Transcripts For CSPAN Reorganizing Government 20170815

I am taking a risk. Where debating the 2018 budget. They are requesting billions of dollars for Immigration Enforcement as well as building a wall. Good morning. Welcome to the Heritage Foundation. We welcome those who rejoin us on the website. For those inhouse, we ask mobile devices be silenced or turned off as we prepared to begin. For those watching online it, you are welcome to send questions and comments. Eating our discussion this theing is dr. Mo house and, Research Analysis chairman. He testifies frequently before congress about federal programs. His commentary and analysis has publications in and he appears on National Television as well. Scientificallys rigorous National Studies and unanimously finds it that are all programs fail to solve the problems they were designed to address. He serves as a professor at George Mason University where he teaches program evaluation. Please join me in welcoming david. [applause] good morning and welcome. Online, we areu organizing the federal government that to be done and how to do it. Have panelists with extensive experience in the workings of the federal government. Is a Research Fellow in. Conomics she is leading the Heritage Foundation reorganization project, that is the subject of todays events. She was a senior economist from the staff of the joint economic committee. Donald is the senior scholar at the fund for americans dollars. The served as Ronald Reagans civilservice direct your. During that time, the Washington Post labeled him reagans swift sword. Excesses andcratic reduced billions in spending. To new book is a guide reforming. You can purchase this online. I look forward to reading it. Robert, a principal at the center. Communications and is a member of the performance transition team. He was appointed to the commission in policymaking. Previously, he was associate director for administration and government performance at the office of management and budget are in budget. Administered the Program Rating tool. For thed as Counsel Committee on government affairs. Pleasure to be here today. I am working on production of our blueprints for reform. We begin with the blueprint for balance. The blue plant for reform and new administration, we will put in a plug at the beginning. The blueprint for balance was the first one. We spelled out 100 different recommendations that lead to 10 trillion lesson federal spending. Is a lot of here those recommendations we included in the blueprint are part of the blueprint for reorganization. We set aside the pathways you can have reforms. We noted if the president has the authority for what would need to be done. That would need to take ways to implement the recommendations weve presented here. In annualillion spending and 19 trillion in public debt and 22 different cabinet level agencys, americans are in need of a government wide reorganization. Our government does few bounds. We did the government to focus on core constitutional responsibilities. We need a government that is looking out for the interest of everybody. Providinge that is Efficient Services with accountability attached to it. In his blueprint, the first one is focused on the analysis of federal departments. We have 100 different recommendations. I will give you examples of those. I wanted to clarify that not everything in here is something that the executive department has the authority to take on. Require the things will buyin from congress. Our second edition of the blueprint specifies what the executive can do already, what changes can be made and what things will need congressional buyin. We also look at some cost cutting issues. In the second one, we look at reforms like modernizing changes to personal policy. Our 110 recommendations we include, i will start with eliminating coal departments, such as the federal Housing Administration and the Financing Agency and the Consumer Financial protection bureau. There are often some Core Functions we would hold an transfer them to a more appropriate department or agency. There are some functions we consider nonfederal should he transferred to state and local government, such as low income housing. Stated local governments have utter knowledge of their own local communities and more are providing services. We have departments and services we recommend eliminating. That the ahaz the two different offices the v. A. Has 42 different offices. These things have been a bureaucratic nightmare for veterans. To fored one shop to go all of their needs instead of 42 different offices, taking documentation from one office to another. Without shutting down entire agencies, we recommend closing some offices like the department of educations 24 field offices. We did not have the net in the Tech Knowledge he we do today. Technology we do today. These offices are no longer necessary today. We recommend streamlining functions within agencies. The department of justice as four separate criminal divisions. They haveated their criminal Section Group in the division itself. Cases, programs like efficiency because they are in the wrong agency. We recommend things like moving the food and Nutrition Services from the department of agriculture into the health and Human Services with other for takinggrams programs out of education and putting them in treasury, treasury has the information they need and they are distributing the funds. What we dont recommend our cuts to defend spending. Irs s room to optimize highest priority luncheons first. Excessested eliminating infrastructure that is costly to maintain. We dont take the department of defense should be spending money on nondefense programs like Ovarian Cancer research. The programs benefit a select few instead of working across all americans. Thats why we recommend asminating programs, such community services, public broadcasting, the arts and humanities, the import export bank, minority business development. Aboutency isnt just rightsizing the government and eliminating and moving programs around. Its making sure the government is doing its job through oversight and accountability. Toulation should be subject meaningful review. We also recommend evidence based on policymaking. We do have places where there are plenty of accountability programs, such as the v. A. There are 31 different programs there and yet they are scattered. If you put them into one place, you are better serving veterans and taxpayers. Finally, because personal has such impact on efficiency and accountability, we recommend abroad package of reform to a prove improve accountability and let managers do their jobs. We also want to bring compensation in line with the private sector, so the government is in a more Competitive Position to retain the best workers. With that, i am going to hand it over to don. Donald devine. I am the serious part of the program. The first thing i want to say is i very much recommend both of these books. The cost cutting one is just super, one of the best things i ever look that. Background. Emic in some crazy way after the 1980 president reagan called me up and said got a job for you. It was head of the office of Personnel Management. Job for ad of a funny libertarian conservative like me, running the bureaucracy. He said ive got a good sense of humor. Backid i want you to cut 100,000 nondefense employees, i want you to reduce their loaded benefits and make them work harder. Just run the harry truman said about doing a tough job in washington, in either washington when youre doing a tough job. I bought two dogs to be on the safe side. The crazy thing is we did do it. Nobody thought this was possible, to reform government. We did reduce 100,000 nondefense employees. They tried to hide it. No conservative wants to know that, but we did it. We cut bloated benefits. A x my enemy said ice billion dollars, which in todays money is 60 billion. We made them work harder. It was a miracle. It happened. Introduction by me reaganscall terrible swift sword. That was one of the nicest things they said about me. Rasputin ofme the the reduction in force. Thats what we called getting rid of people. We werent clever. We did the first ones at christmas, not a good time to do this in terms of public relations. Times did a big mery on me, calling rasputin. Suitrinch in the pinstripe , trying to celebrate christmas. We did that. Nobody i am a professor, nobody cares about that. All they care about is that i knew Ronald Reagan and what a guy he was. What did i learn in this . The book was mentioned. Nothing has changed very much. Thats a book i wrote almost 40 years ago. Publisher and said this is still pretty much all true, why dont you republish it. Things havent changed. All the reforms we did are gone. Most of them were gone by the next administration, a republican ministration. Administration. Government today simply doesnt work. Dont take it from a libertarian conservative like me. Lets take it from a professor of public relations, many serious reviews with congressional background. The government doesnt work anymore. It cant execute its laws. Thats a basic fact. He says there are 60 levels between the secretary that set the policy and doing something on the street. Its impossible to runs such an organization unless you have some measurements. Sciences saidal they dont have one in government. In the private sector, you can have 60 levels, although they have learned cant do that. There is no private company that does that anymore. They did it back in the 30s. You can go down even 60 levels and say is that making a profit or not . If it does, you keep it. In the government, you go down the 60 levels and if they are failing, you spend more money on it. The whole thing in the Public Sector is different than the private sector. How did we get his thing . The biggest revolutionary in American History is a guy named Woodrow Wilson who said that what we have do is bring all in the center and we can run everything with the experts. Phd whenad to read his i went to graduate school. He went over to prussia, why does it work . All power is centered in the government and was chancellor says we do it, we do it. He wrote a book. The problem with American Government is it divides power rather than bringing power together to do good. System, a retirement its got an educational system, its got a welfare state. Weve got none of that in america at the national level. He comes back, he convinces the intellectuals thats the problem. It, thelem is dividing solution is bringing it together. He starts the American Society or administration. He changes the intellectual opinion from saying that divided the power is good and bring it dividing is good in bringing together is good. Every president since then except my boss bought into that very. Thiss why we cant run government. Itts why we cant run it or run it. The only thing we can do is decentralize it back to the way the founders created. Ronald reagan said the secret to the success of america is federalism. Contributioncas to the history of freedom. Ive got a solution. Rather than relying on all these institutions and having an ,ffice of management and budget ive got a simple solution. The first book i mentioned was this cross cutting thing. The other thing divides up the agencies and departments and goes down each one. Ive got a simple answer. Just send these out to the agencies. Tell them to do it. If you dont like it, have a good reason. These are serious recommendations they have given. Normalet this to the process of omb. Robert is a big exception here. If you just turn it over to the careerists at omb, this will go on for years. Dumbll come out with some thing. What we should do is go back and reinvent cabinet government. Turned to the agencies. Thats their job. You guys did it here in thats the solution. Thats what i have to say. Could edit with just a couple of bullets. Talk to me later if you want me to take out what i disagree with. That thetainly true government has proliferated to such a degree that it could not accomplish what we ask it to do. With a lot ofo it restrictions on the management of people, money, systems, contracts that make it almost impossible to get the job done. Someone who is getting something done in government, that is a true talent. It is also true that the only thing we have close to Eternal Life Fund government is government program. To repeal orficult eliminate the program. Work,s work, rachels evaluating programs. Logicalthink the conclusion is to eliminate everything that isnt effective. Programs not having their intended impact. There is enormous room for improvement. Every president until the 80s had the authority to reorganize the government. I think its high time we reempower administrations with that authority. It is so hard to do it otherwise. Congress, at least from the oversight committee, is supportive of this authority, where you trip up is in authorizing committees and the appropriations committees. Power,ve jurisdiction money assigned with specific agencies under their jurisdictions. What tends to drive reorganization is crisis. The most recent example of that is the establishment of the department of Homeland Security. Could it be strengthened if we consolidated the programs responsible for securing the homeland. That was fought until 9 11. Youll will recall immediately workers11, contract could not adequately secure airlines, airplanes. Commercial travel. Fairly soon thereafter, we created the department of Homeland Security, bringing all of these entities together. It is true that terrorist attacks on american soil have then, im note sure we can measurably say our security has been strengthened because of the chaos the department creates. There has been an enormous struggle to combine these cohesive, well honed organization. In giving the president the authority to do Something Like that is trust. Congress would need to trust the executive to use that authority responsibly. We have not had that kind of trusting relationship and a long time. Congress in the 90s passed a law called me government performance and results act. That was my first job, to oversee implementation of that. Damn aboutly gave a it. Whom wee people for need to drive Government Agencies to think more about out come. Its too easy to come to work and satisfy yourself with just producing inputs or wants. Outputs. Measure whether that has an impact on the ultimate out come, you wont know if what youre doing has a public positive outcome. Struggled tos identify the out, they are trying to outcome they are trying to establish. That,has written about getting insight into whether we out comesng important and if the programs are having the intended impact. Theyose evaluations show are effective, the vast majority of programs and the federal government are not the subject of that sort of evaluation at all. During the Bush Administration, the focus on outcomes was not we devised a rating tool, a set of 25 questions that asks of each program, is its purpose clear and is it well designed to achieve its objectives, does it have shortspace and longterm objectives, is it wellmanaged and is the program achieving its results . Established the tool because we wanted to have some bases with which to allocate funding. And we insisted through this tool that agencies and programs would begin a process of subjecting their programs to these of valuations. It was the beginning what we call the evidence agenda and led to the commission on evidencebased policy making that i am involved in today. I have to admit we did not make a lot of progress integrating this data into the budget decisionmaking process. Policymakers do not have a huge appetite for listening to evidence when figuring out how to make funding decision is. There is a lot of those decisions that are highly political, so there is room for improvement, i would say, a matter of understatement, in making more and more of our budget decisions and other policy decisions based on the evidence. Far as reorganizations are concerned, we were able to say among the government programs, these are the ones that share a similar mission, these are the common or conflicting measures of performance. And one area we decided to do a deep dive in was in the Economic Development. There are dozens of programs throughout the government that blightended to address in our cities, to improve the Economic Conditions of the communities across government. We proposed to take all of those programs and consolidate them into the economic element administration at the department of commerce, because many of the programs were found to be ineffective. It was hard to get an ineffective rating with this tool. Because the community and economic developer program, the biggest of those programs was found to be ineffective, and moved that into the economic element administration which we thought was more results oriented. While the overall effect was lower, we thought moving them to entityoutcomeoriented would mean you can get more with less. Well, there were people who disagreed with the president s proposal. Oftin omalley, as result this great proposal that i had recommended, called the president the Osama Bin Laden of american cities. That was a highlight not a highlight of my political career. But it just goes to show you the entrenched interests need to be considered when you are developing and trying to enact these kinds of proposals. So if i step back, i would say the lessons that i take from my combined experience in driving these kinds of initiatives are leadership. Wasof the advantages i had my boss was the president s best friend, and that can clear out a lot of political underbrush if you are trying to advance these kinds of initiatives. That is willing to invest the time and energy and intellectual and Political Capital to get these kinds of initiatives done is absolutely critical, because it lower at lower levels you will not have the just to get it done. Collaboration internally, elaboration was very rough because agencies are not enthusiastic about giving up programs, funding, power to another but you can get it done. It is easier to get it done within the executive branch than outside. If you do not plow ground on that killed and among other stakeholders, it will be difficult to get these things and exit, especially in the absence of a crisis like 9 11. Collaboration was your broad set of stakeholders, executive, legislative branches, and externally, absolutely critical, but difficult. Perseverance. There are many bytes of the unwilling if you are to keep going at it, then you are not likely to make progress over time, because there is so many things, it is so much easier to kill things in washington than it is to get things done, but perseverance is a quality that is essential as well. And an followthrough. Just because he passed a law creating Homeland Security does not make the home and more secure. Just because you consolidate programs in the Economic Development at the department of commerce, that is the beginning of the journey. You need to make sure that these are consolidated into entities, assume a single or single culture, and that your measuring focus over time to make sure that what you are trying to do is actually working. Gao has given us an incredible roadmap in their annual inventory of overlap and duplication across government. They will tell you that consolidations of programs is not always the right answer. There is a lot of room for improved collaboration across government with programs and agencies with similar missions, and that is true, that i will say consolidation can give you an enormous degree of efficiency and improve the focus on missions for those consolidation. Reiterate i amto delighted to be up here with my fellow panelists, and thank heritage for such a great subject on a wet august afternoon. Thank you for attending. We will move toward a questionandanswer period. I need a nickname, that is one thing i have learned by being on this panel. Going toausen we are take questions, and if you would step up to the podium and pose your question, it will be greatly appreciated. If you could say your name and organization you are affiliated with, we would appreciate it too. Im the founder of the center for accelerating innovation, a former staffer in the next and administration. Worked for reagan at the commerce department. I had the opportunity after school to work with roy ash, and that was the last major attempt by an administration to do a governmentwide type of reorganization. One of the proposals some of the proposals that went through omb, but there were also proposals to eliminate eight cap innate cabinet agencies. I have two questions. These proposals for the cabinet reorganization were not very successful primarily because of the way congress is organized. The structural nature of congress is committees, subcommittees, and special interest, Iron Triangle relationships, etc. Make it very difficult to move any of these reorganizations through the congress. So one question i have is whether there really ought to be a commission on reorganizing , because even agencies like the department of Homeland Security are properly probably reported 15 different agencies. It is also fragmented regardless of the wonderful name that is over it. Secondly, i am wondering whether a commission that was set up in order to close down defense facilities, which was successful in closing down 40 or 45 of mightmilitary facilities, be an approach. I understand the id of the Reorganization Authority for the president , chatting makes a lot of sense, but im not sure that that would be the test pathway forward, and it seems to me we have a good example with the successful example of the defense Realignment Commission in which the congress had to take an up or down vote on the proposals within a certain number of days. My question is, what about reorganizing congress . Secondly, what about strategies for implementing the reorganization . Thank you. I think both of those are great ideas. The former will be way less popular than the latter, because i think congress will be loath to give authority to its own organization to someone else. But it is a major barrier to collaboration, consolidation of like programs. Brilliant,idea is because i actually wrote a bill for george w. Bush that did just that, model on the breck rac commission, where you would submit a proposal that was considered under expedited or seizures by the congress, the theory being the only way you could get around these are sexual issues. Right now the oversight issues. Es these it will be nonetheless difficult get around many of these authorizing committees will be reluctant to relate relinquish that kind of decisionmaking to a broad oversight i can type committee. We will see. In february with the president s budget, you will have some of the most ambitious reorganizations proposed in a long time submitted to congress. I do not think congress is prepared for those of us there is a lot on its plate. What kind ofe just Progress Congress can make on this kinds of things about that kind of authority, but i agree with you, in the absence of it, im not optimistic there will be a lot of progress. Let me mention on Congress Something robert was involved in. The best thing that happened in my area of Personnel Management in living memory at least since jimmy carters civilService Reform act, which i was so lucky to walk into and get all the was this what you call . The National Security mr. Shea personnel system. Mr. Devine personnel system. His guyscle, he and got this thing through congress. Andas in the wake of 9 11, it was to have a real personnel system again of evaluating peoples performance and giving them pay based on their performance. And the reaction to 9 11, what they did at the department of ense and Homeland Security that is half the government, the civilian government, really. Oh, boy, had this great thing gone through congress, well, a couple years later under the obama administration, it is out. The unions did not like it and voted out by congress. It is so rare to get congress to do something so brave like that, in the same thing happen with carters civilService Reform act. They started niggling away at it right from the day it took effect. It was mye and maybe fault. We do not get along too well with congress. But you mentioned ash, and i get s one of the greatest stories about government management. I always tell it. He was giving a speech and he was chairman of intel or the president of intel before he went into the government whatever it was. And he is talking to these chief executives in the youate sector, and he says, have to understand the government is so different from your private sector. He said, what would you do if your board of directors had on it your union leaders, your inosing businesses you are competition with you are bureaucracywith, a you cannot fire, and he goes to seven or eight things, and says, would you run your business different . Of course, in the government we have, and during most of his time, congress, which is your board of directors, was controlled by the yellow party the other party. But even if it is your own party, as we find out, it is very difficult to get things done. He made a wonderful analogy. He said, going from the private sector into government is not likely going from the minor leaks to the major leagues in baseball. Goinge going from from softball to ice hockey. It is a whole different kind of ballgame, and it has got to operate by different principles. And jimmy carter, god bless them, actually the guy was my former professor who came into rewrite the Civil Service reform, 1976, but all the right performance to give the appointees,olitical the ability to run the government. If you want to know how to go at it, you can go back, read my book. A guy named scallop scotty campbell, alan campbell, a professor, devised a whole way to do it. The problem is once you put them in, it is so hard to get them done, and most of the problem is congress. Dr. Muhlhausen next, please. Hi. Nine years ago i read the backgrounder for the Heritage Foundation for federal funds to states. I think the number is 2136. But am going to throw a bill wrench intot of a this. I think you are going about this the wrong way. Let me take a special program. The federal government takes money out of my paycheck. The of treasury sends it to the department of agriculture. The department of agriculture sends it to the food and Nutrition Service. The food and Nutrition Service sends it back to wyoming, where i live, its then sends the money down to Laramie County School District one, which sends it to the East High School so my daughter can have milk with her lunch. I could take money out of my pocket and give to her in the morning, but we have to go through this loop chocolate milk. Or coke or something. I know, i know. I want to thank Donald Devine for your service to the reagan administration. Todays money is a lot, but the federal desk is about 10 times as big. Theif we could rehash purpose of the federal government and rein it in to only deal with federal matters and not with state matters, i think you would see some major opportunities for reorganizing federal government. Thank you. Dr. Muhlhausen i think this question is very good because if you look at the first blueprint for reorganization report, theres a consistent thing that calling for a downsizing or do notting agencies perform a core constitutional response ability of the federal government. While the idea has permeated throughout, but the idea one of the things we need to do when we are rethinking the executive branch and how should it be structured was what activities should the federal government do that it is uniquely situated to do. Today the federal government has its hands in every state and local matter, and it is too bersome for the federal government to administer these programs effectively. Not recall ao single point at which that question was asked. Was how much more or less a program would get, maybe shouldnt persist, but not because of federalism issues. Expect dont this a dramatic change in the missions of the agencies, i do think just a subtle introduction of that question in the could makeg process major positive improvements in certain areas. Butnot sure what those are, if you simply ask him is this an appropriate role for the federal government . That was one of the questions that was in the draft of the Program Assessment rating tool that we designed, but we political, so too it was removed. Asking that question more and more i think would be really useful. Thingvine i will add one i do not make my point very clearly. My whole point was federalism is the answer. We are doing too much. I will tell you some thing that is going to happen as certain as we are sitting in this room. And why the real smart progressives, biggovernment people are so word. The entitlements are going to eat up Discretionary Spending of the federal government, period. And clearly you cannot even raise the issue or you are hating old people or whatever. And it is happening already. Entitlements are growing more and more, and we are going to have to cut these things. The opportunity is when this is having happening, and it is happening, and it is going to accelerate dramatically until i am too old to be around, but most of this audience looks like they can. You are going to have to make these kinds of decisions. There recently not enough money possible to be raised by the federal government to pay for the entitlements and to do this. It is a marvelous opportunity to change the nature of government, and it is going to happen whether Congress Wants it, whether people want it, or anything. Table, looktraight at actual or real data. That is what is going to happen. Dr. Muhlhausen next, please. Hi. I work for a legislative exchange council. On board for the federalism as the total solution. I want to bring it back to several to federal Civil Service reforms that affect all the state having to deal with federal agencies. We have more than a century of Civil Service protection. It is nearly impossible, as mr. Devine pointed out, to fire career Civil Service. People who make decisions without democratic accountability. And the political officials elected by the people have to land like it is omaha beach into entrenched your actresses that have their decision about how to make government decisions. I recognize what you are saying about the fact that it has gone back and forth, and any advance has been rolled back bank congress. Ifas wondering, mr. Devine, you had special regulations. Would you go back to the carter reform . What would be your recommendations by which Civil Servants are hired and fired . Mr. Devine there are two theories of Public Administration. One is that experts run everything theory. The Administrative State goes back to wilson and to max weber, and that is the theory we have been running it on pretty much since, especially franklin roosevelt. The other is cabinet or political government. Cartersis what jimmy civil soros Service Reform act was about, which was give political appointees power over the bureaucracy, and brewers he expertiseof good out there, but you cannot just let them run around wherever the want. They have to have somebody that implement the ideas of the new administration and how it is supposed to act, whether liberal or conservative. And it is important. This civilne who put Service Reform act. Literally, they were working day out, working it out, all the bugs, and i am given a new Civil Service and my opinion and a lot of people who work for four or five years, even with congress putting in appropriation riders, eliminating what part or the other of it. O there is a model to use you put the political appointees in charge of the agencies. Or the system that is put in the Bush Administration for National Security personnel system. Solid plan. I do not think the problem is the plans. With this is implemented, first with a president , which means you have to focus on making political appointees throughout the government, and a congress who will give you a little rome to room to operate for a well. This are the secrets of Civil Service reform in my opinion. A backgrounder that talks about condensation reforms, and has to do with the ability to hire and fire properly. In the socalled performance Rating System we have, whereby allegedly employees are given raises based on their performance, that you have 99. 6 percent of federal employees receiving their increase every year, so this is not truly a performance typists performancebased system. The thing you can do to give managers more ability to manage the workforce they need, on the front end, instead of having a oneyear missionary per probationary period, you could change that to three years. And managers, they want to give an employee any less than a fully successful rating, a have to institute a Performance Improvement program. It is a long process. It takes a lot of their time. You cannot do that after other jobs. In talking to federal managers, they do not do this. Oft is why you have 99. 6 employees rated fully successful because they do not want to implement that plan. What you can do is only implement a performanceimprovement plan for ee you want to fire. This is because they can go through three different venues of appeals process along the way. You need to reduce that and give them one option. They can take which appeal process they want to go through with. Mr. Shea i fully endorse all that. I want to emphasize the severity of this issue. It is the central issue that impacts the ability of the federal government to congress its mission. We cannot recruit and retain a qualified workforce to do what were asking the government to do. We recruit from a half a dozen Public Administration schools across the country. In a few weeks i will fly out to na. University of india i will interview a dozen candidates. In the taxi ride to the airport, brief my colleagues on the halfdozen so people i will offer two. Those kids will have a job within 24 hours of being interviewed by my firm. The government cannot compete with that. I suggest that is where we want to get to, but we need to improve the hiring process. Too manyals process, 5t avenues for people to complain about adverse actions that they are suffering from. It means that managers are loath to begin a discussion of holding employs a couple. It means in whatever facet of government operation youre talking about, we do not have a workforce well equipped to do what we are asking it to do. In my view, reorganization is no more important priority than Civil Service reform. Just tone i would say corn,s, not to blow her horn, her corn, her her chapter in the book is super fantastic. Dr. Muhlhausen any other questions . Hi, i am an air force legislative fellow. You mentioned a crisis could be a cannot to facilitate change in government structure. What do you see the crisis being in the future divorce that reorganization . Is it an extra factor, like china, north korea, or something internal like a budget crisis or the National Debt . Mr. Devine i gave my opinion. I think it is the debt. It is the only thing that will force of course, a National Security crisis could also, but pretty hard to protect ms. Greszler if youre talking about the reorganization, the crisis will force this. Mr. Shea but a bridge will comparable kabul, a playmobil fall from the sky, a bridge will crumble, a plane will fall from the sky, all of that will bring attention to overlap or duplication that is impeding performance. It is hard to predict where that will fall. Dr. Muhlhausen next . Mentioned the riffs on christmas, and we talked about the importance of engaging the stakeholders and uyin from different groups. To what extent this administration goes through its reorganization process and the proposal that will be put forth to congress and what it can do internally, is it important to include the Civil Service itself in that buyin . Is a critical that the federal employees who are possibly going to be subject to these changes are themselves included in the witherations and onboard some of the proposals that are going to be put forward . Mr. Shea yes, it is critical, there are the collaboration with congress is critical. If congress is not repaired to take the legislation needed to a congress these reorganizations, they will not happen. That is a real cap in the initiative to reorganizing government. If you reorganize the government or if you try to reorganize the the civilian workforce is essential to your progress and ultimate success. Existingting with the Civil Service can be accomplished directly or through the employee unions. In my experience, with a republican administration, the federal employee unions for the most part are unwilling to even take a seat at the table. And that is from my experience trying to engage them. They will tell you that we did not engage in Civil Service pretty but we tried diligently to engage them, and they were unwilling to do that and fought us tooth and nail throughout the entire process. So whether you are able to engage them through their unions or directly, engaging them is essential. Does that answer your question . I should probably just keep quiet mr. Shea unlikely. Yeah, in theory, you should, all right . And interestingly, jimmy uy, real smart democrat. He was my professor at syracuse university. Democratic state central committee, new politics. He came up with the right ideas to reform government. He met with the unions to the process, but he did not really open everything up to them. He got the things through, got the approval for all the executive branch. The president signs off on it. They take it up to capitol hill. They won. The unions come out, said, we are not going to do this. We are not going to have a suitable we do not have a Civil Service system. We have two systems working on top of each other in the federal government. We have a Civil Service system that works up to approvals to the merit system protection board, and we have a Union Collective bargaining system that goes up to the federal Labor Relations board. Was there,decessor he just had one. The unions is the whole second part. That is why there are so many delays, because we have two systems working on top of each other. This does not make any sense. I am not answering your question, but it explains difficulty in doing that. Dr. Muhlhausen i would like to thank everybodys time inconvenience. Robert, andank don, rachel for attending, and thank you all for attending as well. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you can watch this event today and all programs we have covered previously by going to our website, www. Cspan. Org. The lobby of trump tower, where President Trump is spending his first full day in seven months. Yes several meetings today, including one on infrastructure. The white house says he will make a statement after the meeting at 3 45 p. M. In the lobby, and we will have live coverage. Politico reporting california has become the first state to sue the Trump Administration over its anticentury citys policy. Their attorney general said the state suit argues the Justice Department is violating the constitution by trying to implement a new policy that would deny grants to jurisdictions that failed to get immigration authorities access to local jails or fail to get immigration officials 48 hours notice on the release of prisoners being sought on immigration charges. We abide by federal law. E respect the constitution the federal government should do the same. The federal government is using the extent of its power, to believe local jurisdictions to do what they want. California is joining two localities suing over the policy change. The Trump Administration announced last month. Chicago and san francisco. The suit says the administration lacks the authority to add conditions to federal grants. The content the new policy amounts to a coercion intended to press local Law Enforcement into acting at the direction of federal officials. You can read more at politico. C om. Was, intel said it cal leaving the President Trumps manufacturing council. Post, he said the decline in American Manufacturing remains a serious issue. He said that politics and political agendas have sidelined the Important Mission of rebuilding americas manufacturing base. I resigned to call attention to the serious harm are divided toitical climate is causing political issues, including the need to address the decline of american and affection. Post, and a blog politics and political agendas have sidelined the Important Mission of rebuilding americas manufacturing base. This follows the resignation of two others over the last few days. President trump responding this morning in a tweet. Every ceo that drops out of the manufacturing council, have any to take their place. Grand standards should not have gone on. Jobs. We will be back at trump tower at 3 45 as the president makes a statement following a meeting on infrastructure. This week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan tonight the future of the internet. Interim a white house chief digital officer. Were talking about platforms provide information to people similar to what they already think. You showing keep conservative content. Facebook said i will show you you things from people you know and i will show you content from pages you like. When you start clicking on those things, i will figure out whose content you like and keep showing you more of that. Ok had not done that, we would not be having this conversation because they would not have grown to the extent which they have today. Wednesday, on the changing role of cities. This is a transition period, and i think cities will play a major role. I see the cities and the way cities can change representative democracies, i see cities as a Great Machine to change what is going on. Thursday, a look at the opioid academic epidemic, including the Ohio Attorney general who is suing companies. What is different about this problem that we have is how pervasive it is. It is absolutely everywhere. It is in our smallest communities. It is in our cities. It is in our most affluent suburbs. Friday, a conversation with Supreme Court Justice Elena kagan. Justice kagan you said we are we areure democracy, a constitutional democracy, and a means to judiciary as an Important Role to play in policing the boundaries of the other branches. That can make the judiciary and unpopular set of people, when they say to a governor or a president or a congress, no, you cannot do that because it is not within your constitutional powers. Watched this week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan and www. Cspan. Org, and listen using the free cspan radio