-- buying staplers at $54 each
-- employing an official tea-taster
-- paying $500 for telephones that work underwater
-- spending $27 to send a three-pound package overnight
These were among some of the best kept secrets in government -- business as usual inside an engorged, entrenched bureaucracy. Less secret was the fact that this bureaucracy was churning out hundreds of thousands of pages of jargon-laden directives and petty regulations that contributed to the federal bloat and a tradition of official obfuscation. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have changed all that. In this highly readable report, the fourth in a series by the National Performance Review, the Vice President reveals some new government secrets, chief of which is that government is now costing less and working better. In a revolution of common sense, federal employees themselves worked with the Clinton Administration to downsize and streamline their own jobs. The Best Kept Secrets in Government tells the stories of a number of the dedicated and innovative civil servants who were finally given the opportunity to throw off the burdens of micromanagement and implement commonsense plans of their own devising. The results have been dramatic, resulting in the largest, swiftest government-wide cut in the history of the United States -- while maintaining and improving essential services. In The Best Kept Secrets in Government, Vice President Gore tells how this revolution came to pass, and how it can be extended into the future. "It isn't good enough yet, or small enough yet, but we sure have things headed in the right direction," the Vice President writes in his introduction. "We are rebuilding a government that all Americans can be proud of."
