[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 139 (Sunday, October 29, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11322-S11323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         NOTHING TO BRAG ABOUT

  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, this is the day the Lord has made; let 
us rejoice and be glad. This is Sunday, when it is the Sabbath for 
millions of Americans. Many of my colleagues have explained why we are 
here today, but I hope this is the last Sunday that the Senate, the 
U.S. Congress, is in session unless it is for a crisis of national or 
international concern. I hope this is the last Sunday that we would be 
here for anything but that.
  Next Tuesday, the citizens of this nation will go to the polls and 
elect the next president of the United States. One of the first 
challenges that the new president will face is the need to recapture 
what has been lost for a generation of Americans: trust in the Federal 
Government.
  The American people used to believe in the competence of the Federal 
Government to provide services and meet this nation's needs in a 
variety of ways. Unfortunately, in too many instances, this is not 
happening. Today, the Federal Government is held out as a source of 
scorn and ridicule.
  The fact of the matter is that the Federal Government has brought 
most of this on itself through a gross inattention to management.
  In 1993, Vice President Gore launched his ``Reinventing Government'' 
initiative. Purported to make government ``work better and cost less,'' 
it had every intention to turn the diminished reputation of the Federal 
Government around.
  However, this initiative will be remembered not for its modest 
accomplishments, but for missed opportunities. It has rejected bold 
efforts to reform Federal programs and personnel issues, and actually 
contributed to the growing human capital crisis that will be a major 
headache of the next administration.
  It will be one of the most formidable tasks of the next 
administration.
  As we have all seen, the Vice President is trying to run away from 
the label of being for ``Big Government.'' In recent remarks in 
Arkansas, and in the presidential debates, he pointed to Reinventing 
Government as proof that he favors small government.
  He claims credit for shrinking the Federal Government by 300,000 
positions. In the third Presidential debate held earlier this month, 
the Vice President boasted that, due to his efforts, the Federal 
Government is ``now the smallest that it has been since . . . John 
Kennedy's administration.''
  The Vice President's record of reinventing government is second only 
to his record of inventing the Internet for genuine achievement and 
accuracy.
  The truth is: more than 450,000 positions have been removed from the 
Federal Government since January 1993, not 300,000 as the Vice 
President claims. However, his offense lies not just in the fuzzy math 
but also in taking credit for reductions where he does not deserve it.
  More than 290,000 of the personnel cuts that were made--64 percent of 
the total--came from the departments of Defense and Energy. These cuts 
were made at the end of the Cold War in the resulting Pentagon budget 
reductions, as well as through four rounds of military base closings.
  My colleagues should be aware that this process began before the 
advent of the Clinton-Gore administration and existed independently of 
the Reinventing Government initiative.
  Other significant personnel reductions were also independent of 
Reinventing Government, including 15,000 employees of the Federal 
Deposit Insurance Corporation who were downsized at the end of the 
savings and loan crisis, and 8,500 employees of the Panama Canal 
Commission--now just a force of seven after the canal's hand off to 
Panama.
  In truth, most of the non-defense positions discussed by the Vice 
President have not been eliminated, but merely transferred to the 
private sector through Federal contracts and Federal mandates. Paul 
Light, of the highly-respected Brookings Institution, has documented a 
``shadow workforce'' of almost 13 million contractors, grantees, and 
state and local government employees who serve as a de-facto extension 
of the Federal workforce--yet without the oversight and accountability. 
Evidence suggests that oversight of the contractor workforce is poor, 
yet contract managers were targeted for downsizing by Reinventing 
Government.
  Far more noteworthy than the Vice President's characteristic 
exaggerations, however, is the sorry state of the civil service seven 
years after Reinventing Government was initiated.
  As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 
Management, I have led an ongoing review of overall government 
performance. I have found an appalling lack of forethought by the 
Clinton-Gore administration toward workforce planning as well as the 
training and development of Federal employees. The ``A-Team,'' the 
people who get the job done, and who, for the last 7 years, have been 
ignored.
  In testimony earlier this year before my subcommittee, nonpartisan 
experts testified that inattention to management has taken a heavy toll 
on the ability of the Federal workforce to do the job the American 
people deserve and expect.
  Don Kettl, from the University of Wisconsin, testified:

       The problem is that we have increasingly created a gulf 
     between the people who are in the government and the skills 
     needed to run that government effectively.

  Paul Light of the Brookings Institution put it more bluntly. He 
testified that the downsizing initiated by Reinventing Government:

       Has been haphazard, random, and there is no question that 
     in some agencies we have hollowed out institutional memory 
     and we are on the cusp of a significant human capital crisis.

  The U.S. General Accounting Office may well designate human capital 
as a Federal ``high risk'' area when it releases its next series on 
government high risk problems in January 2001. The numbers are 
alarming, and most of the people are not aware of this, even Members of 
this body.
  Right now, the average Federal employee is 46 years old. By 2004, 32 
percent of Federal employees will be eligible for regular retirement, 
and 21 percent more will be eligible for early retirement.
  Taken together, more than half the Federal workforce--900,000 
employees--could potentially leave in just 4 years. Obviously, if that 
happens, neither Vice President Gore nor Governor Bush would have any 
problems meeting their campaign promises regarding this nation's 
Federal workforce.
  Regrettably, the Clinton-Gore administration squandered 7 years 
before getting serious about this potential retirement wave. Indeed, 
Reinventing Government targeted human resources,

[[Page S11323]]

contract oversight, financial management and other professionals for 
downsizing, leaving the Federal Government without the expertise it now 
needs to recruit talented, technology-savvy people to fill the coming 
vacancies.
  When it comes to the achievements of Reinventing Government, Vice 
President Gore has nothing to brag about. In my opinion, this effort is 
a liability for the Vice President, not a feather in his cap. 
Reinventing Government has failed to improve Government management or 
confront the fundamental question of how the civil service should be 
deployed to serve our nation. Cutting costs by only cutting jobs fails 
to acknowledge the central concern Americans have with Government, and 
that is ineffective programs, Government waste, command and control 
policies, and in many instances just plain gridlock.

  Agencies with less staff but the same workload only experience more 
of the bureaucratic meltdown which undermines the public trust and 
demoralizes the remaining Federal workforce.
  Wouldn't it be better if we focused on putting the right individuals 
in the job the American people actually want the Federal Government to 
accomplish--missions such as strengthening our national defense, saving 
Social Security, and saving Medicare--and giving them the training they 
need to get the job done?
  When I asked OMB how much money they spent on training, they said 
they didn't know. So my subcommittee did a survey of the Federal 
agencies and we asked them: How much do you spend on training? They 
didn't know. We did get letters back from a couple of agencies and they 
said: We know, but we won't tell you because if we do, you, Congress, 
will take the money away from us.
  Mr. President, I am not advocating the Federal Government fill every 
vacancy, person for person. What we need to do is ensure that every 
Federal agency has assessed its current and future workforce needs and 
has planned accordingly. Agencies must have the flexibility to design 
the recruiting and training programs that will allow them to attract 
and retain quality personnel and ensure they are deployed in the most 
effective way. In other words, the Federal workforce should be treated 
as an investment, not an expense.
  Earlier this year, when I had begun to examine the management of 
human capital in my subcommittee, I asked for the training budgets of 
all Federal agencies. As I mentioned, they did not know; they did not 
collect the information. That is incredible.
  The coming human capital crisis creates an opportunity for the next 
administration to reshape the 21st century Federal workforce, to 
improve Federal performance and efficiency, and to invest in the people 
who make the Government run. My hope is that in 4 years the next 
President will boast, not just of reducing the size of Government, but 
also of a well planned reorganization of Federal jobs, and of having 
equipped our Federal workforce to support a more focused and more 
streamlined Federal mission so they can work harder and smarter and do 
more with less.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.

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