Washington in brief

Overhaul government, commission concludes

WASHINGTON -- The federal government -- epitomized by a 1950s-style bureaucracy designed for clerks using typewriters -- is inadequate to serve and safeguard the country and should be reconstructed, a bipartisan commission said Tuesday.

Among the panel's recommendations: cut the number of federal departments, reduce the number of political appointees running those departments, raise pay for senior career civil servants and federal judges and make it easier for managers to hire and fire.

While complaints about government inefficiency are hardly new, the authors of the report said the one-two punch of terrorist attacks and economic anxiety underscores the need for an agile and effective government to safeguard everything from food supplies to financial markets.

"It's a catalyst for the kind of reform we're talking about. It is a moment of reform," said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota and member of the National Commission on the Public Service, a group set up by the Brookings Institution, a centrist Washington think tank, to seek ways to modernize a government last overhauled during the Eisenhower administration.

The commission, chaired by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, found a government operating under a management system set up for a simple, uniform work force but now confronting complex demands such as administering the Medicare system, regulating complex telecommunications and protecting the nation from terrorists.

Health care spending rises

WASHINGTON -- Americans' health care spending soared 8.7 percent in 2001, the biggest increase in a decade, as prices surged for everything from prescription drugs to hospital stays.

The nation's health care budget jumped to $1.4-trillion, up from $1.3-trillion in 2000. The numbers mean health care spending averaged $5,035 per person, according to the report issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. The report, done annually to examine private and public sector spending, appears in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs.

Also . . .

POSTAL SERVICE PROFIT HIGHER: Helped by a busy three-month period before Christmas, the Postal Service recorded a $1-billion profit in the first quarter of the fiscal year, topping expectations by $200-million, the agency said Tuesday.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright