Building 44

Federal agencies and the Obama transition | FULL COVERAGE »

John Gage, president of the 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, requested that Barack Obama write the letters. (By Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)
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In his letter to Defense Department workers, Obama said he would examine flaws in pay and evaluation systems, but offered no high-cost initiatives.

Ruch said that if Obama cuts Pentagon spending, he will not have to work hard to help the other six agencies.

"These domestic discretionary programs are peanuts in the grand scale of things," Ruch said. "A small diversion from the Iraq conflict, if they were put into Interior, EPA or NASA, those agencies would be in their salad days. The National Park Service is laboring under a [maintenance] backlog that would be cured by a month and a half of Iraq expenditures."

While pledging money to some agencies, Obama also acknowledged that some cuts may be unavoidable.

"Because of the fiscal mess left behind by the current Administration, we will need to look carefully at all departments and programs," he wrote to HUD workers.

Gage said Obama would cut deeply into agencies he finds lacking, and the National Taxpayers Union says there is plenty of opportunity for savings. Congress last year refused to consider a 25 percent cut for 220 federal programs the government rated as ineffective, passing up a savings of $17 billion a year. Obama did not vote on the measure while he was a senator from Illinois.

His letter to HUD employees suggests a resurgence of the huge housing agency. Obama insisted that "HUD must be part of the solution" to the housing crisis and to keeping an estimated 5.4 million more families from losing homes in foreclosure. Several HUD employees cheered Obama's letter, saying they hoped one particular line foreshadowed the end of political appointees who didn't care or know much about the agency's work.

"I am committed to appointing a Secretary, Deputy and Assistant Secretaries who are committed to HUD's mission and capable of executing it," Obama wrote.

Obama also took aim at the Bush administration's focus on privatization, with contractors hired to perform government jobs -- often at princely sums. He complained that a $1.2 billion contract to provide TSA with human resources support unfairly blocked federal employees from competing to do that work.

"We plan specifically to look at work that is being contracted out to ensure that it is fiscally responsible and effective," he told HUD workers. "It is dishonest to claim real savings by reducing the number of HUD employees overseeing a program but increase the real cost of the program by transferring oversight to contracts. I pledge to reverse this poor management practice."

Gage said he is not expecting every civil servant's wish to be granted but he is hopeful.

"I think Obama's going to be fair, he's going to take seriously the missions of these agencies, and he's going to respect federal employees," Gage said. "After the last eight years, that's good enough for me."

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.