76-02-B1
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Paperwork and Bureaucrats
TranscriptSometimes giving a bureaucrat a new rule is like handing a pyromaniac a lighted match and a haymow. I'll be right back. A Congressman from Connecticut is upset and properly so. It seems the Department of Health Education and Welfare has told Weathersfield School officials their all-boy sixth grade choir violates sex discrimination guidelines. Under their rules, musical groups can be separated only by vocal range. I hope by the time you hear this, the Congressman has been successful in his fight to restore common sense. Congressman Charles Thorne of Nebraska is waging the same fight on another front. He's trying to save paper. If he succeeds a lot of business people and farmers can cut down on tranquilizers. Congressman Thorne co-sponsored the legislation which created the Commission on Federal Paperwork, a temporary body dedicated to reducing the quantity of forms and reports the federal government demands of us. He tells of the testimony to the commission by the head of a large drug firm revealing that paperwork alone adds 50 cents to the cost of any prescription using his firm's medicines. Just listen to these figures: this firm spends a hundred million dollars a year on research in five fields, two of which are cancer and heart disease. Government paperwork requires them to spend more personnel hours than they can invest on cancer and heart research. A medicine for arthritis is on the market only after submission of an application that consisted of a 120,000 pages in the original. They had to send two additional copies. You don't just drop 360,000 pages in the nearest mailbox, not when you're sending over a ton of paper. The commission has learned that the Environmental Protection Agency requires a technical data report submitted quarterly. Then for the second quarter you must submit, in addition to the second quarter report, a copy of the first quarter report. And of course, in the third quarter you resubmit the reports for the first and second quarters, and yes, with the fourth quarter report you resubmit the first, second and third quarter reports. These reports to EPA usually have to do with chemical weed killers and such. They can run 3000 pages each. Now I know that government workers responsible for this foolishness aren't evil people, they just get carried away with trying to solve every facet of every problem and they believe the country will come unglued if they don't. The June issue with the American Political Science Review published a study by two eminent scholars. In 1970 they had interviewed senior employees in 18 federal agencies. Regardless of who was president in 1970 he was faced with 83% of all super-grade employees who supported and believed in the philosophy of big government. In H.E.W, H.U.D. and O.E.O., 92% of the top bureaucrats opposed every effort to reduce the social service agencies. More than 70% wanted to expand them. Of the political appointees who were holdovers from the Great Society era, 75% wanted to increase the size of federal government and most indicated they wanted a major increase. Our problem is a permanent structure of government, insulated from the thinking and wishes of the people. A structure which for all practical purposes is more powerful than our elected representatives. Only you and I can change that. We must send Congress a mandate to restore government to the people. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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