When President Obama released his fiscal year 2016 Budget request, most of the focus was on his “middle-class economics” proposals and whether Republicans would find any elements in the budget to support or would the U.S government’s budget process remain broken. What received far less attention were the many proposals spread throughout the Budget designed to increase the use of data, evidence and evaluation in federal government programs.
For example, President Obama’s Budget request proposed: expanding set-aside funds for rigorous evaluations at the U.S. Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services; increasing resources to promote Pay for Success initiatives at five federal departments and agencies; doubling funding for evidence-based innovation funds; supporting results-driven federal discretionary and mandatory programs; and authorizing projects to give cities and states additional flexibility to combine federal funds and focus on outcomes. These proposals build on earlier efforts by President George W. Bush and represent an encouraging sign of the momentum building behind an “invest in what works” approach to governing in the United States.
We have seen other promising signs as well. Notably, last fall, then-U.S. House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and then-U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) jointly proposed bipartisan legislation that would create a commission designed to realize the potential of administrative data. The Obama Administration has now embraced that proposal in its Budget.