Management Approach to Be Watched, Too

During the campaign, Obama said he wanted to de-layer agencies and move more positions to the front lines and scrub the government for programs that are not performing well. President Bush had made a similar promise to move jobs from management to the front lines but soon abandoned it, although he did create the Program Assessment and Ratings Tool initiative to examine programs. Those examinations rarely translated into actions to cancel or restructure programs, however, since Congress generally resisted such proposals. Obama has vowed to overhaul that program, create a top-level "chief performance officer" to oversee program operations, strengthen whistleblower protections, and tighten employment ethics policies and step up enforcement. It’s expected that the Bush administration "president’s management agenda," which pushed initiatives including contracting out, will be replaced by another management program, possibly with some elements of the Clinton administration "government reinvention" initiative.