79-11-A1

- Main Page \ Reagan Radio Commentaries \ 1979

<< Previous Broadcast

Next Broadcast >>

Congressional Promises and Performance

Transcript American political observers are still marvelling at how swiftly serious change is being carried out in Britain as a result of last May's elections. As a candidate, conservative Margaret Thatcher proposed sweeping reforms in her nation's economic policy and tax laws to revitalize the stagnant British economy. Soon after her election she began to carry our her proposed program. This surprised many Americans because, as experience shows, our own system does not respond as swiftly or as clearly to the expressed wishes of the voters. During last fall's Congressional campaigns, candidates of all parties and ideological persuasions seemed to be whistling the same tune. Americans were fed up with Big Government and the outlandish schemes it had devised to squander our money. Elect me, each candidate seemed to be saying, and I will help enact serious restrictions on government spending. That was November, 1978. In June, 1979, the House of Representatives had a golden opportunity to deliver on these promises as it deliberated on next year's budget for the Department of Health, Education & Welfare, widely regarded as the department most in need of belt-tightening. On June 27, the House approved a spending bill. Let's take a look at it. HEW was voted a budget of almost $61 billion dollars, four billion more than it received last year. Now, these figures are deceptive because they don't account for programs beyond the control of the Congress. If you add the automatic expenditures for unemployment compensation, Social Security, railroad retirement and other trust funds, HEW will spend more than $237 billion next year. The House rejected numerous attempts to cut the budget appropriations of various HEW programs. But it did order the department to eliminate a half billion dollars in losses from waste and fraud. And to its credit, the Congress also resisted many efforts to fund new programs or add to the funding of existing programs. If Congress did adopt a stand-pat approach on budgetary matters, it did take this opportunity to order some changes in the practices of certain government agencies. Since the Department of Labor's budget was attached to this same bill, members used this opportunity to correct some flagrant practices of the Occupational Safety and Health administration. Congress also voted against HEW's latest effort to collect information from hospitals. It prohibited the department from implementing its so-called System for Hospital Uniform Reporting on the grounds that it would place such a burden of new government paperwork on the hospitals that patient costs would be driven even higher. There's no telling how many representatives were convinced of the folly of this scheme when Rep. Doug Bereuter of Nebraska showed them the HEW manual hospitals would have had to use to comply with the system. The manual is 600 pages long. At best, this major vote reflects a modest effort on the part of the House to hold the line on spending and correct some of HEW's more obvious bureaucratic abuses. But Congress did not deliver the serious change in the spending habits of the federal government that the voters asked for unmistakably last fall. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 79-11-A1 Production Date 07/27/1979 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
		Added Notes