In the Public Interest

A deputy legislature was born fully adult in the waning hours of the California legislature’s session this month. Voters can neither elect nor diselect this lawmaking body. It is composed of the manufacturers, insurance industry, physicians, counties, municipalities and tobacco industry on one side and the California Trial Lawyers Association (CTLA) on the other side.…

When I was a high school student reading the daily Congressional Record, the subscription price for this fascinating political periodical was $12 a year. That was 1950. My Senator, Prescott Bush, would promptly reply to my requests for Congressional hearings and reports. When taxpayers fund the federal government, they are paying for the right to…

Over thirteen million students return to or start college this autumn. What is their state of mind? To prepare for a job. To earn money to pay for the tuition. To have some fun. These are the generalizations often made in recent years. There are other sweeping characterizations. Students are said to be apathetic. They…

Time — or lack thereof — is a rising concern of more Americans, according to a recent poll. Not coincidentally, as Jeremy Rifkin points out in his new book, Time Wars, time measurements for what people do and how people act are becoming more intense and subject to control. The word “nanoseconds” is coming into…

Heightened tension in the Persian Gulf brings renewed attention to energy consumption and supplies in the United States. You don’t hear much about programs to advance energy conservation and solar power from the Reagan Administration. The reason is that these programs have been foolishly curtailed, while the Reaganites continue to pour your tax dollars into…

Donald E. Petersen, chairman of The Ford Motor Company, must be sittingon top of the world. His company is making General Motors eat humble pie, eventhough GM is almost twice the size. Ford is reporting more profits than its giant competitor in absolutedollars as well as producing cars about $800 cheaper. Ford has $9.2 billionin…

When it comes to the prices patients must pay for prescription drugs, what a difference a national boundary makes. In the United States, the price of Aldomet (per 100 tablets), a drug to treat high blood pressure, is $18; in Canada, consumers pay $8. Other major brand name prescription drugs cost from three to ten…

Ever hear of the Price-Anderson Act? For the past 30 years, this act has been the atomic power industry’s price for building 100 nuclear plants throughout the United States. Congress and three presidents gave into the nuclear power lobby and renewed this act every 10 years to give sharply limited liabili­ty to your electric com­pany…

Donald J. Trump is a very rich real estate developer in New York City. One of his buildings, Trump Towers, is over sixty stories of luxury apartments about which he once quipped: “The rents are so high that Americans can’t afford to live there.” There is another side to Donald Trump’s real estate ventures. They…

If you are a person who has never come close to a law book or a courthouse, does Judge Robert H. Bork have news for you–IF he is confirmed by the Senate this year to become a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because whether or not you have ever used the legal system, a…