Show I god and You I i Rules that raise prices prices' By Dy Jack Wooldridge Com Com General Manager U U. 8 8 Chamber of 01 Commerce At first glance you may be opposed to President Fords Ford's desire to eliminate or weaken government regulation of business After all opinion polls show that many people favor more government reg regulation lation rather than less So what hat is he talking a about bout 1 FIRST OF ALL he Is is not talking about completely doing away with all government control over business Obviously Obviously Obviously Ob Ob- Ob- Ob It is necessary for government to insure that our economy economy operates in some kind of f orderly fashion If U there were no rules at all there would be anarchy and of course our system would collapse Even our air Constitution specifies that government shall have the duty to regulate regula te commerce The real problem is that our regulatory system has grown like Topsy over the years without too much relationship to our economy FOR EXAMPLE intricate regulatory machinery was set setup setup setup up for the railroads which might have been needed in the days of the robber barons Many of the r restrictions written then no longer make any sense President Ford wants to reform these regulations which he says will result in great savings for consumers and also save about barrels of oil each day He also wants to reform the rules for airlines and truckers In trucking for example theare the theare theare are rules that sometimes require that trucks go empty or take ke long detours to places where they have no pickups or deliveries You have recently seen a rash of lower fares on the airlines which have won government approval but Isn't it interesting that they an and some other industries In in industries must get federal approval to charge you less 1 YOU AS A consumer pay for every bit of government regulation of business The TheFord TheFord TheFord Ford calc calculates lates that it costs each famil family around 2 2000 a yea year He also estimates that fair trade laws costs consumers 2 billion a year And all the government regulation of course is accompanied ac ac- ac companied by a vast amount of paperwork As of last June the number of federal forms which business must fill out totaled separate types Obviously it takes a lot of time and money for business to do that work The money has to come from the prices it charges you AT TIlE TIE SAME time government keeps putting in new regulations There is no doubt that some of them are needed but there is no doubt either that some of them cost more than they are worth Congress recognized one instance instance instance in in- stance of this last year when it did away with ith the law requiring that automobiles couldn't be started unless the seatbelts were fastened It you bought a car equipped with that mechanism you paid for it Sure big government may need to watch over us to some extent But as President Ford has commented The government government government govern govern- ment big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have |