What is the Grace Commission? Bi-Partisan Letter to President Biden

A grace commission is something that was used during the Regan Era to minimize waste and lost money. Collaboration among government stakeholders in a bi-partisan manner sends a signal to both sides that there is an opportunity to collaborate to help ensure the budget is effective (That isn't a judgement at all as to which budgets as I haven't dug through the budget proposals in detail to make an educated conclusions).

The bipartisan call is to create an oversight committee to catch and remove waste. The process is being led by Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) and Rep. Ed Case (D-HI) and has 34 members of support from Congress members. It also has a number of political advocacy groups that are concerned about government spending support it.

When I look at a budget commission I would think of effectiveness and outcome. According to a study of on Collaborative Cost-Cutting: Productive Efficiency and Interdependency between Public Organizations it appears that there is effectiveness in cutting costs and a risk of confrontation from multi-stakeholder perceptions (That is what I see out of it!)(Elston, MacCarthaigh & Verhoest, 2018).

It appears that such a commission could be effective but it would be helpful if bi-partisan members maintain defined objectives as they relate to reducing costs, improving efficiency, and/or improving effectiveness (Will take some work to get the ground rules set). When the goals and objectives are clear participants have a shared sense of purpose and direction of the efforts.

What you don't want to happen is have a commission set on arguing about every little detail of the budget in order to delay and bog it down (That isn't support for/against/indifferent to any current budgets). Partisan politics detracts from the effectiveness of our government and outcomes are poor and the nation's resources are wasted. What I'm saying is that the members should be chosen wisely and should focus on creating a cost effective budget that wisely spends taxpayer money. 

Is it possible they can work together? 🤔(Not thinking of theoretically possible but can they actually do it to put the needs of the nation and the next generation first?)

Thomas Elston, Muiris MacCarthaigh & Koen Verhoest (2018) Collaborative cost-cutting: productive efficiency as an interdependency between public organizations, Public Management Review, 20:12, 1815-1835, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2018.1438498

Grace Commission Congressman Rep. Jack Bergman & Rep. Ed Case