This Time They’re Serious (Right) : Gore’s team has done good fat-finding work--but is campaign sustainable?

Remember the part of the old joke that goes something like this: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”? Vice President Al Gore isn’t laughing but he does have reason to smile. He’s saying the size of the federal government can be reduced, and also work better. And not everyone is smirking derisively; that alone is an achievement.

Shrinking the federal work force is difficult, given the job-for-life protections provided by civil service, politics or pork. But Gore’s team has forged a measure of cooperation among the White House, Congress, federal officials and public workers during the first year of the effort.

On the first anniversary of the Administration’s National Performance Review, President Clinton claimed that by shaving 71,000 positions from the federal work force the White House would create a savings of $47 billion next year. If true--if the savings even remotely resembled that--this represents real money.

The stated goal--$108 billion in savings and a reduction of 250,000 government workers, which amounts to a 12% cut in the federal bureaucracy over five years--sounded like a pipe dream when initially announced. It still might, but that mission doesn’t seem so flatly unachievable, given Gore’s incremental success.

By next March, 50,000 more government workers are expected to take federal buyouts. That exodus promises greater savings, unless, of course, the best and the brightest take the money and run, leaving behind ineffective employees.

More savings could come from suggestions offered by government employees, such as streamlining the cumbersome procurement process that often forces Washington to pay more for less. Reducing the size and expense of government is critical to the financial solvency of this nation, but these aren’t the Administration’s only goals.

Gore’s vision includes a government that works better to help deserving people, especially after a disaster, when people need government most. People like Almeda Holstein of Sylmar are already testifying. She lost her house, and just about everything else, in the Northridge earthquake. Her family was homeless for three weeks and worried about how to pay the mortgage. “FEMA rescued me,” she said during the White House progress report on Wednesday. That’s high praise for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had delivered much less than promised in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew.

Holstein also paid tribute to FEMA caseworker Bea Gonzales, who “was tireless in her efforts and kindly in her manner.” Such competence and compassion must be rewarded more often.

The job of reinventing the federal government is far from over, but Al Gore has achieved a more than respectable start. Citizens should keep a cautious guard up at all times, of course--but not rule out the possibility that Gore might actually accomplish something.