A Unitary Executive Doesn't Require a Uniform Government

October 26, 2026

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Federal government reform has long been driven by a desire for greater control, consistency, and efficiency. But there is an important difference between centralizing executive authority and making every agency operate the same way. History suggests that confusing the two can undermine the very reforms intended to improve government.

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The Debate Behind Government Reform

 

For decades, presidents of both political parties have sought greater control over the federal government. Their objectives are familiar: eliminate waste, reduce bureaucracy, improve accountability, and ensure that government agencies carry out the administration's priorities.

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These efforts raise an important question: Does a more effective executive branch require greater presidential control, or does it require consolidating government functions and making every agency operate under the same rules?

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Although these approaches may sound similar, they represent two different ideas about how government should work.

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The first is associated with the unitary executive: the principle that executive authority ultimately rests with the president, who must be able to direct the executive branch and hold its officials accountable.

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The second might be called the uniform executive. This is the pursuit of consistency across government by centralizing functions, standardizing procedures, and placing responsibility for common administrative activities within a single organization.

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The distinction matters. A president can exercise authority over agencies without requiring every agency to use the same processes, purchase the same products, or organize its operations in the same way.

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Yet federal management reform has repeatedly blurred these two objectives.

 

The history of federal procurement offers a particularly useful way to understand why.

 

Two Different Approaches to Executive Authority

 

Consider the difference between setting government-wide policy and running government-wide operations.

 

Under a unitary executive approach, the president establishes priorities and exercises executive authority through the White House and its management organizations. Agencies remain responsible for carrying out their individual missions, but they operate within a framework of executive oversight.

Under a uniform executive approach, the emphasis shifts toward consolidating functions and standardizing how agencies operate. Instead of allowing agencies to make their own decisions within government-wide policies, a central organization takes on more responsibility for making those decisions.

 

Both approaches seek to improve government performance. Their assumptions, however, are different.

 

The first recognizes that agencies have distinct missions but should remain accountable to the president. The second places greater emphasis on consistency, often assuming that common problems are best addressed through common processes and centralized control.

 

In practice, these approaches can overlap. Government-wide standards are necessary in many areas, and centralizing certain activities can produce real benefits.

 

The problem arises when consistency becomes an objective in itself—when the desire to make government operate uniformly takes precedence over the needs of the agencies responsible for delivering public services.

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Effective executive control does not necessarily require uniform administration.

 

That distinction has important implications for how the federal government organizes procurement, personnel, technology, and other shared functions.

 

How Federal Procurement Became a Test Case

 

Federal procurement—the process through which agencies acquire goods and services—has been a recurring target of government reform.

 

The challenge is understandable. Agencies buy many of the same things, yet they have historically operated under different laws, regulations, procedures, and administrative structures. Standardizing these activities appears to offer an opportunity to reduce duplication, improve purchasing power, and simplify government.

 

The General Services Administration (GSA) was established in 1949, in part to bring greater coordination to federal property management and purchasing. Its responsibilities reflected an ambitious vision: centralize common administrative functions and create greater consistency across the executive branch.

 

The underlying idea was straightforward. If agencies could rely on a common organization to provide supplies and services, the government might reduce duplication and achieve economies of scale.

But the federal government is not a conventional corporation. Its agencies have different missions, legal authorities, operating environments, and requirements. A purchasing arrangement that works well for one agency may not work equally well for another.

 

The original efforts to establish government-wide procurement uniformity encountered resistance from agencies that needed to preserve their own authorities and capabilities. Even where government-wide standards were established, exceptions and mission-specific requirements remained important.

 

This tension has never disappeared.

 

In 1974, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) was established to help coordinate federal procurement policy. Subsequent reforms led to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), first issued in 1984, which created a common framework for federal contracting.

 

The FAR was an important achievement. It gave agencies and industry a shared set of rules for conducting business with the federal government.

 

But a common framework is not the same as a completely uniform system.

Agencies retain supplementary regulations and procedures to address their particular responsibilities. The result is a system that combines government-wide requirements with agency-specific needs.

 

That arrangement reflects a practical compromise: establish common rules where possible while recognizing that not every agency should operate identically.

It also illustrates a persistent challenge. Every additional layer of rules, exceptions, and agency-specific requirements can make the system more complicated. Yet eliminating those differences indiscriminately can make it harder for agencies to fulfill their missions.

 

The question is not simply whether government should have common rules. It is how far standardization should go.

 

The Lesson of the Federal Acquisition Regulation

 

The history of the FAR illustrates both the value and the limitations of uniformity.

A government-wide regulation provides a common starting point for agencies and contractors. It reduces the need to navigate entirely separate contracting systems and creates a shared foundation for federal procurement.

 

However, agencies supplement the FAR to address their individual missions. Those additions can be necessary, but their cumulative effect can also create complexity and make government-wide initiatives more difficult to implement.

 

This is an important distinction for policymakers.

 

A system can have common rules without requiring identical practices in every circumstance. Conversely, a system that attempts to eliminate every difference may create new problems by disregarding legitimate operational needs.

 

The goal should be to identify which differences are necessary, which are unnecessary, and which can be eliminated without compromising agency performance.

 

That requires judgment, not simply consolidation.

 

It also suggests that the most useful measure of procurement reform is not how much uniformity the government achieves. It is whether the resulting system improves outcomes for agencies, industry, and taxpayers.

 

A Bipartisan History of Dissatisfaction With GSA

 

The limitations of centralization are not confined to one political party or administration.

During the 1990s, the Clinton administration's National Performance Review, led by Vice President Al Gore, criticized GSA's organizational structure and the relationship between its policymaking and operational responsibilities.

 

The review identified a fundamental problem: when an organization is responsible for both setting policy and delivering services, operational demands can take precedence over broader policy objectives.

 

It also questioned whether agencies had sufficient freedom to make decisions about the resources needed to accomplish their missions.

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The concern was that a centralized service provider could limit agency flexibility while making it difficult to hold individual managers accountable for results.

 

These criticisms were consistent with a broader movement toward performance-based management, greater competition, and less restrictive administrative processes.

 

Republicans raised similar concerns. Proposals during the 1990s called for eliminating or privatizing portions of GSA's supply, information-resource, and property-management functions. Advocates argued that competition could provide alternatives to centralized service delivery and reduce distortions associated with a government-wide provider.

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The significance of these debates is not that every proposal for restructuring GSA was necessarily correct. Rather, they demonstrate that dissatisfaction with centralized administration has crossed party lines.

 

Different administrations have raised similar questions from different perspectives: Does a central organization improve government performance, or can it become an obstacle to the agencies it is intended to serve?

 

This is not merely a historical concern. It remains central to contemporary efforts to reorganize federal management.

 

The Current Push Toward Consolidation

 

Recent efforts to reorganize the federal government have renewed the debate over how much administrative authority should be centralized.

Proposals associated with Project 2025 and subsequent Trump administration initiatives have emphasized stronger executive control, organizational restructuring, and the consolidation of certain government functions.

 

In procurement, Executive Order 14240, issued in March 2025, advanced efforts to consolidate purchasing of common goods and services. Other initiatives have sought to establish more consistent arrangements for personnel management and shared administrative functions.

GSA's OneGov initiative is another example of the drive toward government-wide purchasing arrangements.

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These efforts reflect a reasonable objective: the federal government should use its purchasing power effectively and avoid unnecessary duplication.

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When agencies need the same products or services, coordinated purchasing may offer better terms and reduce administrative effort. Common personnel systems or shared administrative services may also create opportunities for greater efficiency.

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But the potential benefits of consolidation should not be confused with a requirement to consolidate everything.

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The critical question is whether the government is centralizing a function because doing so produces better results or because uniformity has become the preferred organizational model.

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The two are not equivalent.

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A central purchasing arrangement may be beneficial for common requirements but less effective for specialized technology or mission-specific needs. A shared personnel system may simplify administration but still need to accommodate different agency operating environments.

 

The challenge is to distinguish activities that genuinely benefit from consolidation from those where competition, choice, and agency discretion produce greater value.

 

The results of current reforms remain uncertain. Their long-term success will depend not simply on the extent of consolidation but on whether the new arrangements improve government performance.

 

 

 

One of the recurring assumptions behind government-wide consolidation is that the federal government should operate like a single enterprise.

 

The analogy is appealing. A large corporation can often negotiate better prices by combining its purchasing power, standardize its technology systems, and reduce duplication across business units.

But the federal government differs from a conventional corporation in important ways.

Federal agencies operate under different statutory authorities and are accountable for different public missions. Their requirements, risk tolerances, technical environments, and operational priorities may differ substantially.

 

An arrangement that works well for one agency may impose costs or limitations on another.

This does not mean that agencies should be free to disregard government-wide policy or pursue their own interests without oversight. It means that government-wide policy should establish appropriate boundaries without assuming that every operational decision must be made centrally.

The distinction is especially important in technology procurement, where agencies may have different requirements and where the market offers competing products, services, and acquisition arrangements.

 

Centralization can reduce duplication, but it can also reduce competition and limit choices if applied too broadly.

 

The objective should be to centralize authority where accountability requires it and preserve flexibility where mission performance demands it.

 

This approach recognizes that the federal government needs both coordination and differentiation. The challenge is finding the appropriate balance.

 

A Better Model: Centralized Policy, Distributed Execution

 

If uniformity is not the answer to every management problem, what should guide federal reform?

A more effective approach would distinguish between responsibility for government-wide policy and responsibility for carrying out individual agency missions.

 

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and OFPP are particularly important to this model.

OMB provides a central mechanism for presidential management and oversight. OFPP provides government-wide leadership in federal procurement policy.

 

Together, these organizations can establish common objectives, develop policy, coordinate requirements, and maintain executive oversight without requiring every operational responsibility to be placed within GSA or another centralized service organization.

 

Under this approach, the president retains executive authority through the White House and its management institutions. Government-wide policy establishes the rules and expectations within which agencies operate. Individual agencies retain the ability to make decisions appropriate to their missions, subject to those rules and executive oversight.

 

This is not an argument against consolidation in every circumstance. Nor is it an argument for preserving every existing agency structure or procedure.

 

Some functions should be shared. Some purchasing should be coordinated. Some rules should be simplified or standardized.

 

But these decisions should be based on demonstrated benefits and the requirements of government, rather than an assumption that making every agency operate the same way will necessarily improve performance.

 

The distinction is between centralizing decision-making authority and centralizing the delivery of services.

 

A president can exercise meaningful control over the executive branch without requiring one organization to make every purchasing or administrative decision. Indeed, preserving the distinction may improve accountability by clarifying who establishes policy, who delivers services, and who is responsible for results.

 

Looking Ahead

 

The debate over executive authority and administrative uniformity will continue regardless of which political party occupies the White House.

 

Presidents will continue to seek greater control over the executive branch. Agencies will continue to face pressure to reduce costs, simplify regulations, and improve performance. Industry will continue to seek clear, predictable rules and workable ways to do business with the government.

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These objectives are compatible, but achieving them requires a clear understanding of the organizational choices involved.

 

The historical record suggests that attempts to impose broad uniformity through centralized administrative organizations have repeatedly encountered resistance, operational limitations, and questions about accountability.

 

The answer is not necessarily to abandon government-wide standards or shared services. It is to recognize that uniformity is a means, not an end.

 

A government-wide rule is valuable when it improves consistency, accountability, or performance. A centralized service is valuable when it delivers better results than available alternatives. Neither should be treated as inherently superior simply because it offers greater control.

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The federal government needs a structure that allows the president to establish priorities and exercise executive authority while preserving the ability of agencies to fulfill their distinct responsibilities.

 

That requires a different way of thinking about government reform: a unitary executive does not require a uniform executive.

 

Maintaining government-wide policy and management authority through OMB and OFPP, while allowing agencies appropriate discretion over execution, offers a path toward stronger executive oversight without repeating the assumption that centralization and sameness are synonymous with efficiency.

 

The ultimate test of reform is not whether the federal government becomes more uniform. It is whether government works better for the American taxpayer.

                                                                                                                                                                           ~ J. Johnson