In 2017, President Donald Trump announced an executive order to have executive agencies give a report on extra spending within their departments, so the White House could work on reorganizing the Executive Branch to minimize wasteful spending and make agencies more efficient.
In 2018, after evaluating agency reports, the White House announced reforms in a project it called, "Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century." Some of the biggest changes proposed were merging the food safety department shared between the FDA and USDA, merging the Education and Labor departments into a single cabinet agency, and creating a new Bureau of Economic Growth within the Department of Commerce.
Most of these reorganizing efforts would need approval from Congress, which none received. A few smaller changes don't need congressional approval, but Congress can still stall action by withholding funds.
One example of a reform from Trump's plan that has been stalled is a merger of the government's human resources agency, the Office of Personnel Management, with the General Services Administration. The two agencies have been meeting and planning the merger for over two years now, but have been unable to agree on a merger plan.
Congress has taken other steps to stop or slow down some of the re-organizing efforts.
The first deal for the 2019 fiscal funding bill included a joint statement dismissing the administration's proposal for reorganizing the Army Corps of Engineers. The news website Government Executive reported that the statement said lawmakers were "perplexed as to why there was no notification or discussion with members of Congress and committees staffs on an action of this magnitude that crosses multiple subcommittees' jurisdiction." They clarified that "no funds provided in this act or any previous act to any agency shall be used to implement this proposal."
Congress went on to formally block the Office of Personnel Management merger in the 2019 defense authorization bill, asking for a congressionally chartered organization to study the structure of the office and write a report.
Without clear congressional support and with bureaucratic processes slowing down reorganizing efforts, Trump's reorganization plan did not succeed in eliminating wasteful spending in every department. We rate this Promise Broken.