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From our president
This article appeared in This monthly letter to subscribers from Consumer Reports President Jim Guest highlights the critical consumer issues behind our current reports. See archived letters.
High priorities
Days before Christmas, a vote to significantly cut our nation's deficit is scheduled in Congress. Stabilizing the financial footing of the U.S. is crucial. Doing so at the expense of consumers' safety, health, and financial security is untenable. The 12-member deficit-reduction committee must cut at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Special interests have deployed legions of lobbyists to see that their concerns are protected; our goal is to see that yours are.
Protecting investments
Working consumers have invested in Medicare's promise of decent health care, and that promise should be honored. So should our nation's shared commitment to ensure that poor children, nursing-home residents, and the disabled get the health care they need.
At the same time, an expensive and inefficient health-care system weakens confidence in our future, so we must build upon recent reforms to bring down health-care costs while guaranteeing quality care.
Fair and strong rules to hold manufacturers, retailers, the financial industry, the medical establishment, and government bodies accountable to consumers must continue to be enforced. The Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau must have the authority to carry out food inspections, set up a database to report hazardous products, and prevent financial traps. Disabling or defunding those and other consumer-protection initiatives would be shortsighted and dangerous.
Consumer Reports is proud of our 75-year history of independence and nonpartisanship. The deficit-reduction committee and Congress should use their full range of options to ensure that consumers are not put at risk and that the country does not abandon its long-standing social commitments. For more, go to www.ConsumersUnion.org/priorities.
Jim Guest
President
