WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jon Porter invoked Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday in promoting bills that would spur efforts to consolidate or eliminate government programs.
The hurricane and recovery projects projected to cost billions of dollars have focused the public's attention on government performance, Porter, R-Nev., said at a House hearing.
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"The American people are demanding we reduce wasteful spending and that tax dollars are spent wisely and services are delivered with efficiency," he said.
Porter, chairman of the House subcommittee on federal workforce and agency organization, invited witnesses to comment on bills proposed by the Bush administration and sponsored by Republicans to establish bodies that would review the workings of federal programs.
One bill authorizes a seven-member "sunset commission" that would review federal programs once every 10 years and offer recommendations on what should be abolished or consolidated.
The changes would take effect automatically unless Congress says otherwise.
A second bill lets the president form short-term "results commissions" to recommend reorganizations within the bureaucracy.
Clay Johnson, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said about half the states already have sunset commissions and they can be a valuable tool.
"There's no reason to believe these commissions can't work here as well as they work in the states," he said. "The goal is not that programs go away, the goal is to make programs work."
Democrats expressed suspicion.
Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said the bills would take power away from Congress and give it to unelected commissioners.
"Congress already has the authority to reorganize federal agencies," he said.
"This is a radical assault on the separation of powers. I can't imagine this House going for it," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the House delegate for the District of Columbia.
Experts had mixed opinions.
Paul Light, a New York University professor and authority on government bureaucracies, said if anything the legislation was "too tepid."
Light recommended Congress undertake a more aggressive assessment of how government departments are organized.
Robert Shull, a policy director at the nonpartisan OMB Watch, said the review process would make government less effective because agencies will be distracted from their missions and will spend their time trying to justify their existence rather than delivering the best services.
