OMB

Over the years, presidents have directed agencies to streamline their administrative requirements and work together on behalf of citizens.  The last major effort was in the Clinton Administration, which met with mixed success.  President Obama has declared he will try again:  “I believe that working together, State, local, and tribal governments and Federal agencies can distinguish between rules and requirements that su

For the most part, the management section of the budget reflects a continued commitment to initiatives initially detailed in last year’s budget:

“Building a government that works smarter, better, and more efficiently to deliver results for the American people is a cornerstone of the President’s Accountable Government Initiative and a key focus of this Administration.”

This section of the budget is organized around the same three themes outlined in the FY 2011 budget:

The CRS report is relatively silent on the potential impact of the recently-signed GPRA Modernization Act on congressional involvement in setting government-wide priorities.  But it does a good job reprising the history of President Obama’s performance initiatives over the past two years, including:

A 2015 survey of federal employees reports that 39 percent fear reprisals if they report violations of rules or laws. This potentially has serious implications for their willingness to identify and report serious programmatic risks in their day-to-day jobs, and the tendency is to avoid or ignore risks.

President Obama has made private sector innovation a centerpiece of the Administration’s agenda for growth and job creation.  This is a subject that has broad support across the spectrum:  citizens, businesses and governments all look to commercial activity as an economic engine; new technologies play a key role in this pursuit.  The Nation’s Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, has been a very visible leader of this activity, with frequent and recent blogs through the White House and media web sites (

The cyber world was intensely active this year.  To wit:

And he’s right.  The last major reorganization was spawned by the 1949 Hoover Commission.  And Alan Dean, the last surviving staffer from that commission, died in December.

On his first full day in office, January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a call for increased openness in government.

In a freshly issued a report: “Program Evaluation: Experienced Agencies Follow a Similar Model for Prioritizing Research,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) acknowledges the Obama Administration’s effort to expand the availability and use of rigorous program evaluation.   Yet not too surprisingly, GAO believes “Few appear to conduct in-depth program evaluations regularly to assess their programs’ impact or inform policymakers on how to improve results”

Other Implementation Provisions.  The new law contains a number of other implementation provisions worth highlighting: