Reinventing Tax Expenditure Reform: Improving Program Oversight Under the Government Performance and Results Act

Abstract

This Article examines the Government Performance and Results Act framework for performance-based management and oversight of federally-funded programs, describes emerging efforts to incorporate tax expenditures into the performance review process, and places these developments into context by evaluating past experiences with tax expenditure reform. Government-wide performance-based management reforms provide a promising executive branch mechanism for achieving more coordinated review of functionally related government programs, whether funded or implemented through direct expenditures, tax expenditures, or regulatory programs. However, as past experience illustrates (including, for example, experience with employment subsidies such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit and the Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit), significant institutional obstacles stand in the way of comprehensive reform. The Article ends with a discussion of the type of fundamental structural reforms that will be needed before meaningful legislative oversight of functionally related government programs can be achieved.