In other action on the wrap-up budget bill, Congress weakened a provision drafted last year to restrict the Bush administration’s contracting-out initiative. While earlier versions of the language would have prohibited use of any type of numeric goals or quotas-the administration has set a goal of having 15 percent of the government’s commercial-type jobs either contracted-out or put up for cost-comparison studies by October 1, and half of them eventually-the language as enacted states that goals can be used only if they are “based on considered research and sound analysis of past activities and consistent with the stated mission of the executive agency.”