Obama pledges to fire managers, cut redundant programs

[The Straight Story]

Obama pledges to fire managers, cut redundant programs
By Tom Shoop September 22, 2008

To see where Obama and McCain stand on issues affecting federal employees, click here.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama fleshed out his government reform agenda in a campaign appearance Monday, promising to fire managers of poor-performing programs and appoint a White House "SWAT team" made up of government professionals to review programs for waste and inefficiency.

"I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it's there," Obama said during a campaign event in Green Bay, Wis.

Obama pledged to create a "high-performance team" to evaluate every federal agency and office. After such reviews, he said, "We will fire government managers who aren't getting results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money, and we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government -- because we cannot meet 21st century challenges with a 20th century bureaucracy."

Obama's campaign released a plan stating that "in many areas of the federal government there is too much Washington bureaucracy -- too many layers of managers, and too much paperwork that does not contribute to directly improving the lives of the American people. At the same time, there are too few workers on the front lines in local offices around the country."

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[davepc]

1. Nothing wrong with efficiency in goverment.