The Federal Government Needs Better Processes and Better Managers

A Perspective from a Lowly Government Contractor on the Perspectives that are Strangely Absent from the Executive and Legislative Branches

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Key Points:

Most people think that if we swapped out the current elected leaders of the federal government for different politicians, the federal government would change. But government can’t change until you redesign government itself. And to do that, you have to go to the source code: the constitution.

We need a new constitution that defines in detail required government processes.

One example of the lack of well-designed processes in the federal government is the useless budget process, which hasn’t changed in any substantial ways under any of the recent Presidents, starting with George W. Bush.

There is no deep state; there are only entrenched practices and policies that are not based in reason, logic, or sound management principles.

Most federal managers and Cabinet Secretaries have no background or training in operations or management.

Elected leaders also lack this background and perspective. As a result, Congress passes laws that lack specific goals, leaving executing agencies to flounder, with no clear target to aim for and no clear metric to determine when they have achieved success.

If government can’t define and measure success in very specific, concrete terms, it can never achieve success.

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How many times have we fallen for the story that every Presidential candidate peddles?

Here’s their pitch in a nutshell: the federal government doesn’t work, and I can fix it.

Here’s how each of the last four presidents stated their case:

George W. Bush pitched himself as a uniter, not a divider, who would bring people together.

Barack Obama sold hope and “smart government.”

Donald Trump claimed that the American dream was dead, and he alone could fix it.

Joe Biden asserts that he will build back better and get government working well again after the Trump Administration’s shortcomings.

As a contractor, I have worked for the federal government under all of these men, and the processes of government have not fundamentally changed under any of them.

As Presidential candidates, none of these men told the uninspiring truth, which is this:

Any President is severely limited by all the laws that already exist on the books and by entrenched processes, whether in the Senate or the executive branch.

Of course, the President has the ability to change some executive department policies and practices — namely those that are discretionary and not required by statute.

But fixing Senate-level procedures and generally improving self-government would require a Constitutional Convention.

Others have proposed as much, of course, but few commentators seem to recognize that we need to go beyond simply changing individual rights and broad principles.

Instead, we need to completely re-engineer our systems and processes for self-government. Any new constitution should go into the weeds of government systems and processes, spelling out in detail how particular tasks should be executed.

For example, the constitution should control all rules of Senate procedure, rather than leaving these rules to the Senate’s discretion, as the current Constitution does. Allowing the Senate to have this discretion leads to the current abuse of the filibuster in which no one actually has to hold the floor with a speech.

In addition, a new constitution should spell out the kind of information that would be required in federal agency budgets, including a detailed accounting for all expenses, down to the laptops a particular agency buys and uses each year.

Vague Budgets Prevent Congress from Assessing Agency Spending and Plans

Agency budgets and budget justifications are a good example of a terrible federal government process. Agencies spend months producing mammoth budget documents that are short on useful content.

These budget justifications contain no reasoned discussion of how the money the program is seeking relates to its goals nor a detailed accounting of anticipated expenses.

Instead, the budget “justification” presents a requested funding amount that is seemingly plucked from the sky and a vague description of general aims and plans.

For example, take a look at this 530-page CDC Congressional Budget Justification.

Here are the kind of vague, general statements the document makes:

In FY 2022, CDC requests an increase of $100.0 million above FY 2021 Enacted for the third year of the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative. Advances in medications for the treatment and prevention of HIV, improved diagnostic tests, and new outbreak detection technology provide a unique opportunity to alter the trajectory of HIV infection rates in the U.S. with a goal of eliminating new HIV infections.

Reading this passage raises so many unanswered questions for me:

• Why $100 million? What will the $100-million increase achieve compared to, say, an increase of $50 million or $200 million?
• How exactly will the agency eliminate new HIV infections, which it claims is its goal?

Although later in the document the CDC provides a few details on its plans for eliminating new infections, saying that it will try to improve uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis and support syringe service programs, the CDC quickly reverts to vague statements like this:

The majority of funding will support state and local health departments for the 57 jurisdictions to implement their plans. CDC will continue critical investments nationwide in health departments; surveillance; supporting effective HIV prevention programs; national, regional, local, community, and other organizations; and school health to implement key HIV prevention activities that provide the foundation for ensuring the success of new activities in the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.

Looking at this document, it’s impossible to assess the CDC’s plans except in very general terms, and it’s impossible to know how they came up with the dollar amount they propose because they don’t present their anticipated expenses.

In short, you won’t find any of the information that would be necessary for Congress to meaningfully evaluate the requested funding or the potential effectiveness of CDC’s plans to eliminate new HIV infections.

I don’t mean to pick on the CDC. This kind of vagueness holds true across all executive agencies, with the result that Congress is basically signing off on arbitrary spending amounts without any real understanding of what the money will accomplish.

Nor does Congress seem capable of asking tough questions to clarify agency positions.

As a contractor at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), I watched many Congressional budget hearings, which my former boss appropriately described as “love fests.”

That is, there were no tough questions from Congress. No one asked why particular institutes at NIH had settled on requesting $40 million vs. $30 million, or how exactly the institutes would achieve their broad goals.

Instead, House members heaped praise on institute directors for their “leadership” and excellent work to support research.

In other words, the people elected to represent us aren’t an effective check against the executive department’s sloppy and vague budget work.

Why are federal agencies so bad at budgeting? Part of the blame certainly belongs to the Office of Management and Budget, which has not demanded or trained agencies to do better.

But part of the problem is this:

Many Cabinet-level Secretaries and Senior Agency Officials Have No Background or Training in Operations or Management

At NIH, all of the institute directors are PhD and/or MD scientists. You won’t find any MBAs leading institutes.

For example, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is a career-level director with an MD.

Nothing about getting a PhD or MD trains someone to effectively run an organization or to effectively plan and execute a sound budget.

At NIH, I was regularly amazed at the absence of any concern for effective management and operations.

For example, when I would ask seemingly innocent questions, such as “what’s the goal of this project?” or “what does this particular project get us?,” I would be met with either confusion or hostility.

Supervisors would pull me aside, discouraging me from raising such questions.

[Quick aside: federal government employees may be the most cowed and frightened group of non-boat-rockers I have ever encountered.]

Or my supervisors would say that sometimes the director just wants something done.

Why should the director have to provide a reason? Why wasn’t I willing to just execute the director’s every whim?

While it’s true that I’m relying on my anecdotal experience to conclude that most federal managers lack basic management skills, others have observed the same problem.

For example, this 2010 article reports, “Without a doubt, the most common complaint we hear from federal employees is that some federal managers are falling down on the job.”

Likewise, this 2017 article describes Congressional efforts to establish mandatory training for federal supervisors.

Congress Doesn’t Set Up Agencies for Success

But federal managers aren’t the only problem. Congress creates the programs that federal managers administer, and Congress often creates these programs in a manner that prevents managers from succeeding.

That’s because in enacting new programs, Congress passes authorizing legislation that never defines success for the program.

Congress doesn’t give the program a specific, measurable goal to aim for. Instead, Congress often provides only vague, general directives on what to do.

I’m not the only one to observe this: the conservative Heritage Foundation has said the same thing. I’m hardly a conservative, but I have to agree with them on this point:

Congress would rather criticize agencies in theatrical hearings and written letters than precisely define for agencies what they should be doing and what their measurable goals should be.

[Quick aside: why is Congress still communicating through letters? This is yet another anachronistic practice that any new Constitution should end.]

Of course, Congress cannot be trusted to reform themselves; even if we swapped out every sitting member for someone new, the same bad practices would likely continue.

These issues must all be addressed at a constitutional level.

Maybe This Dysfunction is as Good As It Gets

Perhaps I expect too much of humans. Maybe we’re simply not smart enough to come up with the kinds of detailed plans and budgets that I would consider effective government.

Perhaps budgets can’t be more specific because they need to allow room for improvisation. Maybe detailed agency plans for accomplishing goals aren’t possible because federal managers and Cabinet secretaries must respond to unanticipated developments or opportunities.

But even if my wish for master plans is unreasonable, I continue to think that agency budget documents could provide greater detail and expense reporting than they presently do.

Moreover, even a cursory Internet search reveals available budgeting software programs that allow enterprises to create detailed budgets and forecasts.

Couldn’t the federal government try such tools? Couldn’t they do better?

And perhaps I’m wrong to condemn federal managers for their lack of formal management training. After all, not all business executives at top companies have formal training. Plus, management is hardly a science.

These are all reasonable objections, but I have to believe that agency managers can still do better than their current reactive, whim-driven approach.

Of course, it’s hard to say whether my wished-for changes will ever come to pass.

As we head into the mid-term election cycle, I can only hope that a new crop of political candidates emerges — one that is focused more on the details of government processes and Constitutional reforms and less on theater, boasting, and empty rhetoric.