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

DATE: SUNDAY, September 12, 1993                   TAG: 9309120060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press
DATELINE: HOUSTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CLINTON ORDERS CUTS IN FEDERAL RED TAPE, BUREAUCRATS

Inside a sweltering Texas surplus-supply warehouse in Houston, the president ordered federal agencies to cut the number of their internal regulations by 50 percent and instructed department heads to write a streamlining plan with a goal of cutting 252,000 of the government's 700,000 middle-management personnel.

He also directed government officials to develop customer service standards "equal to the best in business."

The administration has used examples like the Postal Service's promise that no one should wait more than five minutes in line or the IRS initiative to mail tax refunds within 40 days, steps that began before Clinton took office.

Clinton said the government is "stuck in the past, wasting too much money, often ignoring the taxpayer, coping with outdated systems and archaic technology and, most of all, eroding the confidence of the American people that government can make change work for them."

Playing off populist support for trimming government fat, Clinton and Vice President Al Gore also promoted their cost-cutting moves during the president's weekly radio address Saturday morning, in which Clinton tied the dramatic steps toward peace in the Middle East to the need to change the way the United States does business.

"In this world of dramatic change, one of the biggest obstacles to our changing is the machinery of government itself," Clinton said.

Texas' example of trimming $8 billion in expenses was a model followed by Gore's National Performance Review and was one reason he and Clinton traveled here.

The state is also in one of the regions most supportive of the North American Free Trade Agreement, prompting Clinton to add a brief pitch for the accord during his remarks.

But supporters of the trade pact with Mexico and Canada, who cheered Clinton and Gore outside their Houston hotel Saturday, said they wished there would be a more visible effort by the administration to generate enthusiasm for it.

"I feel that Clinton will support it, but it's moving rather slowly in the eyes of our Latin America neighbors and certainly for those that are in favor of NAFTA," said Fan Dorman, president of the Inter-American Chamber of Commerce in Houston, who was one in a group wearing "NAFTA means jobs" T-shirts.

"I'd like to have President Clinton come here for a town hall meeting . . . so we can truly show that there is a large deal of support for NAFTA. NAFTA is very critical to our business," Dorman said.

Clinton plans only a one-day kickoff for NAFTA on Tuesday before moving on to the massive sales job he will have to do for his health care proposal.