A study of the U. S. Office of Management and Budget and Federal management reform

If there is anything which seems to characterize Federal government operations it is its propensity to do business as usual. There is always the promise of improvement, but the tendency for each administration is to mismanage and thereby add to the national debt. We know that the national debt is not trivial, as it has increased from $1 trillion to nearly $4 trillion in just over ten years. The various causes of the Government's inability to deal with such financial and administrative problems lurk somewhere within the smoke and mirrors of the complicated political system by which America governs itself. It is these last two functions which are the main focus of this study. Briefly, the Introduction, which is Chapter 1, discusses government information, information policy and analysis. Chapter 2 gets into cases of Federal mismanagement in order to show how pervasive and wasteful the current process is. Chapter 3 is about the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) background, operational environment and missions. Chapter 4 is an overview of OMB's budgetary, financial, regulatory and other concerns. Chapter 5 covers information resources management (IRM), and, in conclusion, Chapter 6 discusses OMB's general management status and the proposal to establish a Federal management office apart from OMB.