Common Sense Government: Works Better and Costs Less Page: 46
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46 Common Sense Government: Works Better & Costs Less
mon goal-a cleaner environment at less cost to taxpayers and businesses. The
stakeholder groups are looking for common sense approaches to regulation, pollu-
tion prevention, reporting, compliance, permitting, and technology. The principles
of this new partnership are to seek consensus on how to reach the goal, focus on
prevention, develop industry-specific solutions rather than trying, as Browner says,
to make "one size fit all," and maintain tough standards.
In a way, it's borrowing an idea from the past. As General George S. Patton
said, "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will sur-
prise you with their ingenuity."
The Road Ahead
As Newsweek magazine pointed out this year, in the old federal government
the theory was that if you just stipulated every possible regulatory circumstance, a
robotic army of inspectors could go out and enforce the rules." The trouble is, cir-
cumstances differ, conditions change, life goes on. And the government went on
too, but with the same inflexible, red tape-tangled procedures it had always used
in some cases, since the beginning of the Republic.
There's an old saying: "If we keep on doing what we're doing, we're gonna
keep on getting what we've got." Americans don't want "what we've got" anymore.
We want a government that delivers results, that keeps up with change and actual-
ly helps people, businesses, and state and local governments adapt to those changes.
We want, in fact, an enterprising government, one that moves as quickly as the rest
of our society, one that works with us, listens to us, and acts on the things we need
in a more efficient, more effective, and less costly manner than it has in the past.
And that's what we're beginning to get. Agencies that treat their customers as
partners. That cut rules long out-of-date and make those we still need sensible. That
seek to find ways to achieve public goals without damaging the structure of private
enterprise that supports us. That remember that the purpose is progress toward
those goals, not punishment for those who violate-often unwittingly-rules that
are obscure or pointless. And that reward their own employees for doing the right
thing, not simply for doing things right according to the rulebook.
As The New York Times said, it is a "quiet revolution."20 But revolutions take
time, and no one is suggesting the government's got the problems all licked. There
is progress, but there is a great deal that remains to be done-and indeed, it is never
finished. New laws get passed. New regulations get written. The government's task
is to ensure that those rules are clear about what needs to be accomplished, but flex-
ible about how.
What government reinvention does is reinstate the promise of common sense
in self-government. President Clinton has already described the result: "a govern-
ment that is limited but effective.., that does better what it should do and simply
stops doing things it shouldn't be doing in the first place, that protects consumers,
workers, and the environment without burdening business, choking innovation, or
wasting the money of the American taxpayer. "21
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Gore, Albert. Common Sense Government: Works Better and Costs Less, book, 1995; Washington, D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc123531/m1/52/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.