedy administration. Because of this action
taken by President Clinton and the Democrats in Congress, there are
fewer Federal employees than under the so-called Republican fiscal
conservatives: Presidents Nixon, Ford, Bush, and even the Gipper. This,
Mr. Speaker, is an amazing accomplishment.
I just want to show it on this chart. This was in 1963, the Kennedy
years; it has gone up, and for the first time it is going down, and we
have reduced government by over 100,000 employees.
Due to other initiatives in reinventing government. Employees still
working for the Federal Government are able to interact with the public
in a more intelligent and friendly manner. I will give one example from
my district in New York City.
For years, the Veterans Administration has carried a terrible
reputation among veterans. Notorious even within the VA was the New
York regional office. Before Clinton and Gore, an application for
veterans benefits would be handled by at least 12 employees working in
4 separate operations.
However, if a veteran actually showed up in person, they would not
meet with any of the 12 people who handle the application. Instead, he
or she would meet with a benefits counselor, employee No. 13, but the
benefits counselor would not have access to all the necessary
information. The counselor would have to go to yet another unit of the
office on a
different floor and get the file from another clerk, employee No. 14.
That is the way it used to work.
Today the application is handled by a single team responsible for
processing, filing, and dealing with the veteran face to face. When a
veteran comes in, he or she deals with someone who knows their file,
their history, and can tell the veteran exactly what is going on. This
change has brought a tremendous increase in customer satisfaction for
the veterans.
We have reduced the Federal workforce, and we are doing more with
less. But taxpayers should be most excited about procurement reform. I
know that the word ``procurement'' can put a lot of people to sleep,
but there are more than 200 billion reasons for taxpayers to stay awake
and be very concerned about procurement. That is because the Federal
Government spends over $200 billion on procurement every year. That is
$800 for every American spent on goods and services.
There is no more important area in which to control spending and
better manage our limited resources. The Federal Government's record on
procurement before 1993 was terrible. We all remember stories about the
$600 hammer or the $2000 toilet seat, but one you may not have heard
occurred during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
During the Gulf war, the Air Force needed 6,000 standard, commercial
Motorola radios for the troops, like this one. They wanted to order
them so they could communicate with each other. But even in that
emergency, the Government could not just buy commercial products at
competitive prices.
Under the regulations at the time, Motorola would have had to supply
records of what it cost to make these, and documents, proving they had
never charged anyone less for them. For quite a while, the U.S.
Government could not purchase these radios.
It is hard to believe, but finally, Japan had to buy the radios from
Motorola and give them to the Air Force. That is how bad it was.
Last year's procurement reform legislation solved this problem by
eliminating requirements that the Pentagon obtain cost and pricing data
for commercially available items. In other words, if they are
commercially available, you can buy them and cut out the redtape.
I am certain that this historic law will simplify and streamline the
Federal procurement process, while ensuring fairness, accountability,
and integrity.
Let me give you another example about how procurement reform is
making the Government work more intelligently and effectively. For a
long
[[Page H1958]] time, the Government, particularly the Pentagon, spent
enormous amounts of time and money developing its own specifications
for easily available products, like salad dressing.
Instead of being able to buy commercial brands of salad dressing,
like this one, off the shelf, like every other American, the Government
ended up buying products like this one, paying more for less quality,
but this salad dressing was designed for Government specs. No more. If
it is available on the shelf, you can buy it off the shelf.
As a result of changes initiated by the Vice President and the 103d
Congress, the Defenses Personnel Supply Center, which buys all the
food, clothing, and medical supplies for our troops has been able to
undertake common-sense procurement techniques that make ordinary
commercial products like this Wishbone dressing available to the troops
like it is to every other American.
To date, the supply center has realized savings
between 5 and 10 percent, and for those lower prices, our troops get
better tasting, nationally recognized products.
Lastly, we also save money because we now get our commercial products
delivered when they are needed, so there is no longer any need to
warehouse enormous quantities of Government-designed salad dressings.
In addition to this commonsense program, this new law will reduce
paperwork, especially for contracts under $100,000, and encourage the
Federal Government to buy commercial products at the fairest prices. It
will strengthen oversight and procurement, improve integrity, and
standardize the procurement code by eliminating obsolete and redundant
laws.
It incorporates many of Vice President Gore's National Performance
Review recommendations, such as providing for multi-year contracts,
promoting excellence in vendor performance, and allowing State and
local governments to use Federal supply centers. In a nutshell, the law
is going to save the taxpayers billions of dollars.
This is what is projected to be saved: from the downsizing, $46
billion; procurement reform, $12 billion; and in other areas, five,
coming to a total of $63 billion.
However, President Clinton plans to reform the procurement process
even more. Today there was a hearing in the Committee on Government
Reform and Oversight to outline the administration's plans for more
improvement to America's procurement laws.
I would like to enter the entire record of that committee hearing
today into the Record, so that the American taxpayers can have easy
access to read everything that took place in this hearing today.
As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, reinventing government means one more
thing, abolishing obsolete programs. Senator James Byrne once said
``The closest thing in this world to immortality is a government
agency.'' But President Clinton has demonstrated that immortality for
Federal programs is no longer a sure thing.
For example, more than 50 years ago, wool and mohair were deemed
important for making Army and Navy uniforms, so a Government subsidy
was started. That program survived and grew under every President from
Roosevelt to Bush until Bill Clinton.
In 1993, the President and Congress affirmed eliminating the wool,
mohair, and honey subsidies, thus saving the taxpayers $695 million.
That is a lot of money. We are just getting started reviewing other
obsolete programs. That was just 1 of the more than 300 programs that
have been eliminated so far.
What does this reform add up to? It adds up to $46 billion in savings
to the American taxpayer, and an estimated $60 billion over the next 2
years.
Madam Speaker, we have more obsolete programs to abolish, and more
procurement reforms to achieve, but thanks to the Reinventing
Government program, the American people have reason to believe that
their Government can work again, and America can compete and win again
in the world economy.
We have taken important first steps toward the day when business as
usual in Washington will actually have positive connotations.
On that note, Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield to my
distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Maryland [Steny Hoyer].
{time} 2240
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise tonight with my colleagues to highlight the
many achievements thus far of the reinventing government efforts under
the Clinton administration.
With the leadership of the Vice President and the strong support of
the House Democrats and, I might say, the Republicans, we were able to
enact many more reforms which have already had a positive impact on the
people they were designed to help, the American people, the taxpayers.
Congresswoman Maloney has cited a number of examples. The opportunities
for reinvention in the Treasury Department under the jurisdiction of
the appropriations subcommittee I chaired were great. As a result of
our efforts, the Treasury Department and related agencies are more
customer-friendly, more cost-effective, and much, much more efficient.
Where we could eliminate waste, we have. Before reinvention, every time
the Government made a small purchase, it spent on an average $50 in
paperwork over and above the cost of the item. This obviously accounted
for tens of millions of purchases last year, totaling hundreds of
millions of dollars in paperwork costs.
I want to show this Visa care, which has Bill Clinton's name on it.
Now with this purchase card, the very same purchases are made with no
paperwork cost at all. Let me reiterate that. No paperwork cost at all.
Eliminating an average $50 cost on millions of purchases. That is tens
of millions of dollars instantly saved by our Government because of
this little card that all of us use all the time.
Let me show you what that meant. We used to purchase this stapler for
$54. Outrageous. That did not mean that the stapler cost $54, but in
order to purchase it, we had to spend $54 on the paperwork.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore came to town and said, ``That is done.''
Bill Clinton and Al Gore said we can save the American taxpayers
millions and millions of dollars if we cut out all that paperwork and
simply use this little card.
Now with Bill Clinton and Al Gore's reinvention of government, we pay
$4 for this stapler, which is what we ought to pay for this stapler.
Fifty dollars on just one item. That is the kind of government American
taxpayers expect and want.
The American people have asked us to cut our pork and justify Federal
projects. As a result of reinventing government, the General Services
Administration now carefully reviews all Federal construction projects
in a program called Time-Out and Review. They assess the Federal need
and appropriate size and design of these projects and ensure that the
costs are fully justified.
Very frankly, Mr. Johnson, who is the administrator of that agency,
was asked by President Clinton and Vice President Gore to look at these
projects, see if we can save some money. Some of these projects are in
districts that are represented by Democrats, some in districts
represented by Republicans. This was not a political matter. This was a
commonsense matter. How can we exercise common sense and save our
people money?
Madam Speaker, I know you will be pleased to hear that so far over
200 projects have been reviewed and, you are not going to believe this,
a $1.2 billion savings has been effected, now that Bill Clinton and Al
Gore are looking at these things very carefully.
These reforms have taken what was wasteful and inefficient and
reinvented these programs into efficient successes.
Madam Speaker, how many times have we heard tragic stories of people
who have never received or lost their Government checks and have had to
wait for countless weeks for their new checks to be processed? A
critical problem, a crisis for some. Many times these checks, often
Social Security checks, are vital to pay for medical expenses, rent,
food, medicine. Checks missed that created crisis in home.
Because of reforms instituted as part of Vice President Gore and
President
[[Page H1959]] Clinton's reinventing government initiatives, the
Financial Management Service office of the Treasury located in my home
State of Maryland has turned their once horrible 54-day turnaround into
a more customer-friendly less than 2-week turnaround and alleviated the
concerns of many average working Americans and Americans who are
retired and concerned and reliant on those checks. This office now
processes 8,000 check requests a month, over 400,000 claims each year,
quickly, efficiently, and in a way that is customer friendly.
Perhaps, Madam Speaker, what is most surprising about this success
story is that this office improved their customer service and
productivity with 32
percent less staff, which is what the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs.
Maloney] was talking about in terms of that little graph going down.
And in the face of a 28 percent workload increase. Twenty-eight percent
increase in workload, 32 percent decrease of staff, and doing it in 25
percent less time than it used to take. Those Federal workers should be
commended, Madam Speaker, for their efforts at not only taking part in
initiating these reforms but also for successfully implementing the new
techniques and procedure.
As the Vice President has correctly pointed out on many occasions:
We don't have bad workers, we have bad systems. We have
worked hard and succeeded at reinventing the bad systems into
systems that work and work well.
Madam Speaker, I want to close with one of the biggest examples of
wasted paper and inefficiency. During the previous 12 years prior to
Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore coming to town, the Federal personnel
management manual had been thousands of pages. They spell out many of
the policies and procedures for Federal employees. But unfortunately it
contains too much unnecessary information and red tape.
Because of our efforts last year, and I want to show a picture here
of Mr. King, Jim King, who is the director of OPM. He has a wheelbarrow
full of paperwork.
I know all of us on both sides of the aisle have talked about, ``We
need to get rid of all this paper.'' Well, here is a wheelbarrow that
Mr. King is pushing full of paper. We have reduced those forms.
Madam Speaker, you will recall when our President was talking about
the Federal budget. This is the paperwork that we had when we came to
town. Mr. Gore and Mr. Clinton, this is what they have gotten rid of.
We no longer have that to deal with. Luckily, the table withstood the
impact of all that paper. We are getting rid of it.
Why? Not just for the sake of having a gimmick that I can put on the
table here and make sort of a funny little demonstration of, but
because all of us know that America is drowning in paper. Business
complains about it, educators complain about it, citizens complain
about it, and we are doing something about it.
The Vice President in his leadership of reinventing government at the
direction of President Clinton has said, We hear you, Mr. and Mrs.
America. We hear that you want a smaller, more efficient, less costly
government. We hear you, that you want you government reinvented so it
does more with less and does it better, like those checks getting to
recipients in a much quicker fashion.
I am very pleased to join my colleague from New York in saying that
we are not there yet. We have more to do. There is still 10 percent.
Ninety percent of the paperwork we have gotten rid of. But there is 10
percent left.
{time} 2250
We are still looking at that to make sure that manual is as lean and
effective as we can make it.
As important, Madam Speaker, as these reforms and other reforms are,
it is equally crucial that we continue to build on these many successes
and continue to enact more reforms in this Congress.
We are pleased that our Republican colleagues are joining us in the
effort to reinvent government. Yesterday's government is behind us now
and we must continue the task of doing our share in developing the
government of the 21st century.
I have high hopes that the success of reinventing government in the
103d Congress that the Democrats so proudly enacted with the help of
many of our Republican colleagues is only the beginning and that the
second National Performance Review will be as successfully implemented
in the months ahead.
I thank my colleague from New York, Mrs. Maloney, for her leadership
on this issue and for yielding to me for this time.
Mrs. MALONEY. I thank the gentleman so much.
Madam Speaker, our next speaker is Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and I
yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].
Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join my colleagues
here tonight to talk about what we have been doing over the course of
the past 2 years to address a major concern of the American people--
reducing the size of the Federal Government and making it work better
for them. I want to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Hoyer,
Mrs. Maloney, and Mrs. Thurman, who have already spoken. And I want to
add my voice to theirs in welcoming our House Republican colleagues who
have joined the efforts of congressional Democrats and the Vice
President to remake our Federal Government.
While some of our efforts have been mentioned by previous speakers, I
believe they bear repeating because I'm not sure the magnitude of our
successes has gotten the attention it merits. Why? Because there are
those who, in order to try to score political points, would have the
American people believe nothing has changed. But President Clinton and
Vice President Gore ran on a platform of change in 1992, and together,
change is what we have delivered.
We passed legislation that has produced a record amount of deficit
reduction--more than $600 billion. For the first time since the Truman
Administration, we have reduced annual deficits for 3 consecutive
years. And the deficit will soon be the smallest its been in nearly 20
years relative to the size of our total economy.
We have enacted legislation that will reduce the number of Federal
employees by 272,000. Already, we have cut more than 100,000 jobs and
we will soon have the smallest Federal Government workforce in nearly
40 years.
We have cut 300 programs, eliminated others altogether, and we have
cut more than one-quarter of a trillion dollars in spending.
My colleagues, we should all be proud of these accomplishments. We
are delivering on what we set out to do.
But these numbers don't tell the whole story. Not only have we made
dramatic cuts, but we have set out to fundamentally re-tool the way our
Government conducts its business so that it provides better service to
its customers--the American people--while it gets more for each tax
dollar it spends. Let me give you one example from my home State.
The Defense Contract Management Area Operations office in East
Hartford, CT, manages Department of Defense contracts in parts of four
northeast States, including most of Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts
and part of New York. Recently, this office overhauled its method of
operation to improve oversight of defense contracts by changing to a
team approach to customer service. Under this new system, whenever a
contractor has a problem, with one phone call it gets rapid assistance
from one team of expert professionals whose job is to solve the
problem. In the old days, that contractor might have had to make
several phone calls to people with overlapping responsibilities before
it could get that same problem resolved.
As a result of this new system, 23 fewer employees are covering the
same 33,000 square miles of territory. So the taxpayer wins--to date
nearly $1 million has been saved--and the Government wins--it is better
assured of receiving high quality products that can be delivered on
time.
For their efforts, the employees of the Hartford Defense Contract
Management Office have been recognized by the Vice President as heroes
of reinvention and they received the Hammer Award for doing their part
in responding to the National Performance Review. And their success in
[[Page H1960]] reinventing Government has been accomplished by Federal
employees in dozens of agencies all across our country. These dedicated
men and women have proven that they are a far cry from the stereotyped
lazy unproductive Federal worker. They have taken their cue from the
Vice President, embraced his call for change and are producing for all
of us.
But we cannot rest on our laurels. Our task of making Government
smaller and more effecient continues. I remain committed to working
with my colleagues to carry on with this effort, and I look forward to
hearing about more success stories this evening.
I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York for spearheading this
effort tonight and really being in the forefront of the fight not only
to reinvent government but about trying to get the message out and the
word out about what has been done over these past 2 years. And I want
to compliment the gentlewoman for her efforts tonight.
Mrs. MALONEY. Our next speaker is a member of the committee, and I
yield to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman].
Mrs. THURMAN. Madam Speaker, I think that has a wonderful ring to it
and to the gentlewoman from New York who is my colleague and who came
with me to Congress in 1992, and we have worked very hard together on
the Governmental Operations Committee, I want to take this opportunity
to thank the gentlewoman for doing this tonight.
It is not a sexy issue, or not one of those pounding issues that
people want to do all of the time and raises the spirit, but I think it
is a great story that needs to be told and I certainly think that it is
one that I think that the American people just are not aware of because
it does not happen every day in their districts, or things that are
happening to them. But it is something that I believe that ought to be
talked about to give our American people the idea that there is a
changing government and it is going to take some time, but it is
changing and we are working to their betterment and we are trying to
really achieve what many of us believe is a good idea in downsizing our
government.
We are eliminating burdensome red tape which we think is important,
and at the same time we understand that the primary focus of
reinventing government programs still is remaining by putting
customers, the American taxpayers first.
During the last Congress, we passed over 30 bills containing
reinventing government proposals, and I just want to kind of go through
some of that legislation.
We looked at reducing the Federal work force by 100,000 full-time
positions, which has already been talked about. It is a work force that
is going to be the smallest since the Kennedy administration. We had a
thing up here a little while ago on that.
We consolidated education programs under the Improving America's
Schools Act of 1994. In doing so, we have created multipurpose
technical assistance centers while eliminating 49 categorical centers
and 50 State national diffusion network contracts.
We also improved overall government management under the Government
Management Reform Act of 1994 and the Federal Management Act of 1994.
In addition, we simplified the Federal procurement procedures under the
Federal acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994.
In the Federal agencies there are numerous examples of reinvention at
work, and I am going to give some examples of that.
{time} 2300
The Federal Aviation Administration recently started using the
quality through partnership process to design and implement a new radar
facility in southern California that will eventually consolidate 35
existing facilities. In Miami the Customs Office--and this is in my
home State--has developed a government-industry partnership where major
exporters are instructed on how to do their own inspections. By
allowing companies to conduct their own routine inspections, Custom
agents are free to do more spot checks. But, more importantly,
exporters now make more than 40 percent of the drug busts in Miami
alone while moving the entire process at a much more efficient pace.
NASA has provided technology to test for lazy eye in children through
another government-private sector partnership. A Marshall space flight
engineer and a private sector scientist developed a testing system now
available commercially under an exclusive license from NASA. In 1993,
one of our natural resources, our children, over 300,000 children were
tested for lazy eye at 5 major test projects in Florida, Alabama, North
Carolina, and Ohio.
This is a type of Federal-private partnership that not only reduces
bureaucracy but also produces a beneficial result for all Americans.
Madam Speaker, since the House will be considering the
reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act this week, here is an
example of an actual paperwork reduction. The Small Business
Administration loan application went from a stack of forms 1.5 inches
thick to a single page. Since the reinventing Government program began,
over a quarter trillion dollars in spending and 300 domestic programs
have been slashed. And I know we all talked about this, but this is a
monumental achievement that we have come this far.
But I have to tell you we still have more to do.
Today, in the Committee on Government Reform, we actually had Steven
Kelman, who is administrator for Federal procurement policy, come
before the committee, the Government Reform and Oversight Committee,
and in about, I would have to say, 7 or 8 pages here, he told us some
great stories of what is going on in our Federal Government.
But what was important was that he talked about real-life people who
made a difference.
You know, I remember when reinvention started and we kept saying,
``You know, we need to let these employees have a little bit of room,
we need to let them think, because they have been out there, they have
been on the front line, they know best how to make things happen in our
government.''
We just never gave them any leeway which allowed them to be creative
and use those ideas.
I am going to name a couple of areas in procurement particularly that
they really did some good things.
Increasing reliance on commercial practices: We had Tony DiCioccio;
we had Col. Craig Weston from the space-based program office; we had
Jim Bednar, with the Federal Highway Administration.
Madam Speaker, when they had the earthquake, through using incentives
to motivate contractors, they took what was supposedly going to be a
104-week project down to 10 weeks to rebuild the Santa Monica Freeway,
10 weeks instead of 104 weeks, through incentives to motivate
contractors.
In the area of increasing use of purchase cards, we actually--and I
think Mr. Hoyer from Maryland
mentioned this--for any purchases under $2,500, we saved $54 every
time we used this.
But let me tell you what it does, more importantly: How many times in
your districts have you heard, ``You know, if you went over to so-and-
so and bought this, you could buy it for half-price.'' You have heard
it, I have heard it. It is incredible to me.
Now, here is one. At a Customs Service field office, the Government
was able to purchase privacy panels from an office, from a liquidator,
for $2,450 compared to a low bid which they had received of $4,000. We
saved $1,550 by using this particular card. That was done, by the way,
by Annelie Kuhn, of the Department of Treasury.
In the area of ``expanding the use of past performance,'' Paul
Zebrowski, of the Defense Personnel Supply Center, DLA; ``using
multiple-award contracting,'' Kay Walker; ``increasing use of
performance-based service contracting,'' John Richardson, of the Law
Enforcement Training Center, Department of Treasury; and in the area of
``streamlining the award process,'' Harry Schulte, Lydia Butler.
These are all real people who have had these ideas, have had these
concerns, and finally somebody said, ``We want to hear what you have to
say. We want to know what your experiences are, and we want to put them
to work because we believe you offer us something in this government.''
[[Page H1961]] I think it is working. I just want to say that I have
enjoyed the time I have spent on the Committee on Government
Operations. We get an awful lot of time to look at GAO reports, learn
about all the bad things about Government. Those are the ones that make
the sound bites, they are the ones that get the headlines in the
newspapers and stuff. I just hope as we go through this next couple of
months that we all remember we have done some changes. We have done it
on a bipartisan group basis. Most of these bills, I believe, were
passed probably by the majority of this House. But we need to continue
this on. Let us not make sound bites, let us not do it for political
gain, let us do it for American taxpayers because they come first.
I thank the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney] for the time
afforded me, and I appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership and look
forward to working with her again.
____________________