A need to "reinvent" the Clinton administration's approach to science and technology.

ONE CONSTANT AMONG THE WAFFLING Clinton policies on everything from Haiti to health care seems to be “reinventing government.” Unfortunately, this sweeping project, which the president touts repeatedly, has become something of a totem, inspiring much reverence but little reflection. Although it is difficult to object to shrinking the size of the federal bureaucracy and making it more efficient, an examination of what reinventing government has actually wrought and its prospects for American science and technology are cause for alarm. First, consider that the project is in the hands of one of the most ideologically extreme and rigid members of the administration: vice president Al Gore. Second, even though there may have been some overall reductions in government personnel and organizations, critical regulatory policies at several agencies have, in fact, expanded the federal government’s mandate and its intrusiveness, with policies determined more by political correctness and the vice president’s idiosyncratic views than by what is good for public health or the environment. Finally, Gore’s approach to reinventing government has been characterized by a desire to purge dissenting views from both the councils of government and the ranks of federal agencies.