Mulvaney’s Plan to Reform the Government

President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released a “Comprehensive Plan for Reforming the Federal Government and Reducing the Federal Civilian Workforce.” The 14-page memo from OMB director Mick Mulvaney creates a process for executive branch leaders to produce a detailed plan to cut the government. The final plan will be included in the fiscal year 2019 budget a year from now.

The core of the process is that the president is requiring federal agencies to prepare Agency Reform Plans by this September, with draft plans due June 30. Agencies must come up with downsizing “proposals in four categories: eliminate activities, restructure or merge, improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness, and workforce management.” Agencies “should focus on fundamental scoping questions (i.e. analyzing whether activities should or should not be performed by the agency).”

Some of the factors that agencies should consider when doing their “fundamental scoping” are whether activities are nonessential, whether they violate federalism, and whether they would flunk a cost-benefit test. Agencies should propose eliminating activities that do not pass muster on these and other criteria.

Director Mulvaney is trying to get federal bureaucracies to reconsider all of their activities in a bottom-up manner. The downsizing process he has launched will include actions that the president and agencies can take administratively, and reforms that will need legislation passed by Congress.

Aside from pushing agencies to identify savings, the OMB will work over the next year to propose and implement crosscutting reforms that affect all agencies. One theme in the memo is the need to cut the federal civilian workforce. The memo encourages agencies to implement near-term cuts and to develop plans to reduce workforces over the next four years. The memo is right that “technology may have changed or eliminated the need for some positions.”

The memo provides a good framework for pursuing federal downsizing. Some agencies will probably drag their heels and try to include just minor-league reforms in their plans. But the OMB will be overseeing the development of the plans, and will hound agencies to think big. It will also be important for the administration to fill top positions in agencies with leaders who have a zeal for cutting.

Support from congressional Republicans is also needed. The reform effort will be undermined if members simply whine and grumble when the administration suggests trims to their favored programs. When Trump’s “skinny budget” was released in March, the response of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was to announce that he would not allow cuts to an obscure $120 million pork barrel program that favors his state. But if the party leader selfishly rejects such a tiny cut, how does he expect any other member to accept cuts to any of the programs they favor?

If the Trump-Mulvaney budget reform effort is to be successful, we are going to need congressional leaders to act as actual leaders. And that means putting the broad public interest in spending control ahead of narrow parochial interests.

Mick Mulvaney’s press briefing on the new plan is here.  

For comments on previous OMB reform actions, see here, here, here, and here.