Bill Clinton's commitment to reinventing government helped define him
as a real reformer, not just another Democratic supporter of big government.
To win in 2004, Democrats need to reclaim the Clinton reformist legacy
by embracing a radical agenda for reinventing government (ReGo). Even
though polls show that Americans desire an activist federal government
to address problems, they no longer trust big, bureaucratic government.
That's why, when faced with a choice between Bush's "less government"
and liberal Democrats' "more government," voters too often chose
the smaller government alternative. Democrats need to give them a third
choice: "better government."
What's wrong with today's government? For starters, it is structured
on an administrative model perfected in the heyday of the post-WWII industrial
economy. It is a big bureaucratic government that is a poorly honed tool
to promote progressive change in the 21st century. Creating effective
governance for the New Economy requires a fundamentally new approach to
government. We need to dramatically reform federal agencies and programs,
shifting the focus away from bureaucracies toward networks of private
actors, including civic organizations, citizens themselves, and information
technology (IT) systems.
Reinvent agencies. The most basic step in transforming government
is reducing the stifling straitjacket of rules that government workers
face. While the Clinton administration's ReGo effort, led by Vice President
Al Gore, made important strides, it's time to tackle the really tough
issues holding back reinvention, starting with civil service reform. Unless
federal managers have more flexibility in hiring, firing, promotion, and
compensation, it will be difficult to boost performance. At a minimum,
government personnel systems should be significantly reformed to vest
more authority in the hands of managers. Moreover, federal agencies should
be allowed to hire new employees initially under shorter-term contracts
and not renew them if employee performance is inadequate.
We shouldn't stop there; we should create brand new types of federal
entities, unleashed from the managerial systems designed in the middle
of the last century. This means transforming a host of federal agencies
into performance-based organizations (PBO's) that have not only more flexibility,
but are also accountable for results. This is what Prime Minister Tony
Blair has done in Britain; he created over 100 "Next Steps"
agencies with operating independence and charters spelling out responsibilities.
In 1998, 75 percent of all British civil servants were employed in Next
Steps agencies, and performance in these agencies has improved, in some
cases substantially.
An even more far-reaching reform would be to shift federal responsibilities
to independent, nonprofit corporations -- what the British call Quangos
(quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations). Unlike PBOs, which
remain government agencies, Quangos are independent but are in part publicly
funded and governed by a government-appointed board. Ideally, these organizations
combine the entrepreneurial spirit and competitive drive of the private
sector with the public purpose of the government sector. For example,
to give the federal government a catalytic role in boosting the skills
of the American workforce, we should create a nonprofit National Skills
Corporation governed by a board appointed by Congress and the president.
The second major step is to free up the creativity of non-federal players
to help achieve national goals, while holding them accountable for real
results. One reason why many Americans dislike bureaucracy is because
it is rule-bound and inflexible. In a rapidly changing and more diverse
society where the most important knowledge resides "on the ground"
and not in Washington, such a regimented, rule-bound system is at a distinct
disadvantage. Make no mistake, however: Unlike the Bush administration
that uses this kind of rhetoric to justify a general withdrawal of the
federal government from domestic policy areas, Washington still needs
an active role, albeit a radically different one. It means that Washington
needs to focus more on co-investing and collaborating with other organizations -- networks
of companies, nonprofit community organizations, churches, and other civic
organizations. It shouldn't matter who is carrying out the public mission,
only whether the mission is getting done. David Osborne, an expert on
reinventing government, says, "Washington needs to do more steering
and less rowing."
In areas where government enlists the efforts of non-federal actors,
we need to redesign programs to provide more flexibility and accountability.
This was the framework for the Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention,
and Responsibility Act, introduced by Sens. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Bayh
(D-Ind.), Landrieu (D-La.), and Carper (D-Del.). This "Three R's"
approach, based on policies originally designed by the Progressive Policy
Institute, restructured federal education aid to focus on results, while
freeing up schools to make their own decisions on how to spend federal
dollars. The legislation formed the basis for key reforms adopted in the
No Child Left Behind initiative. This model of greater flexibility tied
to greater accountability should be employed in a host of areas where
it's possible to measure results, including transportation, health care,
criminal justice, economic and community development, and social welfare.
We also need to help individual Americans play a more direct role in
improving their own communities. One way is to allow individuals who do
not itemize their tax returns to take deductions for charitable contributions,
as outlined in the CARE Act introduced by Sens. Lieberman and Santorum
(R-Penn.). Another way is to expand national service, as Sens. Bayh and
McCain (R-Ariz.) would do in their "Call to Service Act of 2003,"
which expands AmeriCorps from the current 50,000 members to 175,000 members
by 2008.
Finally, no discussion of transforming governance would be complete without
considering the effect of IT on government. When most people think of
technology and government, they think of e-government. Certainly the Internet
allows citizens to interact directly with government; it cuts costs while
improving quality and expanding access. While the Bush administration
is headed in the right direction, the minimal resources it has committed
have made the pace of change sluggish. It's time to commit to online provision
of all possible government services by 2007.
But the importance of the IT revolution goes far beyond just allowing
citizens to access government services online. IT can play a key role
in transforming an old, information-poor model of standardized, bureaucratic
governance to an information-rich model of customized network governance
that lets government achieve its goals without reliance on inflexible
and costly command-and-control approaches. Ubiquitous, cheap, and real-time
information lets us redesign government to empower complex systems, markets,
and individuals to fulfill public goals.
There are a host of examples of how this could be done. Consider the
complex issue of environmental regulation. New sensing and wireless communication
technologies can monitor and report pollution in real time, allowing regulators
to focus on setting the total levels of emissions; they can then leave
how to meet those requirements to the affected facility. For transportation,
electronic toll collection systems make it much easier to finance new
highways through tolls. In health care, the Internet enables the development
of more customized health insurance systems that give patients choice,
but also control costs. In government, IT systems can be used to usher
in a new era of accountability. For example, Baltimore's CitiStat, instituted
by Mayor Martin O'Malley, uses data to identify strengths and weaknesses
in government programs and holds managers accountable.
This kind of radical reinventing government initiative is critical if
we are to ensure that government effectively addresses the challenges
of the first half of the 21st century. The political alternative to radical
reinvention is not the status quo, but a radically downsized federal government
that devolves most functions to state and local governments and to the
tender mercies of untrammeled market forces. While the Bush administration
likes to talk about making government work better, what it really means
is making government smaller. To see this, we need to look no further
than the administration's treatment of national service and the No Child
Left Behind education reform, two initiatives the president championed
and claimed to have wanted to expand. Instead, the administration's funding
levels would actually cut the number of AmeriCorps members by 50 percent
while the administration has provided neither the leadership nor resources
promised in No Child Left Behind. All this makes reinventing government
a critical task -- and a political opportunity -- for Democrats.
Democrats need to do more than point out the administration's hypocrisy;
they need to be champions of real reform. This will mean that Democrats
will have to find ways to overcome reflexive public sector union opposition
to serious governmental reform. Ultimately, Democrats may have to choose
between protecting the interests of public sector unions and creating
an effective, progressive government that Americans have confidence in.
The stakes couldn't be higher. Unless Democrats embark on a serious effort
to transform governance, they will be, in the words of former Republican
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, "left as the reactionary protectors
of the bureaucrats, defending inefficiency, technological backwardness,
and poor services at high costs." Democrats would do well to heed
the words of Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, to his
New Labour colleagues: "We must not adhere to failed means lest we
fail to achieve enduring ends."
