Election Day is still two weeks away, but the next president already has good-government groups lining up to offer advice.
The latest is the Project on Government Oversight, which today issued a set of recommendations for the next president. Many of them are obvious good-government suggestions, but many also come at opportune times.
POGO points out, for example, that the government’s oversight and regulatory role has been “decimated” in recent years. Given the recent scandals at the Minerals Management Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, that’s not an overstatement.
There’s also a call for inspectors general to have more independence from their agency heads. The IG bill passed by Congress (pdf) earlier this month is a promising start; it gives IGs a stronger voice in requesting their budget, and makes them harder to remove from office.
The group also called on the next president to “strengthen federal employee whistleblower protections.” Given POGO’s longstanding criticism of Special Counsel Scott Bloch, that’s probably a call for the next president to quickly appoint a replacement.
