OMBlog

Protecting the Top, Hurting the Hungry

On Monday, Senate Republicans voted to block the Buffett Rule.  As the President said, “The Buffett Rule is common sense. At a time when we have significant deficits to close and serious investments to make to strengthen our economy, we simply cannot afford to keep spending money on tax cuts that the wealthiest Americans don’t need and didn’t ask for. But it’s also about basic fairness – it’s just plain wrong that millions of middle-class Americans pay a higher share of their income in taxes than some millionaires and billionaires.  America prospers when we’re all in it together and everyone has the opportunity to succeed.”

Unfortunately, this week we’ll see a similar turn from common sense and fairness in another area: agriculture.

The House Agriculture Committee is marking up its fast-track budget reconciliation proposal to achieve $33 billion in savings. 

According to this story, the committee’s majority proposal will not reduce farm subsidies. While everybody recognizes the critical importance of a strong farm safety net, we can protect farmers while contributing to deficit reduction. That’s why folks on both sides of the aisle have proposed that we end taxpayer subsidies to individuals who don’t need them. The committee’s fast-track bill doesn’t touch these subsidies – even for individuals who make more than $1 million a year.

Instead, the committee is looking to find more than $33 billion in cuts from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—formerly known as Food Stamps—which provides support for millions of families struggling to get by. 

Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy

America has always been a nation of innovators. Throughout our history, we’ve produced countless groundbreaking innovations, from Henry Ford’s assembly line to Amazon.com’s internet sales model, from Edison’s light bulb to Bell Labs’ transistor, from General Electric’s jet engines to Google’s internet tools. And to create an economy that’s built to last, the President has made clear that we must continue to lead the world when it comes to innovation.

The President has also said that protecting the intellectual property underpinning that innovation is an economic imperative that his Administration takes very seriously. As he made clear in his State of the Union Address, our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, America will always win.

We are a data-driven government and it’s important that we understand the impact that intellectual property has on our economy. Today, I am proud to report that the U.S. Department of Commerce, working with the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and the chief economists of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Department of Labor, and other Federal agencies, is releasing an economic report identifying the full range of sectors that generate intellectual property, as well as the jobs, exports, and wage premiums those sectors support. This study is the first of its kind.  Never before has the U.S. Government produced a report at this scale that details the nature and impact of intellectual property across the entire American economy. The report, Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus, is available here.

Applying Private Sector Best Practices in Information Technology

One year ago, a group of private sector leaders sat down with Administration and agency officials to offer to help the government adopt management best practices. The group, the President’s Management Advisory Board (PMAB), decided to spend the next year focusing on a variety of topics, including how the government buys information technology (IT).

And the effort has paid off. Over the past three years, the Federal Government has done much in adopting private sector practices to triage broken IT investments, reduce the IT infrastructure footprint, and innovate with less. For example, at today’s PMAB meeting, the Department of the Interior showed that by modernizing IT infrastructure and aligning resources to improve customer service, they will realize $100 million in savings from 2016 to 2020, for a cumulative total of $500 million. To date, there have been $11 million in cost avoidance by updating the scope of projects and $2.2 million in redirection of funds due to IT Spending Reviews.

These agency successes are a good start, but we need to do more. We still face an unacceptable amount of duplicative and low-value IT.  That is why Acting Director Jeff Zients today is signing a memorandum launching a new tool for agencies to use to assess the current maturity of their IT portfolio management process and make decisions on eliminating duplication across their organizations. This tool – which we’re calling “PortfolioStat” - gives agencies tools to look into the darkest corners of the organization to find wasteful and duplicative IT investments.

Informing Consumers through Smart Disclosure

Today, the White House and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), with support from ideas42, will host a summit on Smart Disclosure – a new tool that helps provide consumers with greater access to the information they need to make informed choices.

In many contexts, the Federal government uses disclosure as a way to ensure that consumers know what they are purchasing and are able to compare alternatives.  Consider nutrition facts labels, the newly designed automobile fuel economy labels, and choosemyplate.gov.  Modern technologies are giving rise to a series of new possibilities for promoting informed decisions.

In September 2011, the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance to Federal agencies on Smart Disclosure.  Smart disclosure refers to the timely release of complex information and data in standardized, machine readable formats in ways that enable consumers to make informed decisions. 

Reorganizing Government for the 21st Century

With all the disagreement and discord that tends to dominate Washington, it’s easy to lose sight of areas where Democrats and Republicans can make common cause. One important example: the need to update and reorganize the Federal government for the 21st century.

Today, I co-authored an op-ed on this topic with former Republican Governor of Michigan and current president of the Business Roundtable, John Engler. Governor Engler and I don’t agree on everything, but we both recognize that we’re competing in a 21st century economy with a 20th century government – a government that often suffers from overlapping and duplicative responsibilities that waste taxpayer dollars and needlessly complicate government.

In our op-ed, we echo President Obama’s call for Congress to reinstate the authority that would allow him to submit to Congress proposals to streamline and reorganize the Federal government. Importantly, any such proposal would have to either reduce the size of government or cut costs and help reach our deficit reduction goals.

Every CEO has the flexibility to restructure his or her company to keep pace with the competition and meet changing customer demands. Likewise, many Governors have reorganization authority, which has allowed them to achieve remarkable efficiencies and cost savings at the state level.

As we argue in today’s piece, granting this same authority to the President at the Federal level is not a partisan cause – it’s just common sense and good management.

Check out the full piece here.

Jeff Zients is Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget 

The Ryan-Republican Budget: The Consequences of Imbalance

Ed note: This post is updated with a correction on the number of workplace inspections to protect worker safety.

Yesterday, House Republicans released their budget resolution for FY 2013. While many of the proposals require more analysis, one thing is absolutely clear: this budget does not ask all Americans to do their share to get our fiscal house in order and create an economy that is built to last. Instead, the GOP plan gives those making over $1 million per year an average tax cut of at least $150,000 and preserves tax breaks for oil and gas companies and hedge fund managers. These tax breaks are then paid for by ending Medicare as we know it and implementing deep cuts in what we need to grow our economy and create jobs in years to come.

Others will go into deep detail on the tax and health proposals in the budget resolution.  I want to focus on funding known as “nondefense discretionary spending.”  It deserves a better name.  This is annual funding that pays for many of the investments most critical to expanding economic growth and opportunity, including education, research and development, and clean energy. 

With his strong focus on cutting waste and unneeded spending, the President has already signed into law several rounds of cuts that will bring non-security spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Put another way, we are cutting this category of spending as a share of economy by 50 percent from 2010 to 2022.

But when it comes to annual, non-defense spending, the House Budget Resolution is not about cutting fat.  It is cutting deep into the muscle that America needs to compete and win in the 21^st century. 

CBO: The President’s Budget Will Bring Down the Deficit

Today, the non-partisan, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the President’s 2013 Budget, and it confirms that the President has a balanced plan to reduce our budget deficits and put the country on a fiscally sustainable path, which is critical to constructing an economy that is built to last.

CBO found that by 2016 deficits as a share of the economy would be below 3 percent – a key milestone of fiscal sustainability. It found that after implementing the President’s Budget, debt held by the public will decrease and then stabilize as a share of the economy, also a key indicator of improving fiscal health. Finally, relative to CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario representing what happens if current policies are continued, the President’s Budget reduces the deficit by more than $4 trillion, according to CBO’s own estimates.

What’s important here is not just where the Budget takes us, but how we get there. CBO shows that we can achieve this level of deficit reduction by pursuing a balanced plan that asks everyone to shoulder their fair share. For instance, in line with the bipartisan budget deal agreed to last August, the Budget brings discretionary spending to its lowest level on record, and to do that, includes scores of cuts, consolidations, and savings totaling more than $24 billion in 2013. The Budget details more than $360 billion in savings to Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs that will make these programs more effective and move our health care system to one that rewards high-quality care without violating our obligation to seniors and people with disabilities. To that, the Budget also saves an additional $270 billion through other mandatory savings such as through changes in agriculture subsidies and direct payments and federal civilian worker retirement benefits.

Recognizing that all Americans have a responsibility to do their part – especially those who have done so well these past several years – the Budget also calls for individual tax reform that: cuts the deficit by $1.5 trillion, including the expiration of the high-income 2001 and 2003 tax cuts; simplifies the tax code, lowers tax rates, and protects progressivity; eliminated inefficient and unfair tax breaks for millionaires while making all tax breaks at least as good for the middle class as for the wealthy; and observes the Buffett Rule that no household making more than $1 million a year pays less than 30 percent of their income in taxes. Moreover, the Budget does not raise taxes on the 98 percent of families that make less than $250,000 a year.

As we make these cuts, we also need to recognize that to have an economy that is built to last, we must invest in those areas critical to long-term economic growth and job creation. That is why the Budget has more than $350 billion in short-term measures for job-growth, starting this year as well as critical investments in education and skills for American workers, increases in research and development, investments in advanced manufacturing and clean energy; and a bold plan – fully paid for – to create a 21^st century transportation infrastructure that will create thousands of new jobs.

This balanced approach is one that the American people support, and – as the CBO confirms – will reduce our deficits and put the country on a sustainable fiscal path. It’s now up to Congress to act on these policies, and lay the foundation for an economy built to last.

Jeff Zients is Director of the Office of Management and Budget 

Let the Sunshine In

This week is Sunshine Week, a joint project of the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.  Held in mid-March, Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote discussion about the importance of open government and freedom of information.

The theme of this year’s Sunshine Week is “Put Sunshine in Your Government,” and so now is an appropriate time to reflect on the Obama Administration’s strong commitment to open government over the past three years, and more particularly to provide an update on implementation of the U.S. National Action Plan on Open Government. 

President Obama unveiled the National Plan in September 2011, as part of the United States’ commitment as a founding member of the Open Government Partnership – a global effort to promote more transparent, effective, and accountable governance in countries around the world.  

Now Live: The Updated IT Dashboard

Earlier today, we updated the IT Dashboard, sharing publicly for the first time detailed IT investment information in support of the President’s FY 2013 Budget.

The Administration first launched the IT Dashboard back in 2009 as part of our effort to create a more transparent and open government. By publicly posting data on more than 700 IT investments across the Federal government, we armed agencies with the tools needed to reduce duplication in IT spending, strengthen the accountability of agency CIOs, and provide more accurate and detailed information on projects and activities. We also gave Americans an unprecedented window into how their tax dollars were being spent.

Today’s release builds on these efforts, bringing even greater transparency to IT investment performance and empowering CIOs to intervene in troubled projects sooner. Some improvements you can expect to see include: