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Civil service reform–getting a better performance from happier government employees–is the centerpiece of President Carter’s campaign pledge to improve the federal government. Yet he is having a difficult time communicating a sense of excitement about his proposals both on Capitol Hill and among the public. To be sure, the jargon of civil service reform is…
The national Chamber of Commerce feels no shame when it comes to damaging consumer rights and interests. Knowing that the public may view their anti-consumer extremism with increasing concern, the chamber has jumped on the bandwagon behind a modest congressional bill to help small claims courts. The heartless lobbyists at the chamber wanted to gain…
The same lobbyists who fought the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 are at it again. This time the objective is to delay or to defeat the proposed standards by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit modestly the amount of cancer-causing chemicals in municipal drinking water systems. Who are these opponents of safer drinking…
Something happened a few days ago in the U.S. Senate that was more than good for consumers. By a vote of 60 to 33, the Senate passed a bill to establish a National Consumer Cooperative Bank that would provide credit and technical assistance to a wide variety of consumer co-ops. In doing so, the Senate…
Top Firestone Company executives and their advisers are trying to decide how to handle the regulatory and market problems involving some 13 million “Firestone 500” steel belted radial tires now on the highway. These are the tires, as many motorists know, that stand accused as being a danger on the roads by the National Highway…
Trinidad Perez was working as a janitor at a General Dynamics plant in California when an accident on the job left him totally and permanently disabled. His company was covered under a disability policy issued by Aetna Life Insurance. Despite a statement by his physician and a verification by Aetna’s claims adjuster that Perez was…
Shoes. Shoes. Shoes. They are like the weather; people complain all the time but nothing is done about them. Shoes, in fact, for all their many problems have been largely ignored by the consumer movement. Consumer Reports, by way of illustration, has only conducted one test series on shoes and then only “Boys’ Shoes” as…
Shoes. Shoes. Shoes. They are like the weather; people complain all the time but nothing is done about them. Shoes, in fact, for all their many problems have been largely ignored by the consumer movement. Consumer Reports, by way of illustration, has only conducted one test series on shoes and then only “Boys’ Shoes,” as…
It was an occasion that remains memorable 20 years later. There was the president of little American Motors, George Romney, testifying before the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee and telling it like it is about General Motors and Ford Motor Co. In addition to providing valuable insights about how giant companies can reduce competition and innovation in…
The politics of fighting inflation from Washington is increasingly becoming the politics of put- ting it to the weak and subsidizing the powerful. A few days ago, at the height of the struggle over the cotton dust lung disease standard that pitted White House advisers against the Department of Labor, a White House aide told…