Al Gore: “From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs Less”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Bill Clinton successfully defeated incumbent George H. W. Bush in the 1992 presidential election, in large part as a result of a campaign strategy that focused on the economy. Faced with a recession, the American public was also saddled with a soaring federal debt, which had grown during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Clinton's message of government and economic reform resonated with voters who no longer supported traditional Democratic social programs.

In March 1993, shortly after taking the oath of office, Clinton asked Gore to lead an evaluation of the federal government, known as the National Performance Review. In the preface to his report, Gore describes the review process using language similar to that used by businesspeople and management consultants. In doing so, he signals to the public that government is moving in the direction of the private sector: seeking greater efficiency in its use of resources.

Gore mentions Clinton's deficit reduction package of 1993, which included reductions in entitlement programs and tax increases as well as tax credits and business investment incentives. His primary message, however, is that government must serve the public and must drastically change in order to do so. Gore refers to “closing the trust deficit” to connect the reality of the government's deficit spending to declining public confidence in the federal government's ability to fulfill its obligations. He uses the term “customer service contract” to position the federal government as a service organization dedicated to the public.

Gore then describes the review process, again emphasizing the fact that the government must serve the public. He contrasts this review with past efforts to evaluate the government, which used external experts rather than people within the system. Gore's language reflects trends in the management practice of the time, which emphasized a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down strategy. Driven by the ideas of such theorists as Peter Drucker and W. Edwards Deming, management consultants encouraged businesses to involve employees and customers in decisions, using a team approach rather than a hierarchical, authoritative model. Emulating the private sector, Gore refers to “Reinvention Teams” of government employees; one of the best-selling business books in the late 1980s was Re-Inventing the Corporation by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, which popularized the concept of “reinvention” and led to other publications, including David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's Re-inventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector (1993), an important influence on the Clinton campaign. Gore notes that the Performance Review involved input not just from employees but also citizens, state and local government leaders, business representatives, and members of the academic community. Well known for his tireless attention to detail and research, Gore collected information from many sources, and he highlights this widespread approach to differentiate his work from previous reviews that had relied on a handful of outside experts to evaluate government operations.

Gore's preface also reflects the changes that were taking place in American business during the late 1980s and early 1990s. As global competitors threatened American dominance in key industries, particularly automobile manufacturing, U.S. companies began to take measures to make their operations leaner and more efficient. Although the wave of downsizing would swell later in the 1990s, Gore's emphasis in 1993 on using innovative practices to create a more efficient government mirrors similar early efforts in the private sector. Given the substantial federal deficits at the time and the public sentiment that government should, like the private sector, learn to live within its means, Gore's emphasis on downsizing government, particularly through eliminating unnecessary staff and bureaucracy, appealed to the public, especially the business community.

Gore's recommendations led to some important changes in procurement practices as well as significant reductions in the number of government employees. In addition to the results it produced, the National Performance Review bears Gore's personal stamp: his interest in state-of-the-art technology or practices. In this case, Gore focused his attention on the most current management ideas of the time and sought to make those ideas function in the public sector. His interest in perpetuating those ideas beyond his September 1993 report is clear; in 1997 Gore and Scott Adams published Businesslike Government: Lessons Learned from America's Best Companies, which described the interviews he conducted with business leaders as part of the National Performance Review. Although Gore did not eliminate all of the red tape in Washington, he brought into the open many of the more blatantly wasteful practices of the federal government, and his writings on reinventing government illustrate the important shift to the center that occurred in the Democratic Party during the Clinton administration. Gore's preface also shows the focus and clarity of message that is a strength of his writings and speeches.