THE VOICE OF BUSINESS The wisdom of Big Brother By Richard L. Usher, Present Chamber of Commerce of the United State "The Wall Street Journal" recently reported a story that should become a basic civics lesson for every child in America - and every politician as well. It seems the town of Westfield, Massachusetts, is involved with two, nearly identical sewer projects. There is, however, one minor difference. One project is locally financed; the other is being directed by the federal government. govern-ment. The locally financed project has progressed pro-gressed so nicely that construction will begin in early spring. But the federal project is still bogged down in a bureaucratic maze, and has not even been granted approval for federal funding. fun-ding. For example, the government now wants the city to mail a questionnaire question-naire to every one of its residents, inquiring in-quiring whether they use a septic tank or sewer line, and how effective it is. As the government continues to dillydally, dilly-dally, the delays are becoming more and more expensive. The cost of the original plan has already quintupled! LATEST BULLETINS FROM THE ENERGY FRONT The Department of Energy is busy, busy, busy these days as its employees prepare draconian measures in view of forcing the pubic to conserve energy. Ironically, the building where all this activity is taking place has one of the nation's highest rates of energy consumption. con-sumption. According to the American Consulting Engineers Council, it takes more than 225,000 BTU's of energy per square foot to heat, cool and light the building for one year. By comparison, the average New York City building uses only 112,000 BTU's per square foot per year. Meanwhile, down on the street the government's giant fleet of automobiles the world s largest is guzzling more gas than ever. Last year, government govern-ment vehicles traveled 3.3 billion miles 10.7 percent more than the year before and used 320 million gallons of fuel. The total mileage driven by the federal government's vehicles has been increasing more than 50 percent faster than that of the genral public. A POLITICIAN K'Ho DOESN'T LIKE HIS JOB CAN JUNKET Texas Congressman Ron Paul ly turned down what he terr" "14-day all expenses-paid winter v'. tion to study alternative sources" in Capetown, South Africa. " Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1 Spoilsport Ron was overheard tr the newspaper, "Washington "All the famous beaches andni-along andni-along the route must be coincide;'! When the average American can afford to take a weekend away home, thanks to all ' Congressionally-caused inflation ' energy problems, politicians getting tax-paid tans." Thanks, Ron. TOURISTS ARE TO BE SEEN NOT HEARD A United States park ranger rax kicked about 100 teenage boyscfj steps of the Jefferson Memori' Washington, D.C., for singing -j you ready? "God Bless Amer,. The song was meant to be pan American Legion Boys Natict j gram. However, the ranger sai; j boys' singing was disturbing the and disgracing the memory of T-jA Jefferson. 1 WHIPPING INFLATION -ITS EASIER SAID THAN Dfjvj The President wants to whip J tion, but he might do well to A emulating the example of Iran. J ding to the London Daily Tkcj Iranian shopkeepers are being to 15 lashes in an effort to aaz them to reduce prices. Unfortunately, many Tehre: j chants have retaliated by ctejj shops. As one angry shopkeepe : plained to a housewife: "Whysijj be lashed w hen the prices !;i pay are so high?" FIN AL BULLETIN FROM THE ENERGY FRON The Community Service; ministration, the goverKneni's poverty agency, has antitipri: worst. It has spent S75.( p:: booklets entitled: "No More Self-Help Booklet." Among i things, it advises people whose is. been cut off: "A paper bag vrrciw: your head) can keep you wl-eye wl-eye holes in the paper bag."