GAO Report Disputes Gore Claims on Red-Tape Cuts

“Reinventing government” is linked so closely to Vice President Al Gore that he often jokes its nickname, REGO, is “Gore spelled sideways.”

But a new report by the General Accounting Office obtained by The Times turns Gore’s sweeping claims of transforming government upside-down.

Although Gore says that the program has “saved the American people over $137 billion,” the GAO report concludes that the National Partnership for Reinventing Government claims credit where credit is not due.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, requested the report from the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

The GAO concluded that it could not document nearly $22 billion of $30 billion in the savings it had analyzed. Investigators determined that money was counted twice, expenses were overlooked and some savings were reported years before they occurred.

“In general, the savings estimates we reviewed could not be replicated, and there was no way to substantiate the savings claimed,” the GAO reported.

Gore’s office, offered a chance to respond, referred phone calls to the Office of Management and Budget, which came up with the savings estimates.

OMB spokeswoman Linda Ricci said the agency had not seen the final report but questioned its conclusions.

“It seems they are focusing on arcane issues of accounting rather than giving credit to the success of the administration’s reinventing strategy, which has improved the operation of government while saving the taxpayers money,” she said.

Gore has led the move to reinvent government since he took office, saying that government needs to be smaller and less bureaucratic. “Today, our self-government is leaner, more effective and more customer focused,” he proclaimed in 1998.

Thanks to reinvention, he said, there are 350,000 fewer federal workers, 16,000 pages of red tape gone and $137 billion saved.

The GAO looked only at a snapshot of the REGO program: the savings claimed by three large agencies. Although the auditors found billions of dollars in mistakes, they conceded it would be wrong to assume that every area of the program is flawed. The committee limited the report because it would have been too voluminous a task to analyze the entire program. The GAO did not calculate how much money actually has been saved.

But the investigators concluded that the partnership “claimed savings from agency-specific recommendations that could not be fully attributed to its efforts.”

Counted as a success, for instance, was $7 billion in savings at the Energy Department--money for nuclear weapons that likely would have been saved anyway because of America’s changing priorities after the Cold War.

“Considering the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty agreements and other factors, it was apparent that the DOE laboratories’ priorities would have changed regardless of whether [the reinventing initiative] had made the recommendation,” the GAO noted. Yet all that money was considered as a savings under Gore’s initiative.

Counted twice was $770 million for reorganizing the Agriculture Department.

“Because no mechanism was in place to prevent this type of double-counting, other instances could have occurred,” the GAO noted.

And all $8.5 billion in expected reductions in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget was considered, even though NASA already had a management reform underway.

“These are savings that took place,” Ricci said. “We frankly are proud of that.”

Burton, an outspoken critic of the Clinton administration, found the report compelling. “Unfortunately, it seems that the vice president and his staff were too quick to take credit for saving billions of dollars. Instead of reinventing government, it looks like they were reinventing accounting rules.”

The report lays most of the blame not with Gore but with the Office of Management and Budget, which came up with the cost-savings estimates. OMB could not give the GAO the paperwork to show how it had reached its conclusions--a practice Ricci said was routine in “responsible budgeting.”

“According to OMB, consistent with its normal budget practices, OMB examiners generally did not retain documentation for . . . savings estimates,” the GAO found. “Instead, the OMB examiners attempted to reconstruct how they thought the savings had been estimated through approximating rather than replicating savings estimates.”

In one case, both OMB and the Congressional Budget Office looked at the estimated savings associated with reducing the size of the Agriculture Department. Their estimates were $324 million apart. The CBO offset its estimates by factoring in how much it would pay in employee buyouts and moving expenses. OMB did not.

In another case, though, the GAO found that OMB actually had understated savings.

The GAO study focused only on six recommendations at three agencies where large savings were claimed. Those savings, however, accounted for 22% of the total amount of savings claimed by Gore.

“Since these recommendations are not representative of all [initiative] recommendations, our findings cannot be generalized to apply to other savings claimed,” investigators said.

Burton stressed that Congress also deserves some credit for reducing the size of the federal government.

“I’m glad the vice president has made reinventing government a priority. However, he shouldn’t try to pad the numbers or take credit for savings that haven’t happened,” Burton said. “If we all work together to make government more efficient, there’s enough glory to go around.”

Times staff writer Alan C. Miller contributed to this story.

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Credit Where It’s Not Due

The National Partnership for Reinventing Government has claimed credit for saving the government money, but these savings are undocumented, according to a report by the General Accounting Office. It was unclear whether the program was the factor that influenced the following budget reductions.

Saving claimed by program

$8.5 billion for NASA spending reductions.

GAO findings

Reductions began under prior initatives and included budget constraints by congressionally mandated spending caps.

Saving claimed by program

$ 2 billion for restructuring of NASA management.

GAO findings

Same as above.

Saving claimed by program

$7 billion for Department of Energy reductions in weapon activity after Cold War.

GAO findings

Changes already underway.

Savings claimed by program

$770 millionfor Agriculture Department staffing reductions.

GAO findings

Changes underway because of reorganization law passed by Congress in 1994.

Source: General Accounting Office