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Show -2- inefficiencies of the ICC is an article which appeared in the January 1975 issue of the Reader's Digest, entitled "Highway Robbery via the ICC." The by-line read "Set up to protect the public, the Interstate Commerce Commission today actually throttles competition in the trucking industry and drives up the price of everything from tuna to television sets." (A cursory glance at the motor carrier tariffs in my office, where I figure rates for moving 20 million pounds of freight each year, shows that it costs $9.02 to ship a $560 color TV set from Pleasantville, New York (home of the Reader's Digest) to Indianapolis. That is 1.6% of the total value of the set. A 6Jg ounce can of Bumblebee tuna fish, retailing in a Pleasantville grocery store for 69c had its price "driven up" by motor truck transportation from the packing plant on Maryland's eastern shore by one-third of a cent, or one-half of one percent. Other typical transportation charges: A casette tape recorder, manufactured in Syracuse and retailing in Washington, D.C., for $34.88-cost for transporting by motor truck 22c. The list could go on and on. During the high inflationary period of 1972-74 the cost of motor carrier service rose about 15 percent, only one half the inflationary rate for most other products and service. That the ICC could stand some reform there is no doubt. Everyone agrees that its operations could be streamlined and its functions handled more expeditiously. Here we could make a distinction between those who advocate reform and those who demand deregulation. As the controversy rages between the "regulators" and "deregulators" |