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History

The National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) was the

In the address to a joint session of Congress on March 3, 1993, President Clinton provided rationale for implementing the NPR: “The conditions which brought us as a nation to this point are well known. Two decades of low productivity growth and stagnant wages, persistent unemployment and underemployment, years of huge government and declining investment in our future, exploding health care costs, and lack of coverage for millions of Americans, legions of poor children, education and job training opportunities inadequate to the demands of this tough global economy.” [4]

The stated intention of the NPR was to “invent government that puts people first, by: serving its customers, empowering its employees, and fostering excellence.” In order to achieve this, the objectives of the NPR were to “create a clear sense of mission; delegate authority and responsibility; replace regulations with incentives; develop budget-based outcomes; and measure [our] success by customer satisfaction.”^[1]

Clinton’s address on March 3 was a call to arms aimed at both branches of government and the political parties. His proposition to establish and implement the NPR consisted of four components, detailing the shift from 1) consumption to investment in both the public and private sectors, 2) changing the rhetoric of public decision making so that it honors work and families, 3) substantially reducing federal debt, and 4) administering government spending and cuts.^[4]

Gore presented the report of his National Performance Review to President Clinton and the public on September 7, 1993. Gore cited the long term goal was to “change the very culture of the federal government,” and designated “optimism” and “effective communication” as the keys to success of the NPR.^[5]

In September 1993, the National Performance Review issued its initial report, noting that successful organizations--businesses, city and state governments, and organizations of the federal government--do four things well. These four things became the recipe for reinventing government: 1) Put customers first; 2) Cut red tape; 3) Empower employees to get results; 4) Cut back to basics. ^[6]

Background

In March 1993 Clinton stated that he planned to “reinvent government” when he declared that “Our goal is to make the entire federal government less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment.”^[7] After this, Clinton put the project into Vice President Al Gore’s hands with a six month deadline for a proposal for the plan. The National Performance Review (NPR), which was later renamed the National Partnership for Reinventing Government ^[7], released its first report in September of 1993, which contained 384 recommendations for improving bureaucracy’s performance across the entire federal government^[8] The report was the product of months’ worth of consultation of various government departments and meetings within Clinton’s bureaucracy, which narrowed down 2,000 pages of proposals to the final report.^[7]

NPR promised to save the federal government about $108 billion: $40.4 billion from a ‘smaller bureaucracy,’ $36.4 from program changes and $22.5 from streamlining contracting processes

In 1993, Congress rejected many key provisions of the NPR downsizing when it came to individual departmental cuts, proving that NPR could not sustain its reforms without modest congressional support.[8] As Donald Kettl points out, the NPR’s biggest hurdle was that “although [it] had a strategy leading to the release of its report on September 7, 1993, it had no strategy for September 8 and afterward.” ^[8] Still, key legislation successfully passed throughout the reform effort was the NPR’s procurement reforms — the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, the Federal Acquisition Reform Act of 1995, and the Clinger-Cohen Act in 1996.^[7]

In a September 1996 pamphlet, Gore wrote that the federal government had reduced its workforce by nearly 24,000 as of January 1996, and that thirteen of the fourteen departments had reduced the size of their workforce ^[9] In addition, thousands of field offices that were considered ‘obsolete’ closed.^[9] In September 1997, Gore reported that 2.8 million people left the welfare rolls between 1993 and 1997.^[10]

Toward the end of Clinton’s first term, the task of the NPR became less to “review and recommend” and more to “support agencies in their reinventing goals,” reflected in the change of the senior advisor from Elaine Kamarck to Morley Winograd.^[7] It was also around this time that the name change occurred to reflect more engagement with relevant public institutions such as student loans, the IRS, and emergency preparedness.^[7]

Impact of the National Performance Review

NPR and the Department of Housing and Urban Development

The original 168-page report of the National Performance Review made a total of 255 agency-specific recommendations, 10 of which were directed at the

According to military strategist Isaiah Wilson III, there were two phases to the National Performance Review, the second of which was commenced on January 3rd 1995 by Vice President Al Gore.^[12] The aim of Phase 2 was to “examine the basic mission of government…to find and eliminate things that don’t need to be done by the government.”^[12]

While another focus of the NPR was to cut down on red tape

The NPR also aimed to improve general customer satisfaction with all dealings involving the federal government. In terms of foreign military sales, however, there is a dilemma of whether or not the federal government’s main “customer” should be the foreign nations purchasing arms and technologies or the American taxpayer who in part pays for the service provided by the defense department[12].

NPR and the Government Printing Office

Apart from Defense spending, the NPR also narrowed its sights on government printing, namely the operation of the

1. Authorize the executive branch to establish a printing policy that will eliminate the current printing monopoly.[13]

2. Ensure public access to federal information.^[13]

3. Develop integrated electronic access to government information and services. ^[13]

NPR and the Executive Branch

One way Vice President Al Gore intended to put his plan into action was by reducing the number of workers in the executive branch. Many agencies saw the downsizing as detrimental to their efficiency because it left them "shorthanded in the delivery of programs and services." ^[14] However, Gore recognized that a smaller workforce would allow agencies to focus on customer service instead of managing an unnecessary amount of workers. This emphasis on customer service coincides with Gore's determination to focus on what the citizens want from the government. ^[14] Aside from diminishing the size of executive agencies, the report also suggests “redefin[ing] the role of the institutional presidency” by reducing the management role. This would involve “devolving management authority to the lowest level possible and shift[ing] accountability from the President to agency ‘customers."^[15] In this case, lowest level refers to the interagency committees; however, management duties would be assigned to “the politically appointed leadership in the departments and agencies.^[15]

NPR and National Service

In addition to its association with executive branch reform, the NPR’s reinvention movement is tightly bound to the idea of national service. In the words of