Do You Trust the Government?

Dateline: 06/25/00

A generation ago, national opinion polls indicated that over 76 percent of American's felt they could trust the federal government.

In 1994, the University of Michigan conducted a poll asking people, "Do you trust the federal government to do the right things most of the time?" Sadly, only 21 percent answered "Yes." 

The Clinton Administration's National Partnership for Reinventing Government responded by issuing the following goals for federal agencies:

• Agencies that have the most public contact must be made more performance-based, results-oriented, and customer-driven.
• Achieve customer satisfaction with federal services equal to or better than the business service sector.
• Develop an architectural design to enable Americans to have access to all government information and be able to conduct all major transactions on-line by 2003. (E-government Services)

In addition, President Clinton gave federal agencies a little "shove" be issuing Executive Order 12862 - Setting Customer Service Standards. Here's how it started...

All executive departments and agencies (hereinafter referred to collectively as "agency" or "agencies") that provide significant services directly to the public shall provide those services in a manner that seeks to meet the customer service standard established herein and shall take the following actions: identify the customers who are, or should be, served by the agency; survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services; post service standards and measure results against them; benchmark customer service performance against the best in business; survey front-line employees on barriers to, and ideas for, matching the best in business; provide customers with choices in both the sources of service and the means of delivery; make information, services, and complaint systems easily accessible; and provide means to address customer complaints. -- From Executive Order 12862

Have these efforts been working? In 1998, the same University of Michigan poll ("Do you trust the federal government to do the right things most of the time?"), saw 40 percent respond "Yes." Was this increase due simply to the vagaries of public polling, or to the Clinton Administration's efforts to reinvent government?

Let's do our own poll asking the same question:
Poll:
Do you trust the federal government to do the right things most of the time?  

And, let's discuss why or why not, and what should be done to improve America's trust in government.
Discussion: 
Do you -- can you -- trust the government?
What would change your mind? 

Reference Links

The Blair House Papers
Presented in 1997, this is the official National Performance Review report presented by President Clinton and Vice President Gore.

Plain Language in Government Awards
An April 6, 2000 speech by NPR Directory Morley Winograd presenting the 2000 "No Gobbledygook" Plain Language in Government awards.

The 21st Century Federal Workforce
A speech describing the "leaner," customer oriented federal workforce of the near future by Office of Personnel Management Director Janice LaChance.

Benchmarking the Federal Government
How will we compare the U.S. government's performance and level of customer service to those of other countries? 

Conversations with America
Encouraging federal workers all over government to discuss how to improve customer service with the American public.

E-government Services
Lots of government services and information are already available online. Here are just few from your About Guide.

Reinventing Government - Libertarian Style
Libertarians have been suggesting "reinventing" government by getting most of it out of our daily lives for years. Libertarian Guide Alexis Nepomuceno shows you where to look for more information.

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