I personally believe we have gone from GPRA to PART to now the Obama administration's efforts as well.

I think--I can only speak for my State--a lot of folks did not understand what that act involved, did not understand it was the third largest tax cut in American history.

I think our Federal work force at times feels overwhelmed with whatever--whoever is coming in has got a new set of reporting requirements.

You have to be relentless, that none of this is easy, none of this comes quickly.

But it has got to have that relentless----

There is governmental oversight, but there is not a governmental efficiency metrics performance group.

As Senator Warner mentioned, very few public problems can be isolated to a particular department.

I think it gets harder at the State level, but you still have that chief operating officer role as the Governor.

Governor, you tried this model out at the city level where you could get your arms around it. You grew it to the State level.

We need to do what Governor O'Malley has already done in Maryland: create governmentwide goals and incent our Federal agencies to work more closely together.

We put the brakes on spending.

We developed some of the similar cross-cutting policy goals and measures to support them, similar to what Governor O'Malley has done.

I salute you for your efforts.

As a matter of fact, it was ranked No. 1 in the whole country, a designation that we maintained until changes just in the last week or so.

Well, Governor, thank you very much. You have been very generous with your time, and congratulations on this 10-year experiment.

I want to thank my colleagues Senator Cardin and Congressman Sarbanes for accompanying me to this hearing.

I would love both of your thoughts as this administration takes on this conversation about what is an inherently governmental function.

One of the things we are hoping, working with President Obama's administration, is with a legislative partner we can institutionalize this.

It has been, a national embarrassment.

But whether this position will be maintained, whether it will have enough juice I think the jury is still out.

Thank you for your presentation. In respect of your time, we will try to make sure each of us takes 5 or 6 minutes in our question period.

I think you are saying then you have unlimited access to the data and how you slice and dice may not be as burdensome as in the past.

There really is not that equivalent at the Federal level, and I think that has been one of the challenges.

I think Governor O'Malley is one of the most effective Governors not only in the history of our State but I think in our Nation in using these performance evaluations to make sure taxpayer money is being properly spent.

And when you started even on the --in the ability to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program, did you sit with your leadership team and try to sort through which questions, did you have your staff--how do you even decide which is…