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It was a rare scene but it may be just the beginning. A group of small business firms convened a press conference at the Capitol recently to charge Big Business with using industry standards and certifications to block innovative and less-expensive products. Sponsored by Reps. James M. Shannon, D-Mass., and Robert T. Matsui, D-Calif., the…

These are political election times and candidates are looking for formulas that work with the voters and count with the money backs at the same time. There is a feeling among too many incumbents and challengers that public mood and private money have to be captured simultaneously to win at the polls. The Proxmire model…

Presidential campaign politics these days seem be more a matter of candidates running against one another than of running on the important issues facing the country. Press reports on the primary or caucus contests cover daily scenes such as: Is George Bush just a younger version of Ronald Reagan? Will Jimmy Carter emerge from the…

His presidential decisions are costing American consumers more money than the combined actions of all previous presidents back to George Washington. So it was understandable that when he came to deliver his speech to the Consumer Federation of America’s annual assembly in Washington, President Jimmy Carter, who earlier rejected traditional pomp and ceremony, brought along…

Once again General Motors has broken its public commitments and decided not to assume the’ leadership to save a million lives and tens of millions of injuries on the highways wouldwide in the next 30 years. Last week, GM president Pete Estes telephoned the Department of Transportation to say that GM would not install air…

EUGENE, ORE.–The buttons here read “Keep Oregon Oregon.” They need no further explanation to Oregonians. Many of the state’s residents do not want California-style sprawl and one-sided development. Former Gov. Tom McCall made national news a few years ago when he invited outsiders to visit Oregon but not to stay too long. Oregon deserves to…

It borders on the banal to observe that the aggregate voting record of Congress is becoming more remote from the aggregate views of the people. If a variety of Louis Harris, Peter Hart, and other pollsters are to be believed, the public disagrees with the plethora of congressional votes recently that favor Big Oil, less…

Inflation or no inflation, Congress remains the best “buy” in the country. The business lobbies that ply Capitol Hill with their campaign money and fringe benefits know that such lucre is receiving far more value than when Will Rogers uttered his pithy description of the national legislature nearly 50 years ago. Some political observers believe…

Passage of the Chrysler bail-out legislation by the Congress revealed clearly the ideological bankruptcy of self-styled political conservatives who say they oppose Big Government and favor the rewards and risks of a free-enterprise system. The Senate debate on the Chrysler bill should become a classic in the archives of political science. Rarely has the schism…

Washington is a city which diligently goes about reducing human activity in travail to statistics. As a summary form of understanding, statistics pose a challenge to the capacity of human beings for empathy. That estimable quality of the heart and mind is not often tapped by just reciting, for instance, that 100,000 U.S. workers die…