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Show ma- - Wednesday, February dam - Page B7 Panel hopes to make Congress more efficient tee on the Organization By LARRY MARGASAK Associated Press Writer By ALAN LUPO Boston Globe Columnist WASHINGTON The squeeze seemed to start in the 1950s. Once upona time, you shopped in a lot of small stores, and then, almost suddenly, you didn't do that so often. e Nobody called the owners "entrepreneurs" back then, but that's what they are called now. In too many instances, they are also called ' scared." My father and his twin brother noticed it early. They were traveling men, peddlers of shmatehs, which is Yiddish for "rags," which was how they referred to all clothes. They were proud men, working off a commission and no salary and roads driving up the of rural Maine long before the small-stor- snow-cover- THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, 10, 1993 ed They might have had 600 accounts in New England. They knew each store owner by name and personal habits, and when the Scotch and bourbon were flowing pretty well, they could do some fine impersonations. After a time, they began talking about "the chains," how you had to sell the chains if you were going to make a living. After a while, they began talking about how up in Waterville, Maine, so was out of business, how he couldn't compete with the local chain that branch of an could buy in volume and sell low. Different people noticed the change in different ways. My mother never learned to drive. Unless a friend took her, she didn't hit the malls that were springing up outside the olcf urban areas and sucking up the lifeblood from the main streets. But she couldn't help notice how the old neighborhood had changed. Once there were four drugstores in 10 blocks, then three, then two, then one, then none. Once there were three kosher butchers, then two, then one and now none. What had been a vibrant area full of shoppers and kibitzers had turned into plywood city by the early 1960s and remains essentially that today. I was seeing it myself, even as a r, though I doubt that I realized then what it would mean. I worked in a drugstore after school or at night and on weekends. For 50 cents an hour I made sundaes, frappes, sodas, cheeseburgers, d sandwiches and, when I could figure it out, the right change for the customers. I swept the floors, cleaned the grill with soda water and pumice stone, fed the cat, made the syrups x and that you now buy washed the dishes by hand in a strong detergent that would crack and redden the skin. Among those working with me were two Massachusetts College of- Pharmacy students. Even though some independent druggists were closing down, there was no sense of impending doom. To run your own store meant working a day on your feet, but it still a dream. was But next door to the pharmacy, the local supermarket began stocking the kind of stuff you'd normally find in a drugstore, and my boss got angry. We kids may have kidded around about his reaction, but he saw what was coming. Now, health maintenance organizations, trying to save money, are requiring their subscribers to buy drugs from chains. Those druggists who managed to survive competition from chain outlets, changing lifestyles, recessions and periods of inflation are being smacked in their collective teeth. One druggist, a friend for many alyears, a guy whom we could a for on ways depend delivery or a piece of advice, just shakes his head a lot, grits his teeth and wonders out loud if there is any future for his kind. But this story is not about druggists only. It is about all kinds of small businesses, the heart and soul of every community, and whether it will be possible for the owners to at least have the option n of telling their kids that will this be all line, "Someday, want it." if yours you For years, the offspring had a choice. They could choose not to want the aggravation of working seven days and nights a week at something and become, instead, in the words of their proud parents, "a professional," whatever that out-of-sta- te (AP) mericans visiting the U.S. -A- Cap- itol can see for themselves why Congress doesn't work, without listening to months of testimony before a new panel eyeing changes in House and Senate operations. From the Senate visitors' galg lery they can watch a when tactic a quorum call senators' names are called out before a nearly empty chamber. In the House, they can see a lone member speaking to 435 and a cable televiempty seats sion audience after the day's legislative business is done. In a committee they can watch a chairman rattle off members' yeas and nays "by proxy," a way for absent lawmakers to vote on sending legislation to the floor. These and other situations will be debated by the Joint Commit time-killin- of Con- gress, which has embarked on a effort designed nearly year-lon- g to change the legislative branch in a big way. Recommendations will be debated in the summer and brought before both houses in the fall. Similar efforts in the past have led to only modest reforms. "The diagnosis isn't all that difficult," said Dave Mason, director of the Congress Project at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. He said some problems are "a lot more, obvious to casual observers than members who are too wrapped up in the process to see the forest from the trees. ' ' description of Congress. The Oklahoma Democrat, the said committee's the 300 full committees and subcommittees for an institution of 535 members should be cut to 50. Congressional employment, which has shot up from about in 1947 to nearly 12,000 today, could be reduced by 3,000, Boren suggested. Mason recommended that caseworker positions on lawmakers' personal staffs be abolished, and replaced by a congressional office that would handle the common problems that generate the calls. 2,-0- 00 Chairmen guard their territory so jealously that at least 40 panels in both houses would be involved in creating a national energy policy. A blizzard of meaningless bill introductions. The average length of bills went from four pages in 1970 to 20 paces in the 1980s. Yet, fewer than half as many bills are passed today as were 40 years ago. With fewer committee assign- ments, Mason said, lawmakers Nonetheless, congressional could spend more time investigat- leaders who testified at the pan- ing underlying problems that and produced the calls such as el's first hearing recently members of the committee missing Social Security checks. Other things the committee have begun to isolate Congress' will try to fix: problems. "Bloated and bureauCommittee turf battles. cratic" was Sen. David Boren's are steeped in partisan politics. Senate Majority George J. Mitchell, wants to limit the right to filibus- ter. Once reserved for matters of "grave national importance," . this delaying tactic is now "in-voked by" minorities of as few as one or two senators and for reasons as trivial as a senator's travel schedule," Mitchell says. Rep. Lee Hamilton, of the reform come mission, has said committees produce 2,000-pag- e bills that sometimes "must be digested and voted on within hours" of their drafting. Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas wants to preserve such tactics, saying it was his "duty to defend minority rights as they exist in the Senate." But Dole had his own idea to cut down on wasted time. An ethics process in which members are not only judged by their peers, but by their friends. Increasingly, lawmakers are looking at outside panels, retired members or former judges to hear evidence in ethics cases. Many of Congress' problems He proposed that members of Congress follow the advice of the founding fathers, and spend more time in their communities living under the laws they have written. D-In- House-Senat- Each session of Congress, he said, should be limited to six months. Don't work out of your home until you've done vour homework f 7 Call us and we'll help you make your Ifyou spend long sessions on the telephone, consider getting a phone headset. It will free up your hands, save wear and tear on your neck and ears, and eenerally make dealine with long or frequent telephone calls more pleasant faxes when you're 5. home office more efficient. Here are some tips for starters. not in the office. cellular telephone. It's as close A separate fax phone teen-age- as you can come to being in two Get a separate phone line. (You either egg-sala- can now choose 6. line for your home office.) is Messaging Service instead of convenient, it's an answering machine. Unlike is for your business and when it's machines, 9 easy solution that Get US WEST Voice That way you'll know when a call For many part of the joy of working out of their homes includes being near their growing children. But there will be times when handling both children and business is simply too big a job. line is a quick and different places at the same time. a business or residential not only more Give yourself permission to hire child care more productive. help when you need it. It will pay for itself in ready-to-mi- . for your family. You can make sure You the phone 12-ho- ur 0 greater productivity. tips and advice on using your answers your tele phone to improve your home office can let vour family use phone when you efficiency, call the new U S WEST 1,5fis?i!i. without are already using worrying that business callers will it. It constantly get annoying busy signals. clutter up Learn to deal And, with interrupt- ions. If a neighbor comes over, or calls you and wants lochal socially politely inform perhaps y r ' f : l m i ' nuin- jfe nwiuiMnqw. nul l urn m t.bfmM n mi -- desk. And simpi,, it lets 7 you check your '""Pv Keep necessary orfrequently used office supplies near at hand and m good supply. It seems like an obvious point, but ask yourself how often you e gone to the kitchen drawer for a pair of scissors, or sorted all files to be stapled, pur only to discover thatyou'w run out of staples and haw no more in the house. them you are hard at n workandcanUfford to take a break Offer to schedule a later time to visa with them. chOOSe not tO answersome business calls "after hours" messages from any touch tone Home Office Consulting Service and phone in the house, or anywhere speak with our trained consultants else, for that matter. from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday . late-nig- ht well-wor- really means. proToday, even the fessionals worry about the next paycheck. As for opting to follow the old man into business, that choice is dying as you read this. We are destroying our own neighbors in this country. We are taking away their ability to make a living, and we are doing something far worse we are assassinating their pride. 3. 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