VOA常速英语:特朗普女婿将掌舵白宫新机构---“美国创新办公室”

The second generation real estate investor who is married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka,is to lead the new White House Office of American Innovation.It will try to make the federal government run more like an efficient business.

“The new office will operate out of the powerful West Wing of the White House and be staffed by former business executives from such corporations as Microsoft and General Motors as well as the Goldman Sachs Investment Bank.”

At Monday’s White House briefing, the press secretary brushed off questions about whether the 36-year-old Kushner,a newcomer to government, is qualified to lead the office,including the Middle East peace process and being his father-in-law’s lead advisor on countries such as China and Mexico.

If you’ve ever really dealt with the government and recognized how outdated and unmodernized some of this is,it is not serving the American people, it is not serving the constituents that many departments have.And I think looking at how we procure different things, and (how we) procure technology in particular is important."

The challenges are daunting,Stephen Goldsmith of Harvard University Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation spoke to VOA via Skype.

You have bureaucratic issues and congressional issues and complexity issues,but having an innovation effort driven at the highest level of government, which this obviously is,I think provides some hope that they can actually make a difference.”

The new office, according to its just released mandate, is meant to improve the quality of life for Americans and spur job creation.Officials say it also is to make recommendations on what government functions ultimately could be privatized.

Steve Herman, VOA News, at the White House