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Reinventing government is "about as exciting as watching paint
dry" to many reporters, President Clinton said last week at an
international conference on reinventing government. So, government
leaders should try to show how the hum-drum of reinvention has an impact
on citizens' lives, Clinton said.
"One of the problems with having a continuous reinventing
government effort is that it almost never gets any headlines in the
newspaper," Clinton said in a speech to representatives of 40
nations gathered for the "Global Forum on Reinventing
Government" at the State Department. "I think that means that
if you're going to do this, you need sort of an extra dose of
determination and good humor, because I believe it is truly one of the
most important things that those of us in public life today can
do."
The conference audience included Jenny Shipley, prime minister of New
Zealand, and high-ranking officials from Russia, Japan, Argentina,
Spain, Benin and other countries.
Clinton praised Gore for his commitment to reinventing government
while admitting how hard it is to get most people to pay attention to
the effort.
"Most people think it's so boring, we have to have a joke every
three minutes when discussing it," Clinton said. Earlier, he had
kidded Gore: "I'm sure you have seen he has absorbed about
everything there is to absorb about this subject. And if you hang around
long enough, he will give you a chance to know everything he knows about
it."
Clinton said he is proud of how much improvement he has seen in the
federal government since Gore's National Performance Review kicked off
almost six years ago, but it has been hard to communicate the importance
of the initiative to the public. Federal officials must explain how the
accomplishments of reinvention, such as cutting the federal workforce
and eliminating rules and regulations, have improved citizens' lives,
Clinton said.
"If you say we've saved $138 billion that helped us balance the
budget, bring interest rates down and lowered their mortgage rates,
that's something people can understand," Clinton said. "If you
can say to a small business person, it used to take weeks or months for
us to process your request for a loan, and now it takes a matter of
days; and the form was once an inch thick and now it's a page long, that
means something to people, because it affects their lives."
Throughout the two-day conference, which was subtitled
"Partnership for Economic Success," Gore contended that
countries must have governments that are efficient and responsive to
citizens if they want to have economic success in the global
marketplace.
On Friday, Gore focused on the impact of information technology on
the services government provides. He pointed to online services for
college students and a highly respected toll-free telephone service run
by the Social Security Administration as examples of how using
information technology to reinvent government improves public service.