Reforming the National Machinery of Government

The 20th century witnessed a number of major reform committees and commissions that scrutinized government machinery:

• The Brownlow Committee: Government grew rapidly and haphazardly during the New Deal. To help the president manage his assignments, the Brownlow Committee substantially increased the size of the presidential staff in 1936.
• Hoover Commissions: Hoover Commissions were set up following World War II in an attempt to reorganize the federal government.

The contemporary debate over privatizing government might be traced back to the second Hoover Commission report of 1955. Privatization may refer to the selling of governmental assets, the private finance of public facilities, or the private provision of services. Advocates of privatization, in large measure, point to the potential payoff in efficiency and productivity. Opponents note that privatization is not trouble-free and may lead to abuse and misuse. At a minimum, privatization raises special concerns when it comes to the military (e.g., problems with private security firms in Iraq); increasing pressures on the nonprofit sector to provide federally mandated public services; and faith-based initiatives—using religious organizations to provide social services—which raise questions about the appropriate separation between church and state. In large measure, voluntarism and philanthropy have been institutionalized and bureaucratized, leading full circle to the kinds of problems that critics of public provision frequently point to in justifying third-sector, charitable, or nonprofit provision of public services.

• The Ash Council: During President Nixon’s term of office, this council called for a major restructuring of cabinet agencies.
• The President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (PPSSCC) also known as the Grace Commission: Undertaken during the Reagan administration, this commission produced a report that was extremely detailed and not very useful.

Reinventing Government

By 1980, the tax revolt movement in 38 states forced the government to reduce or stabilize tax rates. Then the Reagan revolution came along, with its slogan, “Government is the problem.” The deficiencies apparent in government were taken up again in the 1990s with the “reinventing government” movement and its reports, such as the National Performance Review (also known as the Gore Report), which spoke of the mushrooming national debt, the enormous waste in government, the diminution of public trust etc.