by Hope Reborn
I'm floored by the move today that President Elect Obama made in creating an office
Chief Performance Officer... I haven't seen much if anything mentioned anywhere about this, but consider for a moment what this means. Hopefully, gone are the day's of "bloated, wasteful" government because there is now an agent of direct oversight with Presidential level access & authority to ensure that programs are meeting metrics set by the President and that cabinet secretaries and key personnel are meeting goals laid out.
This is some real tectonic plate shifting stuff when you consider the loyalty first, politics second, results third world the White House has lived in since
Bush Clinton Bush Reagan Carter For Ever!
Enough with my poorly worded explanation, here is the meat of the challenge that Obama laid down today to actually see that Change we all seek, we all worked for, we all supported...
Change starts and ends with accountability and performance.
You can watch
video of the appointment here.From the announcementWe committed to change the way our government in Washington does business so that we're no longer squandering billions of tax dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of a lobbyist or interest group. We can no longer afford to sustain the old ways when we know there are new and more efficient ways of getting the job done.
Even in good times, Washington can't afford to continue these bad practices. In bad times, it's absolutely imperative that Washington stop them and restore confidence that our government is on the side of taxpayers and everyday Americans.
Just today, the Congressional Budget Office announced that the deficit we are inheriting for this budget year will be $1.2 trillion. And we know that our Recovery and Reinvestment plan will necessarily add more. My own economic and budget team projects that, unless we take decisive action, even after our economy pulls out of its slide, trillion dollar deficits will be a reality for years to come.
The Republicans are sweating because we have a Democratic President actually interested in doing something about the Deficit that Bush created...
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A groundbreaking new idea that will hopefully revolutionize the way Government actually delivers on its heady promise of action, reform, change.
During the campaign, I said that we must scour this budget, line-by-line, eliminating what we don't need, or what doesn't work, and improving the things that do.
As the first Chief Performance Officer, working with Peter Orszag and Rob Nabors at the Office of Management and Budget, Nancy Killefer is uniquely qualified to lead that effort.
A Chief Performance Officer... Imagine what that would have done with the Cheney government that let Halliburton write it's own contracts... or the Bush environmental task force or anything Bush did actually... This is some real change
For nearly thirty years – as a leader at McKinsey & Company, and as Assistant Secretary for Management, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Operating Officer at Treasury under President Clinton -- Nancy has built a career out of making major American corporations and public institutions more efficient, effective and transparent.
Three words that I never relate to Government
But Nancy also understands that at the end of the day, government services are delivered by people. That's why she's always worked tirelessly to empower employees to take matters into their own hands: to rethink outmoded ways of doing things, to embrace new systems and technologies, and to take initiative in developing better practices.
When Nancy was offered her first position at Treasury, she responded, “If you're willing to embrace significant change, then you're looking at the right person. But if you just want to keep the trains running on time, don't ask me to do this job.”
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