
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 1, 1993                   TAG: 9309010301
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OMBUDSMEN?

SNAFU with your Social Security check? Need a passport next week, not next year? Can't seem to get the IRS computer to acknowledge payment of taxes for which you have a canceled check?

Whom do you call?

That's right, your congressman's office. Which, come to think of it, is a mite odd. Under the Constitution, after all, Congress is the lawmaking branch of government. The Constitution doesn't list ombudsman as a congressional duty.

It has become so, however, for a couple or three reasons:

America has grown into a huge nation with a huge government. That government can be hard to navigate without an experienced guide.

The processes of government haven't kept pace with the growth of government, a difficulty sometimes compounded by bureaucratic ineptitude.

A congressman whose staff can help a constituent with a Social Security snafu or similar difficulty is a congressman who likely has gained or retained a vote for the next election.

This isn't an irreparable situation.

America's government is irrevocably and inevitably huge, but need it be so cumbersome? Apply to the public sector some of the reformation now under way in American business, do a bit of ``reinventing government,'' and mistakes might be fewer, bureaucracies less confusing and services more customer-friendly.

But what's in it for Congress? How to convince congressmen it's in their interest to simplify laws, rewrite regulations, press for reform of the bureaucracy when the intended result is to reduce the need for their vote-winning ombudsman services?

Easy. Allow every staffer no longer needed for ombudsman duty to be assigned campaign fund-raising duty instead.

On second thought . . .

by CNB