77-20-B4
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Camps
TranscriptPoliticians campaign on a promise of getting government off our backs, but government stays right there and gets heavier by the day. I'll be right back. The Federal government has found a new area where we're unprotected and it thinks it must ride to the rescue. You probably thought a hike in the country or summer camps for the kids was a part of growing up and contributed to health and happiness for Mary and Tommy. Well, thanks to our ever watchful and omnipotent guardians in Washington, the ugly truth has come out. Mortal danger lurks in every bedroll and pup tent. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Federal government is going to eliminate the hazards of camping through bureaucratic rule and regulation. Congress is debating a piece of legislation called the Youth Camp Safety Act. It will if passed, martial an army of federal inspectors to ride herd on YMCA, Boy and Girl Scouts, church groups and private camps. No longer will a scout have to be prepared, Washington will relieve him or her of any need to continue that time-honored motto. Under the bill, any group going on a hike would henceforth file a detailed itinerary in duplicate with the Federal government. A scout camping out alone to meet an Eagle Scout requirement would be subject to a fine under the act. Campers who cooked for their fellow campers would need a certificate from a federal inspector. How do you suppose we've managed to live so long without knowing a steak fry or a wiener roast was a criminal act? Why if Jimmy Carter throws another one of those catfish fries for the neighbors, it could be a bigger scandal than Teapot Dome. But seriously, it is no laughing matter. Another Federal bureaucracy could be in the making. The legislation proposes something called the Office of Youth Camp Safety within the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, where else? Existing laws and regulations pertaining to camps would be duplicated and inspectors would be hired to monitor these rules which have worked very well without such policing. Right now, camps are licensed and required to meet standards of sanitation, environment and water control, vehicle, equipment and driver permits, even compliance with regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If what they're proposing sounds silly, and incidentally very very expensive, it sounds sillier when you look at the record. By actual statistics, summer camps are safer than our schools and, believe it or not, our own homes. The death rate in camps based on child weeks of camping is almost one-third less than the rate in the general population. As for injuries, the rate in our schools is five times greater than it is in camping. In other words, a child is safer in a summer camp than in school or at home. I hope there are enough former Boy and Girl Scouts, summer camp alumni and just plain veterans of cookouts and overnight hikes in Congress to deep six this as yet another bureaucracy struggling to be born. They'd better, before yet another freedom is lost. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.
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