David M.
Walker
U.S. General Accounting Office
9/11: The Implications for
Public-Sector Management
On September 11, 2001, terrorist-related events in New
York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania profoundly
changed the United States and much of the world. Even as
the nation reacted to these events and dealt with their con-
sequences, the tragedy highlighted significant and poten-
tially long-lasting problems related to American gover-
nance, public services, and fiscal challenges. In fact, the
tragedy of 9/11 not only serves as a warning to Americans
about our vulnerability to terrorism, it also reminds us that
the fundamental challenges already facing our government
and society are made more complicated by rapidly chang-
ing circumstances and unexpected events such as 9/11.
In recent years, the U.S. General Accounting Office
(GAO) has conducted a number of studies and made nu-
merous recommendations designed to help the United
States combat terrorism and strengthen our homeland se-
curity. Through both the GAOs strategic plan and reports
to Congress, we have outlined a number of broad themes
and specific actions designed to guide policy makers con-
cerned with securing our country. While few could have
reasonably anticipated the specific events that unfolded
on 9/11, the GAOs work has often demonstrated the need
for government and other stakeholders to look forward
and across organizational and geographical boundaries
to recognize the long-range implications of certain key
themes and important challenges. Just as decisions being
made now to better protect our nation can help to
strengthen homeland security in the future, efforts to fo-
cus on other key issues can help to improve our nations
economic security and the quality of life of Americans in
the coming decades.
In this regard, we must begin to come to grips with the
long-term fiscal challenges of caring for a growing elderly
population and rising health care costs while also adapting
our countrys policies to a society and an economy that are
increasingly global in nature, connected by new technolo-
gies, and fueled by knowledge-based industries.
Homeland Security
Since the attacks of September 11th, the nation has
united and worked to strengthen and better coordinate pre-
94 Public Administration Review September 2002, Vol. 62, Special Issue
paredness efforts among federal, state, and local agencies,
as well as among private businesses, community groups,
and individual citizens. Our challenge now is to build on
this commitment and to further improve preparedness in a
manner the United States can sustain for years to come.
It is critical that we have strong and sustained leader-
ship to provide effective security to our nation. President
Bush took a number of important steps in the aftermath of
the terrorist attacks to strengthen the countrys homeland
security efforts, including the creation of an Office of
Homeland Security. More recently, the president also pro-
posed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security
to consolidate and integrate a number of homeland-secu-
rity-related operations within numerous federal agencies,
including the Coast Guard, Customs Service, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, portions of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Immigration
and Naturalization Service. As focal points for homeland
security planning, coordination, and operations, the cre-
ation of both the Office of Homeland Security and the pro-
posed Department of Homeland Security is generally con-
sistent with a number of prior GAO recommendations to
statutorily consolidate several homeland security func-
tions.1 The GAO has consistently recommended that home-
land security tasks must extend beyond personal relation-
ships and particular administrations, and that coordination
and information sharing must be institutionalized to be
effective over the long term. Furthermore, providing a statu-
tory basis for major homeland security functions allows
for more effective congressional oversight and input.
The creation of a new cabinet department for homeland
security promises to be the largest restructuring of federal
agencies since the 1947 reorganization of the nations major
defense and intelligence operations. While such a reorga-
nization is a positive step, the specific agencies the presi-
dent has proposed be consolidated requires careful con-
sideration of many important issues. These issues include
which agencies should be transferred to the Department of
Homeland Security, how consolidated agencies should fit
David M. Walker is comptroller general of the United States and head of the
U.S. General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
together, the impact of such a department on non-home-
land-security missions, and how the new structure can be
effectively implemented in a timely fashion. This means
that a range of organizational, human capital, process, tech-
nology, and environmental issues and differences must be
sorted out at the same time the new department must con-
tinue efforts to sustain our homeland security readiness.
In addition to developing new centralized homeland
security structures, the United States has enacted new laws,
including authorities that strengthen the efforts of law en-
forcement and intelligence agencies to gather and share
evidence, detain and deport foreign terrorists, and prevent
foreign terrorists from entering the country. Weve also
created a new Transportation Security Administration
(which is included in the presidents Department of Home-
land Security proposal) to improve security in public trans-
portation, including aviation and rail, and weve taken steps
to help the nations air carriers that were adversely affected
by the events of 9/11.
Similarly, state and local governments have increased
their national preparedness activities. A close working re-
lationship among local and federal law enforcement agen-
cies that includes sharing intelligence on potential threats
is clearly necessary to expand and strengthen the nations
overall ability to prevent and respond to terrorism.
The government has also been taking steps to better in-
volve the private and nonprofit sectors and individuals in
homeland security efforts. This is important because a sig-
nificant majority of this nations critical infrastructure is
owned and operated by private-sector entities.
Other Actions and Resources
Although much has been done already in the aftermath
of September 11th to strengthen our ability to fight terror-
ism and to better protect our nation, Americans recognize
the governments efforts to date are just the start of a nec-
essary but long-term and costly endeavor at the federal,
state, and local levels. In recent years, the GAO has made
a number of recommendations that are important to
strengthening homeland security. The GAOs work in col-
laboration and information sharing, cybersecurity, airport
security, critical infrastructure protection (such as ports,
bridges, and nuclear facilities), chemical and bioterrorism,
and other critical areas reveal the many challenges gov-
ernment faces in creating a strong, collaborative, and sus-
tainable approach to securing our homeland. For example,
based on our work, the GAO has recommended that fed-
eral agencies work to better share critical computer-based
law enforcement information that can lead to the appre-
hension of suspected terrorists; that multiple programs
designed to assist state and local governments first re-
sponders be consolidated and more effectively focused; that
government agencies complete rigorous threat, risk, and
criticality assessments to enhance prevention and protec-
tion strategies; and that agencies assure they have the people
with the language, technological, and other skills needed
to accomplish their missions. While work in all of these
areas has started, much remains to be done.
An overwhelming majority of Americans support a vig-
orous homeland security strategy that is designed to pro-
tect the nation and its citizens freedoms, but it is impor-
tant to recognize that developing and sustaining a strong
homeland security program and combating terrorism will
take time and cost a lot of money. For instance, it is likely
to take the Department of Homeland Security a number
of years to achieve the desired benefits of the agencies
consolidation. Homeland security also will require ex-
tensive planning and coordination across traditional geo-
graphic, sectoral, and organizational boundaries in order
to assure a targeted, cost-benefit, and effective approach
to addressing this critical area. It also may require differ-
ent trade-offs between a range of flexibility, privacy, and
security issues.
Funding for homeland security increased substantially
after the September 11th attacks. Congress enacted about
$19.5 billion in federal funding for homeland security in
fiscal year 2002 and then added $9.8 billion specifically to
strengthen our defenses at home as part of a $40 billion
emergency supplemental appropriation. This raised fed-
eral funding for homeland security to $29.3 billion in fis-
cal year 2002.2 For fiscal year 2003, the presidents budget
recommended $37.7 billion for homeland security, and the
total could be higher depending on congressional action.
The extensive resources that already have been desig-
nated for homeland security, along with those resources
proposed for the upcoming fiscal year, clearly reflect a large
and rapidly growing federal role involving direct spending
as well as assistance to others. Although the proposed De-
partment of Homeland Security is an important step, the
United States still needs to develop a comprehensive home-
land security strategy to guide future actions at different
levels and in various sectors throughout the country and
around the globe.
Competing Claims
The importance and magnitude of homeland security
notwithstanding, this critical endeavor must be placed in
the larger context of other competing claims on the
nations resources. Indeed, the United States must begin
to address other major policy concerns and recognize the
fiscal implications of these challenges over the long term.
The United States not only faces a major preparedness
effort to address changing security threats, it also has to
come to grips with the long-term fiscal challenge of car-
9/11: The Implications for Public-Sector Management 95
ing for a growing elderly population and rising health
care costs. It must adapt its policies to a society and an
economy that are increasingly global in nature, connected
by new technologies, and fueled by knowledge-based in-
dustries. Security and preparedness, our evolving
economy, globalization, changing demographics, ad-
vances in science and technology, concern for quality of
life, and new governance structuresthese are the major
forces shaping the United States and its place in the world.
Furthermore, these are the forces that will also impact
our long-term budget commitments.
Simply stated, the nations long-term budget numbers
do not add up. Over the past several years, the GAO has
emphasized the looming fiscal imbalance of the federal
budget absent significant structural changes in the nations
entitlement programs. A rapid escalation of federal spend-
ing for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which
began years ago and is likely to escalate beginning less
than 10 years from now, is virtually certain to overwhelm
the rest of the federal budget. The latest recession, coupled
with recent tax and spending decisions, including the in-
creased spending levels necessary to conduct our interna-
tional war against terrorism and protect our homeland, have
only served to increase the pressures on our long-range
budget outlook. Correspondingly, the ultimate task of ad-
dressing these needs has become both more complicated
and much more difficult.
The United States must recognize that both longer-term
pressures and the new commitments undertaken after Sep-
tember 11th sharpen the need to look at competing claims
and new priorities. To strengthen governments overall ef-
fectiveness and its ability to accomplish its core missions
in the future, we must undertake a fundamental review,
reassessment, and reprioritization of existing major pro-
grams, policies, and operations. This effort, a challenge in
itself, can help to create much-needed fiscal flexibility to
address emerging needs by weeding out programs that are
outdated, poorly targeted, inefficient, or ineffective. Given
the challenges facing the nation, the government can cre-
ate future fiscal flexibility by initiating this fundamental
review of its roles and responsibilities to ensure that citi-
zens are provided cost-effective services targeted to meet-
ing the most important national needs. Reassessing and
recalibrating existing programs and eliminating outdated
or ineffective ones are important steps in ensuring that
budgets and resources are optimally utilized, that govern-
ment will be able to focus on our nations most urgent pri-
orities, and that citizens in the future will have a real voice
in deciding what the appropriate role of government should
be. Importantly, this effort must extend beyond direct
spending programs to include other important federal policy
tools, such as tax incentives, federal guarantees, and regu-
latory policy.
96 Public Administration Review September 2002, Vol. 62, Special Issue
The Role of Government
Stated differently, there is a need to consider the proper
role of the federal government in the twenty-first century
and how the government should do business in the future.
It should be the norm to reconsider the relevance or fit of
any federal program or activity in todays world and for
the future. This process requires that we ask important yet
sometimes tough questions:
What is the national need?
How important is it relative to other competing needs
and available resources?
What is the proper federal role, if any?
Who are the other key players (for instance, state and
local government, nongovernment organizations, private
sector)?
How should we define success (that is, desired out-
comes)?
What tools of government create the best incentives for
strong resultsdirect funding, tax incentives, guaran-
tees, regulation, enforcement?
What does experience tell us about the effectiveness of
any current related government programs?
Based on the above questions, what programs should be
reduced, terminated, started, or expanded?
This review and reassessment process should apply to
all major government programs. As the proposal to create a
Department of Homeland Security indicates, the terrorist
events of last fall have provided an impetus for government
to look at the larger picture of how it provides homeland
security and how it can best accomplish associated mis-
sions. Clearly, homeland security and combating terrorism
are important federal roles and responsibilitiesconsider-
ing that the notion of provide for the common defense is
enshrined in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution as a prin-
cipal duty of the federal government. Even for those agen-
cies that are not being integrated into the Department of
Homeland Security, there remains a very real need and pos-
sibly a unique opportunity to rethink approaches and pri-
orities to enable them to better target their resources to ad-
dress our most urgent needs. In some cases, the new
emphasis on homeland security has prompted attention to
longstanding problems that suddenly have become more
pressing. For instance, the GAO has long pointed to over-
lapping and duplicative food safety programs in the federal
government. While such overlap has been responsible for
poor coordination and inefficient allocation of resources,
these issues assume a new and potentially more foreboding
meaning after September 11th, given the threat of bioterror-
ism. A consolidated approach can facilitate a concerted and
effective response to new threats.
The federal role in law enforcement, especially in con-
nection with securing our borders, is another area that is
ripe for reexamination following the events of September
11th. In the past 20 years, the federal government has taken long-term fiscal imbalance. Providing for the development
on a larger role in financing criminal justice activities, of a decision-making framework that permits us to evalu-
which traditionally have been viewed as the province of ate the role of government and the programs it delivers
the state and local sector. Given the daunting new law en- would help to address this vital issue and provide addi-
forcement responsibilities and limited budgetary resources tional flexibility to respond to the nations most critical
at all levels, it is important to consider whether these addi- needs. The stakes for our nation are too high to do other-
tional responsibilities should encourage us to reassess wise. We owe it to our children, grandchildren, and future
criminal justice roles and responsibilities at the federal, generations of Americans. The time to act is now!
state, and local levels. As part of its overall mission-re-
alignment activities in the aftermath of September 11th,
the FBI already has proposed a reorganization to shift its Notes
investigative resources given the increased challenges posed
1. U.S. General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism: Se-
by the terrorism threat. lected Challenges and Related Recommendations (Washing-
Additionally, with the Coast Guards new focus on ton, DC: Government Printing Office, 2001), GAO-O1-822.
homeland security, it has de-emphasized some of its other 2. Securing the Homeland, Strengthening the Nation. For the com-
responsibilities in the short term, notably fisheries enforce- plete document, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/
ment and drug interdiction. The Coast Guard has been de- homeland_security_book.html.
veloping a longer-range mission strategy that attempts to
better balance its competing responsibilities.
Moreover, it is increasingly important to carefully de-
sign federal programs to match the priorities and needs of
all stakeholdersfederal, state, and local governments, as
well as the private and nonprofit sectors. We must con-
sider leveraging a variety of government tools to effec-
tively broaden and strengthen homeland security, includ-
ing regulation, insurance, grants, loans, tax incentives,
direct federal funding, and other assistance. The govern-
ment already has begun to use this approach by suggesting
a restructuring of its grants programs for first responders.
Consolidating a number of homeland-security-related
grants within the Department of Homeland Security is an-
other logical step.
As we think about the best approach to creating an af-
fordable and sustainable system of homeland security in
the context of competing budgetary claims, we can and
should select those programs and tools that promise to pro-
vide the most cost-effective approaches to achieve our na-
tional goals. Although this is urgently needed for home-
land security, it is equally important that similar approaches
be formulated for a range of other government activities.
The nations recent tragedy reinforces the need for America
to learn from the past and to prepare for the futureand
determining the most appropriate role for government is
part of that future. Government entities also must reexam-
ine their people, processes, technology, and environmen-
tal policies and strategies to assure they are properly aligned
with their mission and focused on achieving the desired
outcomes.
Embracing inaction or business as usual is no longer an
option when the security of the country depends on deci-
sive action and wise choices. Simply stated, ignorance or
apathy cannot be tolerated. As stewards of our nations
future, we must recognize the serious implications of our

9/11: The Implications for Public-Sector Management 97