The major criteria guiding the administration in proposing
the fiscal 2006 budget were whether programs met the
priorities of national defense, economic opportunity,
if they “foster compassion,” whether an “appropriate
federal role” is part of a program’s mission, and whether
the programs are determined to be effective, partly by
their ratings based on the Program Assessment Ratings Tool.
The budget proposes to terminate 99, and scale down 55
“low-performing and lower priority activities,” to trim
$15.3 billion from the budget, largely from the
Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services,
Justice and Education, where alone 48 programs were
put on the chopping block – such as the $225 million
“Even Start,” low-income family literacy program which
received a “not effective” rating on the 2004 PART.
“Roughly 60 percent of all federal programs have
undergone the PART, and those scores figured into the
budgeting process,” said Office of Management and Budget
director Joshua Bolten in a recent press briefing.
Democrats have criticized use of the tool to make budget
decisions, calling it little more than a pretext to
eliminate programs outside of administration priorities.
However, sometimes programs are slated for termination
and wind up not being eliminated — of the 99 programs
recommended for termination this year, 59 had been
proposed in previous years, and 27 of the 55 proposed
for reduction have been proposed in years past.
This is the third year the PART has been used to assess
programs. To date, the administration has assessed 607
programs — representing 60 percent, $1.4 trillion — of
the federal budget, finding 4 percent to be “ineffective,”
about 70 percent evenly distributed between somewhat
effective, adequate, or results not demonstrated, and
15 percent “effective.”