The state of California faces a $42 billion budget deficit, and a writer for the Sacramento Bee suggests that the solution is performance-based budgeting. In other words, set “clear and measurable goals and objectives” for each government program and “hold managers accountable” to those goals.
Sounds like a great idea . . . except the federal government already tried it and it didn’t work. In 1993, Congress passed the Government Performance Results Act (GPRA). In essence, GPRA directed every federal agency to set “results-oriented goals” and then to write annual reports revealing how well they met those goals. The only practical effect of this law is to add to the red tape that agency officials must deal with every year.
