By Stephen Barr
Wednesday, May 30, 2007; D01

Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani would cut about 20 percent of the federal workforce. Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton would cut 500,000 government contracting jobs.

The 2008 presidential candidates are laying out their plans for "government reform" and "cleaning up Washington." As in past White House campaigns, federal employees and government contractors seem likely to get caught in the crossfire.

Downsizing the federal government as baby boomers retire, getting tough on procurement to end waste and fraud, and tightening programs to give Americans a better return on their tax dollars are among the favorite targets for the candidates.

It's early, and many of the 2008 campaign promises lack details about how the candidates would deliver or which agencies would bear the brunt of any cutbacks. But, as federal employees know, the winner will try to shake up the government.

President Bill Clinton put his vice president, Al Gore, in charge of nearly eight years of "reinventing government," which offered cash buyouts to encourage employees to leave the federal payroll. President Bush followed with a "presidential management agenda" that has urged agencies to run job competitions to see if federal work can be turned over to the private sector.

This year, the prospect that a substantial number of federal employees will soon retire makes it easier to suggest downsizing the government.

"How about we try something new? How about we not replace half of those positions?" Giuliani, the former New York mayor, said in Tuscaloosa, Ala. "How about we shrink the federal government? How about we figure out how to use technology the way businesses do, new procedures, try to figure out how to have one person do the job of two or three?"

He projects that 42 percent of federal employees will retire over the next 10 years. Not filling half of those jobs would save about $20 billion a year, Giuliani says.

Mitt Romney, former Republican governor of Massachusetts, said, "Washington is broken" at a debate this month. The government's retirement wave means "we can reduce the employment there, but more importantly, go through all the agencies, all the departments, all the programs and cut out the unnecessary and the wasteful," he said.

Federal retirements, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said, represent "an opportunity to reorganize the entire federal workforce." That means adjusting salary scales "to attract the finest public servants," bringing in new technology, and streamlining to make government smaller and less expensive, he said.

In remarks this month in Oklahoma, McCain said, "The civil service has strayed from its reformist roots and has mutated into a no-accountability zone, where employment is treated as an entitlement, good performance as an option and accountability as someone else's problem."

It's time, McCain said, to "demand high standards of behavior" and "not let good workers be crippled by the fine print of the latest union contract."

McCain promised to clean up defense contracting, which he faulted for cost overruns and recurring problems. Members of Congress, federal officials and defense contractors share in the blame for creating "a broken system," he said.

Clinton (D-N.Y.) targets federal contract jobs for cuts that she claims would save $10 billion to $18 billion a year. "Some contract employees cost twice as much as comparable federal workers. They're often less accountable and less competent," she said in a speech last month.

To attract a new generation to the government, Clinton proposed a U.S. Public Service Academy, an undergraduate college modeled after the military service academies. The academy could help the government find replacements for retirees, she said.

"Many young people are ready, willing and able to answer the call to serve," Clinton said. "But they often graduate from college with so much debt that they can't imagine going into a public-service career."

By providing a free education in exchange for five years of federal service, an academy "will open the doors much more widely for young people who want to serve their country," she said.

Clinton and McCain said they would push efforts to improve the performance of federal programs. McCain, for example, said that if a program is found to be performing poorly, that could be a factor in deciding whether its funded the next year.

Former senator John Edwards, a Democratic candidate, pledges to rebuild the military and root out waste and cronyism in the Pentagon, according to his Web site. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) says he hopes to empower citizens to crack down on government waste by putting information about federal grants, contracts, loans and earmarks online. McCain also said he would use the Internet in a similar manner to hold agencies accountable.

Staff researcher Madonna A. Lebling contributed to this report.