Government Performance and Results Act

The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 sought to address a variety of concerns about governmental accountability and performance. The statute demanded that federal agencies develop integrated frameworks that tied resource decision making to program performance measures that revealed the results of public programs and services. The law can be understood in light of two peculiarly American political forces that played critical roles in its enactment. It was primarily the product of the nation's propensity to run government more like a business. Mirroring an argument that dated prominently from the First Hoover Commission in 1949 (and arguably well before) and that launched a trend, the legacy of which included the program planning and budgeting system (1960s), management by objectives (early 1970s), and zero-based budgeting (late 1970s) reform efforts, GPRA sought to impose on federal programs a planning and evaluation model borrowed from the business sector. This statute, like its market-oriented predecessors, was presented as an efficiency-maximizing tool that would allow federal bureaucrats [Page 394]and elected officials to focus on program results that had been set thoughtfully and on program goals and objectives that provided clear mechanisms by which each was to be evaluated. Second, lawmakers justified the law by arguing that the business model on which it was based was practical and successful in countless firms. Why, if businesses could plan and rank order priorities, should the government not do so?

This assumption notwithstanding and perhaps predictably given its pedigree, this initiative has encountered formidable obstacles during its implementation. This is so for many reasons. First, power is at issue. Congress mandated GPRA, and it is not clear that it is in the president's interest that agencies nominally under his purview set and pursue goals and objectives determined with congressional overseers. This difficulty is a consequence of separation of powers, but it is no less thorny for that. Second, many public programs pursue multiple aims that are not captured by wholesale optimization of efficiency, the criterion maximized by the management model underpinning GPRA. Many were not established to pursue efficiency at all. Third, numerous federal programs are implemented through other entities including states, non-profit organizations, and for-profit institutions. These do not necessarily concur with federal aims and goals, however clearly specified, even when working with national agencies. Indeed, that independence of perspective is part of the rationale for involving them in policy delivery. Fourth, many national programs are not aimed at producing a good or service. Indeed, some, like much regulation, for example, are devoted to preventing certain outcomes. Finally, many public programs address concerns whose outcomes are not easily measured. Education, for example, is only partly the province of teachers and schools. Much depends on a child's readiness and willingness to learn, and these are the result of a bewildering array of variables well beyond the school or teacher's purview. In sum, GPRA was based on a paradox—a powerful and widely accepted mythology that fits the American institutional and political framework poorly.