Exciting news to share - last week Congress approved and sent to President Obama the bi-partisan Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Act of 2016. The bill was co-sponsored by Washington’s Sen. Patty Murray and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Praising the act's passage Sen. Murray said in a press release: 

“This is a common-sense bill to give Congress and the federal government more tools to make sure our government is working as well as possible for the people it serves, and I am very glad that we were able to pass it through the Senate today with such strong bipartisan support,” said Senator Patty Murray. “I am proud that Speaker Ryan and I were once again able to break through the gridlock and work together to take this step toward improving federal programs and our tax code. I look forward to this bill passing the House, getting signed into law, and getting to work for families in Washington state and across the country.”

After receiving a request to comment on the proposal from Sen. Murray’s office in 2014, Washington Policy Center President Dann Mead Smith met with Congressional Senate and House budget committee staff on Capitol Hill to discuss this effort and offer WPC assistance to help move this important reform forward. We are very excited to see Congress finally send it to President Obama. 

This proposal could one day lay the foundation for Congress to move towards performance-based budgeting and policy making. Washington Policy Center has been a long-time supporter of focusing government spending at all levels on actually delivering performance outcomes and ensuring that decisions are based on an analysis of performance data. Along with encouraging the state to fully utilize former Governor Locke's Priorities of Government (POG) budget process, WPC has been an advocate for former Governor Gregoire's performance management efforts (GMAP) and Governor Inslee's Results Washington.

It is good to see the other Washington recognize the value of these budget best practices. Hopefully budget decisions in both Washingtons will soon be based on delivering performance outcomes while making policy decisions based on the evidence of what works and what is achieving the goals of government programs instead of feel good talking points.

Many thanks to Sen. Patty Murray and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for working together to move Congress towards evidence-based decision making!