From Robert Reich to Pat Buchanan, politicians say that government should stop the carnage. They have it backwards. The federal government should be copying the private sector. First, go digital. Banks are desperately migrating customers off paper and human clerks and on to automatic tellers and PC-based software.
Airlines give away free on-line reservation software.
The government is years behind. Yes, the IRS lets you file electronically. But if you want a license to broadcast I Love Lucy in Okefenokee, you still have to wheel cartloads of paper into the Federal Communications Commission, where it sits in the halls in dusty boxes, mostly unread. A real Paperwork Reduction Act would let you file any form by posting on an electronic bulletin board. For government this would be doubly efficient, because so much of what comes in must immediately go back out, as an official public record accessible to all.