On Tuesday, June 14 the Senate subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security held a hearing on accountability and results in federal budgeting. Specifically, the hearing was held to investigate the specific metrics and tools used by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to measure the effectiveness of federal programs, the advantages and disadvantages of using these systems of measurement, and how information obtained is used to increase accountability in federal budgeting. The most widely used mechanism, called the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), was the main topic of the hearing. Four witnesses presented testimony at the hearing: GAO Comptroller David Walker, OMB Deputy Director Clay Johnson, Eileen Norcross, Research Fellow for the Mercatus Center, and Beryl Radin, Professor of Government and Public Administration at American University. The hearing was attended by the chairman and ranking member of the committee, Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Tom Carper (D-DE), and for a short period by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who made a point of appearing to express concerns about Congress developing a new reliance on mechanisms like PART that are primarily White House tools. He expressed doubts about the unbiased nature of PART assessments and his hope that performance results are not manipulated to reinforce predetermined partisan or ideological conclusions about government programs, but rather to increase effectiveness in government. The hearing reflected two key themes: the importance of implementing effective measurement tools in order to gauge program success, and how to use these tools to fund programs accordingly, so as to "get the most for the least amount of money." It was clear all four witnesses, as well as members of the subcommittee, agreed performance tools, if designed and used correctly, were a necessary part of working to enhance performance and increase accountability. There were differences, however, in which tools would be most valuable and in what context the information gained from the tools should be understood. Walker began his testimony by once again stating that government is on an "unsustainable fiscal path." He voiced his belief that a comprehensive and cross-cutting approach to assessing policies is necessary and stated there must be a greater buy-in by Congress regarding holding programs accountable, and a resulting shift in fiscal policy priorities. Notably, Walker expressed multiple times his conviction that the performance and accountability process should be made less partisan. He suggested an organization such as the GAO, for example, should have a role in assessing programs along with more politically driven agencies such as the OMB. Johnson testified on behalf of OMB. His testimony defended PART, saying agencies are better managed than they ever have been. His short and often simplistic testimony included somewhat aggressive pre-emptive responses to recurring criticisms of PART, many of which would later be summarized by Beryl Radin during the second panel. Specifically, Johnson iterated the claims that PART has had an effect on authorization, appropriations and oversight and that all programs are alike and thus can be assessed using a single tool. Yet these claims are directly contradicted by an analysis done by OMB Watch earlier this year and by the positions of scholars such as Radin. Many of the findings of the OMB Watch research were outlined in an opinion piece that appeared on tompaine.com in March. Johnson's testimony often strayed from the main focus of the hearing to touch on radical proposals the Bush administration is attempting to implement in the federal government. Johnson spent much of his time discussing sunset and results commissions as well as performance based pay for federal employees, rather than the merits of PART. Johnson commented sunset commissions are not just a way to "get rid of programs [the administration does not] like." He said we all "want to get programs to work better… and drive better program performance." In the long run, focusing on results, he said, would be better for taxpayers. Coburn stated his support for both requiring programs to justify their existence every ten years and for presidential commissions that would recommend consolidation or elimination of duplicative programs. These proposals represent yet another vehicle proposed by the Bush administration to extract and preempt the role of the Congress in assessing, authorizing and appropriating funds for government into a system controlled by the White House. Strong support for these proposals, as well as the PART, will only weaken the power of Congress in relation to the executive branch. Norcross and Radin testified in the second panel. Norcross testified the underlying role of the PART in linking goals and objectives with budgets and holding programs to fact-based, rather than value-based standards, was positive. But she complained that budget requests from OMB had little or no relation to the ratings assigned to programs under the PART. She presented to the committee important PART statistics showing a lack of correlation between funding requests and PART ratings, stating that, of the 154 programs recommended for termination, only 22 of them had even been PARTed by the OMB. Norcross was forced to admit the PART has many limitations. She pointed out that fourteen agencies show no linkage of costs in operation to goals for output, that the "yes/no" format with which PART rates programs simplifies many agencies' answers, and that a degree of subjectivity does exist in the way ratings are assigned in PART. Radin made clear in her testimony the many serious reservations she has about the PART, stating it was not the appropriate way to measure program performance. Many programs, she said, have multiple and conflicting goals that are not reflected in the PART process. Radin said the federal government's diverse array of programs is far too complex for a one-size-fits-all approach. In addition, the PART process does not recognize purpose, priorities, and program guidelines instituted in statute by Congress. Radin pointed out that often programs end up being penalized for following the will of Congress instead of measures like cost-effectiveness that OMB would like them to use. In this way, the PART acts as a mechanism to replace the intent of Congress with the priorities of the administration. Radin also mentioned other limitations of the PART in her testimony, including that OMB budget examiners have a limited perspective on many programs, that a yearly budget is not the only way to measure detailed and complex programs, and that OMB calls for new data sources agencies can not always collect (due to both a lack of resources and a requirement in the Paperwork Reduction Act to reduce paperwork by five percent per year). Radin suggested an alternative to mechanisms like PART during the hearing. She suggested the authorizing committees and other members of Congress should be more involved in program evaluation not only because they are more familiar with the programs, but also because Congress is in a unique position to utilize existing resources in order to develop more robust and diverse systems to determine effectiveness and results.