WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) -- Peter Orszag, head of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, promised Tuesday in a Washington speech to cut duplicate programs in the federal government.
Orszag told the Center for American Progress the key to eliminating redundancy is better government use of information technology. He said that until the late 1980s, productivity growth in the public sector matched that in the private sector but has dropped to about .4 percent a year while productivity in the private sector has grown by 1.5 percent annually.
As a result, he said, the government now has more than 110 programs in 14 departments and agencies to support education in math, science, engineering and technology, more than 100 to support youth mentoring in 13 agencies and 40 involving education and training in 11 departments. While major businesses have cut their number of data centers dramatically, the federal government now has 1,100, up from 432 in 1998.
"To be sure, reducing this waste will not close the significant budget gap we face," he said. "But that fact does not absolve us from the obligation we have to use funds wisely."
