76-05-B2
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Citizen's Choice
TranscriptThere's a new citizens action group forming that has started up without the usual fanfare and righteous indignation. I'll be right back. For some folks, righteous indignation seems to be a way of life. Sometimes it seems they aren't happy unless they're being outraged by some supposed evil or other. There was an element of that in the formation of the organization called Common Cause, though I'm not saying that all its supporters feel that way by a long shot. Somehow there was the idea that if only we could finance election campaigns out of the federal treasury, there wouldn't be any more influence by something called “special interest groups.” Federal refinancing, of course, did not bring utopia. While it set out to solve one set of problems, it brought on another set. When the supreme court ruled against some aspects of the law early this year, matching funds stopped for several weeks, sinking one presidential candidate and, I can say from personal experience, giving at least one other a major headache. Ralph Nader's various enterprises are also usually launched with indignant attacks against various straw men. The naderites often hitched their indignant wagon to the college students idealistic star. Very clever harnessing the idealism of youth to serve their own aims. But now there's a new citizen group starting up which is refreshing for its initial lack of self-righteous indignation, It's called Citizen’s Choice and its aim is to mobilize a popular nationwide movement against big government. Big government, of course, has its champions including an army of bureaucrats and plenty of Congressmen who don't like to take credit for its excesses at election time. Now Citizen’s Choice comes along to represent, in its own words, the interest of the harassed middle-income taxpayer who is expected to pay the bills. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is serving as godfather to the new organization by lending it $200,000 to get started. Thomas Donahue, executive vice-president of Citizen’s Choice points out, though, that the loan was at prevailing interest rates and that they hope to be self-financed shortly. Most of the money will be used to send out 10 million membership invitations. The organization won't accept contributions from corporations, only individuals, and it won't endorse or oppose individual office holders. What it wants to do for its members, in exchange for their $15 a year dues, is lobby for Congressional action on a platform that includes passage of a sunset law which automatically suspends government agencies every four years unless they can justify their functions, enactment of a requirement that all federal programs that cost more than 10 million dollars be tested first at the regional or state level, and passage of a requirement for economic cost benefits studies before new federal regulations are imposed, Restriction of food stamp distribution to people with household incomes below the poverty line and passage of a ban on strikes, slow downs or so-called job actions by public employees. That's a big order but if Citizen’s Choice can mobilize several thousand overburdened taxpayers and if it can do it without a heavy dose of righteous indignation, only determination, there's hope it may succeed. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.
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