Word: weidenbaum
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...spread of big, intrusive Government (B.I.G. for short) is a source of so much public discontent that, like epidemiology or the Korean War, it has become a subject of serious study in universities. The leading professor is Murray Weidenbaum, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (1969-71) who knows his subject only too well. At the Center for the Study of American Business, which he heads at Washington University in St. Louis, Economist Weidenbaum, 51, is examining how the policies and regulations of B.I.G. are feeding inflation, impeding efficiency and otherwise rubbing up against private citizens. Given the bullish...
...Government is the nation's largest employer," says Weidenbaum, his accents echoing Brooklyn, where he grew up in the Depression-poor family of a cab driver. "Clearly the pay raises of Government employees and postal workers have been leading the inflationary parade for years. Somehow, Congress got sold on the notion of 'pay comparability' between the public and private sectors, ignoring the high federal fringes. And who makes the computations of the 'comparability'? Surprise, surprise! It's the civil servants themselves, which is like having the foxes guard the henhouse...
Government is also the largest single buyer of goods and services, says Weidenbaum, and it is about as cost conscious as a Saudi prince in Beverly Hills. Instead of buying from the lowest bidder or the best supplier, Government agencies and contractors are required to favor small businesses and suppliers in high-unemployment areas. That policy may or may not have social benefits, but it surely hypes inflation and discriminates against bigger companies...
...contractor who agrees to pay the "prevailing" wages of the region, often meaning the highest union scales paid in the nearest big city. "So in rural Maine they'll use the wage scales of Boston, and in Appalachia they'll use the wage scales of Pittsburgh," says Weidenbaum. "But those wages are so far above the standards in Appalachia that frequently Appalachia firms don't bid for the jobs. They can't pay their workers on Government projects a whopping differential over their workers on commercial projects. Result: Pittsburgh firms get the Government jobs. They bring...
...sign that the public is rebelling against these costly and cumbersome regulations is that they are being spoofed in that most popular graphic art form, the comic strips. Weidenbaum's walls are adorned with comics and editorial cartoons roasting everything from the ban against saccharin to the rising Matterhorn of forms to be filled out. In one strip, a weary Santa Claus complains about "all the environmental impact statements I gotta file for these flying reindeer...