Leaders in Government

Back-to-back assignments

On Wednesday at the National Press Club, Comptroller General David M. Walker told an audience of 120 senior agency executives that President Bush's budget represents "a very small step and a very modest down payment" in meeting the government's fiscal challenge. He and I agreed that the budget proposes nothing to address long-term shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare.

But on the discretionary side of the budget, Walker praised the administration's effort to link funding decisions to reviews of program performance, seeing this as a step toward the comprehensive "baseline" reexamination of all federal programs he believes is needed. Bush has suggested cutting 150 programs the Office of Management and Budget deems substandard.