tomder55
Feb 16, 2025, 03:04 AM
Remember when streamlining the Federal Government and using the assistance of private individuals and companies to make it more efficient was the Democrats policy ?
This was way before we reached the urgency of tackling a staggeringly $36 trillion debt ;a $ 2 trillion annual deficit ;and interest payments on the debt approaching $1 trillion a year.
Flashback 1993 Bubba addresses the nation
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 front-line 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 front-line workers more decision making power. Just as we're trying to do that in the White House, we will try to do that throughout the National Government......................
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....................
For too long the basic functioning 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.........
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.
Remarks by President Clinton Announcing the Initiative to Streamline Government (https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/speeches/030393.html)
This was way before we reached the urgency of tackling a staggeringly $36 trillion debt ;a $ 2 trillion annual deficit ;and interest payments on the debt approaching $1 trillion a year.
Flashback 1993 Bubba addresses the nation
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 front-line 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 front-line workers more decision making power. Just as we're trying to do that in the White House, we will try to do that throughout the National Government......................
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....................
For too long the basic functioning 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.........
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.
Remarks by President Clinton Announcing the Initiative to Streamline Government (https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/speeches/030393.html)