[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 9 (Monday, March 8, 1993)]
[Pages 350-352]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Announcing the Initiative To Streamline Government

 March 3, 1993

    Ladies and gentlemen, I think you all know we are here to announce a 
terribly important initiative in this administration to bring about 
greater efficiency and lower cost of Government.
    I want to begin by saying that we intend for this to be a bipartisan 
and a citizen Government effort. And I'm delighted by the concerned 
Members of Congress who are here today with the Vice President and me, 
people who have already worked on this issue. I'd like to begin just by 
acknowledging the presence here of Senators Glenn and Levin, Senator 
Cohen, Senator Dorgan, Senator Lieberman, Senator Roth, and Senator 
Krueger; and in the House, Congressman Conyers, Congressman Clinger, 
Congressman Gordon, Congressman Laughlin, and Congresswoman Pryce and 
Congresswoman Slaughter. All of them have manifested an interest in the 
issues we are here to discuss today.
    I also want to especially thank the distinguished comptroller of the 
State of Texas, John Sharp, who's to my right here, for the work that he 
did with us to put this project together and for coming all the way from 
Texas to be with us and with his Senator.
    Today I am taking what I hope and believe will be a historic step in 
reforming the Federal Government by announcing the formation of a 
national performance review. Our goal is to make the entire Federal 
Government both less expensive and more efficient, and to change the 
culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and 
entitlement toward initiative and empowerment. We intend to redesign, to 
reinvent, to reinvigorate the entire National Government.
    Working under the direction of the Vice President for the next 6 
months, we'll conduct an intensive national review of every single 
Government agency and service. We'll enlist citizens and Government 
workers and leaders from the private sector in a search not only for 
ways to cut wasteful spending but also for ways to improve services to 
our citizens and to make our Government work better.
    I'll ask every member of our Cabinet to assign their best people to 
this project, managers, auditors, and frontline workers as well. And to 
put the ``M'' back in the OMB, I've asked Phil Lader, who is to my far 
left, the new Deputy Director for Management at OMB and a person who has 
spent his life solving difficult and challenging management and people 
problems, to take the lead in making our Government work better, not 
only during this 6-month period but permanently for as long as I am 
President.
    We will turn first to Federal employees for help. They know better 
than anyone else how to do their jobs if someone will simply ask them 
and reward them for wanting to do it better. We'll ask the public to 
help us improve services and cut waste by calling an 800 number or by 
writing to the Vice President, because no one deserves a bigger say in 
the services Government provides than Government's customers, the 
American people. We'll look for ways to streamline our own organizations 
to reduce unnecessary layers and to improve services to the better uses 
of technology by giving managers more flexibility and by giving 
frontline workers more decisionmaking power. Just as we're trying to do 
that in the White House, we will try to do that throughout the National 
Government.
    When I was the Governor of Arkansas, our State became the first in 
the Nation to institute a governmentwide total quality management 
program. And I can tell you, it works. It isn't easy. It isn't quick. It 
can make a huge

[[Page 351]]

difference, not only to the people but also to the people who work for 
the Government as well.
    We'll look at the good work that has already been done, including 
many thoughtful reforms proposed by Members of the Congress, including 
the work last year by the House Task Force on Government Waste, chaired 
by then Congressman and now Senator Byron Dorgan. They discovered, among 
other things, that the Pentagon had stockpiled 1.2 million bottles of 
nasal spray. Even with my allergies, I only need half that many. 
[Laughter] As we locate such waste and wipe it out, it will be a breath 
of fresh air to the American taxpayers.
    Cutting spending will be a priority. But so is making the system 
work better for the people who work in Government and the people who pay 
the bills and are served by it. The truth is we can't achieve the 
savings we want simply by cutting funds. We must also use the remaining 
funds in a much wiser way. We'll challenge the basic assumptions of 
every program, asking does it work; does it provide quality service; 
does it encourage innovation and reward hard work? If the answer is no 
or if there's a better way to do it or if there's something that the 
Federal Government is doing it should simply stop doing, we'll try to 
make the changes needed.
    Many good programs began for a good reason: to serve a national 
purpose or to give the States time to develop an institutional capacity 
to administer them. But times change, and in many cases State and local 
governments are now better suited to handle these programs. The Federal 
Government simply can't do everything, and there are many things the 
States or the private sector could do better.
    This performance review will not produce another report just to 
gather dust in some warehouse. We have enough of them already. That's 
why I am asking for a list of very specific actions we can take now, 
agency by agency, program by program. This is hard work. We've been a 
long time getting to this spot, and we can't change the Government 
overnight. But we can continuously improve our operations in ways that 
reap dramatic results for the people of this country.
    Two years ago, when the State of Texas faced an enormous budget 
shortfall, they launched a performance review under the leadership of 
John Sharp that saved the taxpayers billions of dollars over the ensuing 
years, made government work better at the same time.
    Last month, Senator Bob Krueger took out an ad in the Washington 
Post just inviting the public to call a waste hotline to help make 
Government work and to help make it 100 percent fat-free. He got 200 
calls the first day.
    Vice President Gore and I think a national performance review is an 
absolutely necessary beginning, because we have too much to do that a 
wasteful and mismanaged Government will not be able to do. We have to 
cut and invest at the same time, something that's never been done 
before. We have to reduce the cost of health care and meet the 
challenges of an intensely competitive global economy. And we have to do 
those things with less money than we're spending in many areas today. We 
have to reduce the largest deficit in our history, as we do in our 
economic program, or it will literally rob us of our ability to solve 
problems, invest in the future, or thrive economically.
    And most important, the American people deserve a Government that is 
both honest and efficient, and for too long they haven't gotten it. For 
most Americans, a college loan or a Social Security check represents a 
common border with the best ideals and goals of our country. We all 
count to some extent on our Government to protect the environment, to 
provide education and health care and other basic needs. But democracy 
can become quickly an empty phrase, if those who are elected to serve 
cannot meet the needs of the people except with Government that costs 
too much or is too slow or too arrogant or too unresponsive.
    Finally, let me stress that this performance review, as I said at 
the beginning, is not about politics. Programs passed by both Democratic 
Presidents and Republican Presidents, voted on by Members of Congress of 
both parties, and supported by the American people at the time are being 
undermined by an inefficient and outdated bureaucracy and by our huge 
debt. For too long the basic func- 

[[Page 352]]

tioning of the Government has gone unexamined. We want to make improving 
the way Government does business a permanent part of how Government 
works, regardless of which party is in power.
    It isn't written anywhere that government can't be thrifty or 
flexible or entrepreneurial. Increasingly, most government is, and it is 
time the Federal Government follows the example set by the most 
innovative State and local leaders and by the many huge private sector 
companies that have had to go through the same sort of searching 
reexamination over the last decade, companies that have downsized and 
streamlined and become more customer friendly and, as a result, have had 
much, much more success.
    In short, it's time our Government adjusted to the real world, 
tightened its belt, managed its affairs in the context of an economy 
that is information based, rapidly changing, and puts a premium on speed 
and function and service, not rules and regulations.
    Americans voted for a change last November. They want better schools 
and health care and better roads and more jobs, but they want us to do 
it all with a Government that works better on less money and is more 
responsive. The American people may not know specifically how to do it, 
although many of them have good particular ideas, but I'm confident our 
people are willing to try new ways and they want us to experiment. They 
want us to do things that have worked in other contexts now in the 
National Government, and that's what we are here to do today.
    I thank the Vice President for his willingness to lead this effort. 
I thank the Members of Congress who are here and those who are not who 
are supporting us. And I earnestly enlist the support of the American 
people and especially the employees of the United States Government in 
this important effort.
    I'd like now to introduce the Vice President, who will be in charge 
of this effort of performance review for the next 6 months, for his 
statement.

Note: The President spoke at 10:07 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building.