A balanced federal budget and projections of a $1.6
trillion surplus over the next ten years have encouraged many
Washington policymakers to find more and more ways to pour tax
dollars into new and bigger government programs. Consider the
following:
-
Between fiscal year (FY) 1997 and FY
1998, federal domestic discretionary spending adjusted for
inflation will increase $3.3 billion to reach $228.3 billion.
President Clinton wants an additional $6 billion in federal
spending in FY 1999 to reach a record $234.3 billion.
-
Fiscal year 1998 discretionary spending
for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education,
and related agencies (Labor-HHS-Education) is expected to reach
$80.4 billion. The President requests an additional $1.5 billion in
FY 1999 to increase spending to $81.9 billion.
Dozens
of reports issued in recent years by such government watchdogs as
the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and various agency
inspectors general confirm that many federal programs are not
working. In addition, Congress now has in hand agencies' five-year
strategic plans and FY 1999 annual performance plans, as required
by the Government Performance and Results Act (Results Act) of
1993. These plans reinforce the concerns of many Americans that
federal agencies are plagued by serious problems.
Fortunately, the House of Representatives
has become far less willing to continue to feed the appetite of an
ineffective, bloated federal bureaucracy. The House Appropriations
Committee already has taken a bold first step by reporting an FY
1999 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill that begins to hold
agencies accountable for poor performance, eliminates programs that
are wasteful or no longer needed, and demands results from those
that continue.
|
House Appropriations
Committee-Recommended Programs
That Should Be Terminated, Reformed or Granted No Signficant
Increase
|
|
Fiscal Year
1998 |
Fiscal Year
1999 |
| Summer Youth Employment and Training |
$871 million |
$0 |
| School-to-Work |
$400 million |
$150 million |
| Low-Income Home Energy Assistance |
$1 billion |
$0 |
| Head Start |
$4.4 billion |
$4.5 billion |
| Goals 2000 |
$491 million |
$246 million |
| Eisenhower Professional Development |
$335 million |
$285 million |
| Federal Regional Education Laboratories |
$56 million |
$56 million |
| Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) enforcement and compliance strategy and health and safety
standards |
$286.1 million |
$286.2 million |
| National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
jurisdictional thresholds |
$175 million |
$175 million |
| Bilingual Education |
$354 million |
$354 million |
|
In evaluating this appropriations bill, Congress would be wise to
look critically at the effectiveness of agency programs and the
President's requests for funding increases. Specifically, Congress
should follow the lead of the House Appropriations Committee and
either terminate or reduce funding levels and reform many of the
following programs because of their poor track records:
There
is an old saying that the closest thing to immortality is a
government program. But programs created to address problems the
nation faced decades ago will not meet the needs of Americans in
the 21st century. As Congress considers the FY 1999
Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, it should take steps to
terminate obsolete, redundant, and ineffective programs and
fundamentally reevaluate their goals, priorities, and results.
Mark Wilson is a former Labor Economist at The
Heritage Foundation; Nina H. Shokraii is a former Education
Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation; and Angela Antonelli is
a former Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic
Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.