In the Public Interest

James K. Kirkpatrick, a stiff-lipped Republican columnist and television commentator, inadvertently illustrated just how far the Republicans have gone in sinking this country in red ink. He pronounced the new Bush budget as a “pretty good budget”. He never mentioned that the deficit built into this budget will be about $300 billion this year, not…

Resource conversation pressures are coming right down to the American household. California, in its fifth straight year of drought, is deciding on 13 water‑saving proposals via its Water Resources Control Board. In addition to higher water bills, one proposal would limit water use to 300 gallons per household per day. How much is 300 gallons…

A government that does not learn from its mistakes is sure to make the people pay more for them. The Bush Administration is doing just that because Bush, and Reagan before him, refused to continue the energy conservation policies of their predecessors, Ford and Carter. As a result, the auto companies began to go into…

Last month a reporter called to ask what book in 1990 would I recommend to his audience as part of an “end of the gear” article he was writing. After some reflection I called him back and gave him a list to choose from which make for good and diverse reading. Here are the titles:…

There are four puzzling questions surrounding the Persian Gulf crisis and possible hostilities which neither President Bush nor his associates have addressed. First, for the first time in modern American history, many former Secretaries of Defense (James Schlesinger, Caspar Weinberger, Harold Brown, Robert McNamara), former Secretaries of State (Cyrus Vance, William Rogers, Edmund Muskie, Dean…

A combination of a recession in advertising revenue, more competition for the advertising dollar due to more stations, and weak-kneed television station managers is producing censorship and, sometimes, dismissals of television consumer reporters around the country. The champion tv censors continue to be local auto dealers. Back, in 1968, the Miami Valley Auto Dealers Association…

With all the scientists, modern detection instruments and obligations by corporations and their friendly gov­ernment agencies to find out, it is remarkable how long simple measurements of widespread hazards take to make. It took a graduate student in the early Seventies to discover mercury contamination in fish from the Great Lakes. It took a chance…

The consumer and environmental movements are increasingly going international. As giant multinational corporations and their brand names sell the same pesticides, pharmaceuticals, motor vehicles, junk foods and other products in dozens of countries, the consumer focus on what is responsible behavior for manufacturers and sellers takes on an international character. Likewise, workers and community groups…

President George Bush is giving his multimillionaire vice president, Dan Quayle, a big Christmas present — a $46,000 a year pay increase. Bush brought Quayle’s pay to $161,000 a year plus many benefits and perks in the process of signing an executive order implementing legislation raising the salaries of some 10,000 upper level officials and…

Imagine a governing scheme which even its proponents admit would limit the ability of federal, state and local governments to regulate consumer safety and environmental matters. Imagine that while its advocates claim it would dramatically improve the economy, they allow Congress only 90 days to vote up or down on its hundreds of dense pages…