national data, with totals broken down by race, sex, age, and, in some cases, region of the country or SMSA (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas)/non-SMSA.

The degree of disaggregation will be

determined by estimations of the usefulness of components as well as availability. Projections will be included only for relatively known quantities, such as number of pupils enrolling in primary school five years from now.

The statistical series themselves are taken from the ongoing programs of many different Federal statistical agencies and in some cases from available State and private sources. For example, most of the information on health status of the American people is taken directly from published materials of the National Center for Health Statistics; employment information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; education enrollment and graduation data from the National Center for Educational Statistics; statistics on reported crime from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; population, income, and housing data from the Census Bureau and the Department of the Interior and the Bureau

of Labor Statistics.

While the work on the new publication on social indicators is proceeding well, it is not yet near completion.

The development of

an overall framework for such a report along with the screening,

checking, and testing of individual indicators is a slow and painstaking

task. It is relevant in this connection to note that two Government

10

10

publications in the economic field

-

Business Conditions Digest

and Long-Term Economic Growth, both developed under Mr. Shiskin's direction, took four and three years respectively to complete. In addition, in both cases a great deal more work had previously been done on the theoretical framework for economic indicators and in the compilation of the basic data required.

The development of a publication of social indicators is the focal point of OMB's efforts to improve social reporting. The Administration has taken a number of other steps to improve the quality of statistical reporting and the development of more meaningful social indicators.

1. A substantial grant has been given to the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center by the National Science Foundation to continue research on a variety of topics that will lead to better social reporting. NSF has also contracted for the National Planning Association to develop a goals accounting system and the Urban Institute to continue their work in social and urban indicators.

2. Secondly, a Presidential Commission on Federal Statistics has spent the past year reviewing the full scope of the Federal statistical system. Their final report is due in two months. We understand that one section of this report will lay out a five-year plan for research in social indicators and social reporting.

This

plan will encompass the work to be done in private research organi

zations as well as in the Federal Government.

11

One of the most significant uses of social indicators is the role they play in the improvement of Federal program management processes. Late in 1970, the President directed the Office of Management and Budget to develop a system for measuring how well Federal programs produce actual results and relating these results to the investment of resources involved. As a result, the Office of Management and Budget in coordination with the Domestic Council has undertakes the development of a Ferformance Measurement System to improve the management of Federal Programs. The system will provide data to better understand and evaluate social problems, conditions and needs. The underlying principles of the system are to clearly define the goals and objectives of key social programs, establish program performance and institute a reporting system to measure results achieved in comparison with stated goals, objectives and performance targets.

In a similar vein, recent changes have been made in the Office of Management and Budget Circular A-44 dealing with management improvement programs of Federal agencies, calling for emphasis on concepts of management effectiveness in meeting defined objectives, as opposed to simply achieving. "efficiency" in administrative operations.

The final provision of S. 5 on which I would like to comment is the proposal in Title IV of the bill calling for the establishment "within the Congress" of an office of National Goals and Friorities. It is not my intention to suggest to Congress how it conducts its business, but from the point of view of the Executive Branch, one point with respect to the proposed office is significant.

12

I can understand how the desire for a staff office which aids

and assists the Congress in assessing issues of goals and priorities can benefit the country, but care must be exercised that such an office does not intervene in the necessary direct relationships between Congress and the Administration in the development and enactment of Federal programs. We believe it is not the intent of this provision that departments be asked to deal through a "third party" which arrives at policy, priority, and resource decisions independent of the Congressional structure itself. However, I felt it desirable to bring this concern to your attention.

I am sure that these hearings will contribute to a focusing of attention on the need for the Federal establishment to have a better

perception of its social problems and solutions. Mr. Shiskin and

I will be happy to answer questions.

Senator MONDALE. Our next witness is Mr. Sol Linowitz, Chairman of the National Urban Coalition which organization just printed a "Counterbudget." It is a very significant and important historical effort. Mr. Linowitz, you are doing magnificent work in this entire field and it is an official and personal pleasure to have you here.

STATEMENT OF SOL M. LINOWITZ, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL URBAN COALITION

Mr. LINOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted and honored to be here and I welcome this opportunity to appear before the subcommittee in connection with these hearings on the Full Opportunity and National Goals and Priorities Act. In our judgment these hearings represent an important part of the growing effort, both in and out of Government, to discover more democratic and rational procedures for making public choices.

Rational Government decisionmaking is of course impossible without clearly stated national goals and priorities to guide resource allocation. It is clear that a mere repetition of the need for new priorities is not enough. If rhetoric alone were sufficient to implement national goals and reorder priorities, Federal spending patterns would have been altered radically half a decade ago when the clamor began for a major change in the way we allocate Federal tax dollars.

As we well know, the past 5 years have seen the call to "reorder priorities" become a kind of Pavlovian response to a recitation of the Nation's social and economic ills. Yet, as we also know, despite all the talk, very little has happened.

Instead of producing reordered priorities, the avalanche of talk has produced more talk. Instead of coming to grips with new public decisionmaking processes, the call for new priorities has become a fashionable cliche.

So the problem we face today, all of us, is how can we rescue this critical effort to reorder priorities and improve public choices from the rhetorical dead end into which it has stumbled?

It was in search of answers to this question that the National Urban Coalition, as you have already mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in the spring of 1970, initiated a project never before attempted by a nongovernmental organization. We undertook to construct a complete alternative Federal budget offering careful estimates of the dimensions of national needs, the costs of alternative programs to respond to those needs, and the resources required to pay for them for each of the next 5 fiscal years.

Our principal purpose was to determine how resources would have to be reallocated, both within the Federal budget and between the private and public sectors, to translate our goals and priorities into realistic and attainable Federal policies and programs.

The final product of this year-long effort is the Counterbudget, which has already been referred to, which was prepared by our staff after consultation with hundreds of people and groups around the country.

In the process of conceiving and producing a Counterbudget we gained some insights into the requirements for moving from the desire for new goals and priorities to public action-insight that bear