Action: The President shoud issue a directive that requires collaborative efforts across the government to empower communities and strengthen families.13 At Vice President Gore's recent conference on family policy in Nashville, experts agreed that effective family policy requires new approaches at the federal, state, and local levels. We should stop dividing up families' needs into health, education, welfare, and shelter, each with its own set of agencies and programs, many of which contradict one another and work at cross-purposes. Instead, across all levels of government, we need collaborative, community-based, customer-driven approaches through which providers can integrate the full network of services. For instance, we spend about $60 billion a year on the well-being of children. But we have created at least 340 separate programs for families and children, administered by 11 different federal agencies and departments.14 Thus, a poor family may need to seek help from several departments--Agriculture for food stamps, Housing and Urban Development for rental support, Health and Human Services for health care and chasing down dead-beat parents. For each program, they will have to visit different offices, learn about services, fill out forms to establish eligibility--and wait. The system is fragmented and illogical. In Texas, where the immunization rate among poor children is about 30 percent, the state Health Department sought permission to have nurses who run the Agriculture Department's Women, Infants and Children supplemental food program also give immunization. The Agriculture Department said no--unless Texas developed an elaborate cost allocation plan. Consequently, mothers and children will have to continue visiting more than one agency.15 A few years ago, Governing magazine described a teenage girl who was pregnant, had a juvenile record and was on welfare. Between the three problems, she had more than six caseworkers--each from a different agency. As one put it: "The kid has all these people providing services, and everybody's doing their own thing and Tasha's not getting better. We need to have one person who says, 'Now look, let's talk about a plan of action for Tasha.'"16 President Clinton's directive will help remove obstacles that agencies face in trying to serve Tasha and others like her. Action: The President should issue a directive and propose legislation to reconstitute the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology as the National Science and Technology Council, giving it a broader role in setting science and technology policy.17 Progress in science and technology is a key ingredient of national economic success. President Clinton's A Vision of Change for America, released in February, cites studies showing that "investments in research and development (R&D) tend to be the strongest and most consistent positive influence on productivity growth."18 In an increasingly competitive world economy, the American people need the best possible return on federal R&D investments. The Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET) is a White House-managed team that helps set policy for technology development. With representatives from more than a dozen agencies, it develops interagency projects, such as biotechnology research and the high-performance computing initiative. Unfortunately, FCCSET lacks the teeth to set priorities, direct policy, and participate fully in the budget process. It can't compel agencies to participate in its projects, nor can it tell agencies how to spend funds. Its six funded projects will account for just 16 percent of Washington's $76 billion R & D budget in 1994. At a time of declining federal resources, experts in business, academia, and government recognize the need for one-stop shopping for science and technology policy. A new National Science and Technology Council would direct science and technology policy more forcefully, and would streamline the White House's advisory apparatus by combining the functions of FCCSET, the National Space Council, and the National Critical Materials Council.