1. Eliminate at least half of all congressionally mandated reports. Congress should set a goal of eliminating at least half of all congressionally mandated reports. Agency heads should identify candidate reports that can be combined with others or eliminated altogether and supply adequate justification to Congress for that action. In the past, an essential factor in the elimination of reports has been the provision of convincing reasons. In 1988, the General Accounting Office concluded that inadequate justification of reports proposed for elimination significantly contributed to the failure of a 1986 congressional effort to reduce congressionally mandated reporting requirements. In that effort, Congress eliminated 71 percent of the reports whose elimination agencies had adequately justified. Elimination dropped to 10 percent when agencies did not provide adequate justification. As a result, only 23 reports were eliminated, out of a total of 240 recommended.(12) The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, has recently revisited this issue and is drafting legislation with bipartisan support to eliminate or modify unnecessary or outdated reporting requirements.
You can attach your comments to this document. If you enter your email address in the empty box below and click on the submit button, you will receive via email a form that allows you to link your views to the NPR hypertext.
Subscribe Unsubscribe No Action