Although the interest in measuring productivity
from an administrative technical point of
view continued, savings and spending less
tax money became the main issues in the
1980s. Under Reagan the President’s Private
Sector Survey on Cost Control, the Grace
Commission, estimated yearly savings of $US
3 billion. The Commission was primarily concerned
with efficiency, expressed as cost
savings and operated within an agenda that
sought minimal government. This debate had
a technical and an increasingly dominant
ideological angle, which ultimately led to New
Public Management in the 1990s (Bouckaert,
1991)