In the Public Interest

WASHINGTON–Americans are now spending over $100 billion annually for a health care delivery system whose inequities, waste and quality deficiencies are so well documented that almost every conceivable political faction now supports some concept of “national health insurance.” The issue before Congress for the last four years is what kind of national health insurance? In…

WASHINGTON, D.C.–The crumbling ideology of big business is being hastened by the deeds and words of big business itself. For years, large corporations have built up big government as a bustling bazaar of accounts receivables, indirect tax subsidies and official insulations from market competition. Now a further dimension is being added to the construction of…

WASHINGTON, D.C.–The early signs of the crushing economic burdens which faulty nuclear power plants are placing on elec­tric utilities portend greater trouble as the number of such plants coming on line increases. Although utilities are not eager to concede these mounting costs, preferring to emphasize rising oil and coal prices instead, the following recent developments…

WASHINGTON–If there is ever to Senator Sam Ervin, busy struggling against the Watergate mess, can be partially excused for delegating the job of pre­paring minority report to his counsel, Robert B. Smith, a crisp, virulently anti-consumer lawyer who huddles regularly with big business lobbyists trying to stop the CPA bill on the Senate floor. But…

WASHINGTON–This August at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association, (ABA), the nation’s establishment lawyers will witness an extraordinary three hour program on injustices in the delivery of legal services and what can be done about them. Prominent on this program will be case studies of people who have been victimized by the ills…

A successful way to fight inflation is for the government to enforce the old anti-monopoly laws against price-fixing, concentrated corporate power in the marketplace and other anti-competitive practices. Consider the recent case of falling General Electric light bulb prices in New York City. On April 3, General Electric announced the dismantling of its 62-year-old system…

WASHINGTON–A successful way to fight inflation is for the government to enforce the old anti-monopoly laws against price-fixing, concentrated corporate power in the marketplace, and other anti-com­petitive practices. Consider the recent case of falling General Electric light bulb prices in New York City as an illustration. On April 3, General Electric announced the dismantling of…

WASHINGTON– Congressman Harley Staggers’ daughter is a young physician in West Virginia. She has treated patients suffering from contaminated drinking water. Yet she was not familiar with the safe drinking water bill which has been bogged down in her father’s House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee for several months due to lack of quorums, oil…

WASHINGTON–What would Alexander Graham Bell think of it all? The new Dallas-Fort Worth Airport charges 25 cents for a local pay phone call. Telephone companies are determined to make customers pay for information calls to the operator and to replace flat rates with metered message units that the customer cannot verify. What’s more, telephone companies…

WASHINGTON–In the current debate over public financing of electoral campaigns, the issue is not whether? but which? For many years there has been indirect public financing through patronage jobs for “pols” who, in the words of a recent New York Public Interest Research Group study, received “much dough for no-show.” Last year’s Agnew scandal involving…