Reinventing Government In America

Opening with an outstanding and quite humorous parable of how government would go about making a paper airplane (replete with the usual task force, endless committees, additions and revisions, specifications and rules...until, of course, the damn thing can no longer fly), Reinventing Government in America goes on to offer an anthology of previously produced public television pieces about innovative solutions to the problem of bureaucratic red tape. In Phoenix, AZ, opening up garbage collection to bids from the private sector forced the local government to clean up its own act; in Manchester, NH, a new House of Corrections operates more like a business than a penal facility; in Seattle, WA, a really neat idea--the Community Voice Mail program--has allowed homeless job seekers (with no phones) to call in for messages; and at The Reinvention Station in Carlisle, PA, a dedicated mother offers help in a number of different areas (but because it's not strictly by the book, she's not funded). Throughout, an upcoming interview with Al Gore (which, of course, is at the end of tape) is hawked, ostensibly to keep viewers tuned in, and the address for Milwaukee Public Television is repeatedly given (these should have been filtered out). So, is this an in-depth look at government waste like the bestselling book by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler that inspired the program's title? No. But it is an interesting peek into areas in America where the system works a little better precisely because it doesn't work like the system any longer. Recommended. (R. Pitman)