Federal Budget & Tax

Federal Budget & Tax: News Blog Background

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Sen. Sam Brownback Doesn't Understand PART

Sen. Sam Brownback, doing a miraculous job of reiterating Bush administration talking points, is currently making a statement on the floor of the Senate criticizing government program results as witnessed through the corrupt lense of the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) and other Bush administration management initiatives.

As we have commented repeatedly, there are many problems inherent with the PART, as well as other skewed management initiatives including Sen. Brownback's legislation that would create a commission that would skirt Congressional power and have the authority to restructure or eliminate government programs. See these materials for information on why Sen. Brownback's legislation, and his references to government performance and results on the Senate floor were insincere at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

Posted by Adam Hughes, 05:33:25 PM

Friday, December 02, 2005

PART-ing Shots

PART, the government performance rating tool which is run out of the Office of Management and Budget, rates government programs based both on their purpose and their results (as deemed by the OMB). The OMB, part of the executive branch, then recommends cuts for programs based on these results, however research has shown that these recommendations often have very little to do with how effective the programs were rated.

Check out this American Prospect article, PART-ing shots, for a good discussion of some the key problems with PART. The article highlights that OMB seems to be making budget decisions based more on what they deem to be ineffective program purpose, as opposed to ineffective program results. This, as the article says, not only makes PART itself ineffective, but also makes it "subjective and [easy] to manipulate."