American Government: Political Change and Institutional Development Book

In this book, Al Gore (and/or his ghost writer) systematically explore sources of government waste and offer some common sense ways to fix them. It's an idea that most people can get on board with, and an effort that is definitely needed now.

Many of Gore's ideas are good, even 20 years later. He suggests some moves like cutting red tape, allowing more decisions to be made on the local level and spending more money on the training that workers need. Ultimately, these moves would save the government millions of dollars a year and shrink the government bureaucracy... an effort that both parties would likely be on board with.

This book suffers in two places. First, it was written 20 years ago, so most of the specific suggestions are obsolete. Furthermore, one of his biggest suggestions is to get rid of paper files and computerize things while also embracing this new creation called "the internet". It's kind of funny to see how something as everyday as the internet was considered a fix-all back then. If only Gore knew how much time workers wasted on the internet...

The second place where this book suffers is that is gets very repetitive very quickly. I get it, Al... give lower level managers more authority over hiring and purchasing decisions and let the citizens have more of a say in the effectiveness of the government.

Since this book was published, many of his suggestions have been adopted. Government agencies are now organized into "teams", records have been computerized and agencies like the IRS and USPS are more receptive to citizen's needs. There is still a lot to do, however. It would be nice to see another bi-partisan effort like this one take place today... but that seems unlikely with the current political environment.

Overall, Gore proposes some good ideas, most of which were good 20 years ago, and a few that still apply today. But the book is dry and needs a serious update.