75-16-A2
- Main Page \ Reagan Radio Commentaries \ 1975
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Letter to Congress[edit]
Transcript[edit]Writing letters to your Congressman may not be your favorite indoor sport, but it does pay off. I'll be right back. From time to time I've suggested to you in this broadcasts that it was time to write your Congressman on some certain subject. I realize that a great many of you think this is an exercise in futility, but there are others, so-called special interest groups who know better. They know that a sudden deluge of letters arriving in Washington in a concentrated period of time is taken as an indication of widespread public feeling. Unfortunately, these mail assaults usually represent the effort of a relatively limited cross-section, and the majority, whose taxes keep the bureaucratic machinery running, seldom engage in such organized operations. Now and then however, some particular issue does get under your skin and you write your Congressman. Government by the people works when the people work at it. The seat belt interlock devices proved how true this is. You couldn't start the motor to back the car out of the garage for a quick hose down without putting on the seat belt. Public indignation was so great that Congress got the message and the law forcing the auto companies to install those devices was canceled. Now you've done it again. For two years, the eager zealots of the Food and Drug Administration are going to keep us healthy if it kills us, have been classifying food supplements as drugs which means about 80 percent of the dietary supplements now on the market required a doctor's prescription. What's worse, vitamin producers lowered the potency of their vitamin pills to escape the federal regulations. Some of the advocates of this increase in government interference were the Ralph Nader inspired Public Citizen Health Research Group, American Association of Retired Persons, and the National Retired Teachers Association. This gives the impression the regulations were helpful to and desired by senior citizens, but then something happened. Congress was inundated by a flood of mail. It had one theme: stop the federal Drug Administration from carrying out its regulations and re-establish the right of the individual to purchase, without hindrance, the vitamins and minerals each individual feels are needed. Congress responded, and the federal Drug Administration rescinded its regulations. A large proportion of the mail was from so-called senior citizens which makes you wonder about organizational leaders deciding for themselves what is best for the people they represent. Some Congressmen suffer from the same disease thank heaven, though there are Congressmen who don't. One of these is Steve Symms of Idaho. He summed up this whole subject with the following statement. quote, "The greatest contribution anyone can make to the American consumer, which includes all of us, is to maximize freedom of choice within our private enterprise system. there is nothing more anti-consumerist than to favor substituting the rational choices of individual producers and consumers with the arbitrary whims of bureaucrats and politicians." End quote, and Amen. So remember how mighty is the pen and write your Congressman when you feel there's an action he should take. Who knows? We might even wind up with government by the people. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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