Federal diet plan.

• Author: Henderson, Rick

Bill Clinton and Al Gore have some decent ideas about reinventing government--streamline purchasing regulations, make it easier to reward competent employees and fire slackards, consolidate redundant agencies. But the vice president's National Performance Review is, in truth, a pretty wimpy effort.

Gore says reinventing government can save $108 billion over five years. That's a mere 1.2 percent of total federal spending. And, unlike the Grace Commission and other watchdogs that have tried to root out "waste, fraud, and abuse," Clinton and Gore have no intention of returning these savings to taxpayers. Health care, national service, and other new spending programs will expand the bureaucracy as it becomes more "efficient."

The review's purpose--and its Achilles' heel--was identified by David Osborne (a performance review consultant) and Ted Gaebler in their 1992 manifesto: "Reinventing Government addresses how governments work, not what they do."

Reform-minded Americans, however, want elected officials to streamline the civil service and eliminate costly programs. An exit poll last November revealed that more than half of Clinton's support came from people who wanted lower taxes and smaller government. The president's desire to endlessly expand federal programs also contrasts sharply with the priorities of the much-ballyhooed "Perot voters" and other grass-roots reformers.

Fortunately, there's a proposal that would force the White House and Congress to put the federal government on a diet. Rep. Robert Walker (R-Pa.) has introduced the Taxpayer Debt Buy-Down Act of 1993. Walker's bill would reinvent government by shrinking it--and let individual taxpayers decide how strict the diet would be.

The Walker plan would let taxpayers use their income-tax forms to set aside as much as 10 percent of their tax payments to retire federal debt. Every dollar checked off would buy down a government bond or other form of debt.

Unlike Clinton's deficit-reduction trust fund, the Walker plan is no gimmick: Every dollar designated for debt retirement would also permanently cut federal spending by a dollar...