Reader TTS

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free _Mother Jones Daily_. Over the weekend, Barack Obama spoke about various ideas for government

reform that his administration will be trying out. One in particular struck me as interesting. Here’s Obama: > Third, we’ll look for ideas from the bottom up. After all, > Americans 

across the country know that the best ideas often come > from workers – not just management. That’s why WE’LL ESTABLISH > A PROCESS THROUGH WHICH EVERY GOVERNMENT WORKER CAN SUBMIT 

THEIR > IDEAS FOR HOW THEIR AGENCY CAN SAVE MONEY AND PERFORM BETTER. > WE’LL PUT THE SUGGESTIONS THAT WORK INTO PRACTICE. AND LATER THIS > YEAR, I WILL MEET WITH THOSE WHO COME UP 

WITH THE BEST IDEAS TO HEAR > FIRSTHAND ABOUT HOW THEY WOULD MAKE YOUR GOVERNMENT MORE EFFICIENT > AND EFFECTIVE. That’s pretty neat, though without routing these ideas from deep

within the bureaucracy directly to the Oval Office, this could very easily turn out to be an empty PR gambit. Presumably a political appointee at the top of a federal agency can squash the

ideas he or she doesn’t want to see implemented. My favorite part of this, though, is the flood of suggestions about saving money that are likely going to be little more than, “You should

fire Jim, the guy in the cubicle next to me who cuts his toenails in the office.”