Tom Brokaw’s op ed on small town spending suggests that if  the private sector organization GM is going to be reinvented , then what is sauce for the industrial goose is sauce for the government gander.  He proposes that major savings can be achieved by reconfiguring and recombining multiple small town and county services.   The interesting aspect of his observations is how these services were developed for a different time and place when most people lived and worked in rural settings. Now that only 4% of the population is rural and modern communications, transportation and urban infrastructure support the majority of the population, then maybe it is time to reinvent small town government (and reduce related spending).