Federal Task Force Unveils 800-Page Plan to Simplify Government

WASHINGTON—Federal officials today unveiled an 800-page plan to simplify government, calling the document a historic first step toward reducing every form of bureaucracy except the bureaucracy created to carry it out.

The plan establishes a National Council on Streamlining, which will supervise an Interagency Board on Efficiency, which will receive quarterly recommendations from the Temporary Advisory Panel for Permanent Reform. Officials emphasized that the arrangement eliminates needless duplication because each body will use a different shade of blue letterhead.

Under Phase One, agencies will identify every form that citizens find confusing. Under Phase Two, those forms will be replaced by a single Universal Simplification Form containing 612 questions, three notarized attachments, and a checkbox confirming that the applicant has read the 94-page Plain Language Notice.

The task force also promised a faster approval process. Requests currently taking six months will receive an automatic acknowledgment within 48 hours stating that the six-month review period has officially begun.

A senior official praised the plan’s accountability provisions, especially a public dashboard that will report progress as soon as the contract to build the dashboard finishes its seventh procurement review.

Congressional leaders from both parties welcomed the announcement. One lawmaker called it proof that Washington can still work together whenever no existing office is willing to surrender its budget.

The final phase calls for a two-year study to determine whether the simplification effort itself has become too complicated. If so, officials are authorized to appoint a commission.

At press time, the launch ceremony had been delayed because nobody could locate the permit required to remove the ribbon.

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