The Week

“Washington, Feb. 31 (AP). The Supreme Court ruled today, by a 6 to 3 margin, that while states may not prohibit cosmetic surgery, they are not obliged to subsidize face-lifts for the indigent. Feminist and civil rights leaders were quick to respond. The Court’s decision, charged a spokesperson for the National Organization for Women, ‘effectively denies to poor women the right to be beautiful.’ ”

Edward J. Mitchell, professor of business economics at the University of Michigan, has found that congressional voting on the deregulation of natural gas is almost purely ideological. “. . . If a Congressman’s ADA rating is 45 per cent or higher he will vote against deregulation and if under 45 per cent he will vote for deregulation,” Mitchell writes in the Wall Street Journal, noting that this prediction rule is more than 90 per cent accurate, even down to committee votes. In other words, just about everyone who wants to let American enterprise supply consumers with the gas they need at the price they are willing to pay is a conservative; and just about everyone who wants the Federal Power Commission to fix prices and perpetuate natural gas shortages is a liberal. At least on this issue, it is plain that the public interest is being thwarted by the ideological liberal majority in Congress.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

“Washington, Feb. 31 (AP). The Supreme Court ruled today, by a 6 to 3 margin, that while states may not prohibit cosmetic surgery, they are not obliged to subsidize face-lifts for the indigent. Feminist and civil rights leaders were quick to respond. The Court’s decision, charged a spokesperson for the National Organization for Women, ‘effectively denies to poor women the right to be beautiful.’ ”

Edward J. Mitchell, professor of business economics at the University of Michigan, has found that congressional voting on the deregulation of natural gas is almost purely ideological. “. . . If a Congressman’s ADA rating is 45 per cent or higher he will vote against deregulation and if under 45 per cent he will vote for deregulation,” Mitchell writes in the Wall Street Journal, noting that this prediction rule is more than 90 per cent accurate, even down to committee votes. In other words, just about everyone who wants to let American enterprise supply consumers with the gas they need at the price they are willing to pay is a conservative; and just about everyone who wants the Federal Power Commission to fix prices and perpetuate natural gas shortages is a liberal. At least on this issue, it is plain that the public interest is being thwarted by the ideological liberal majority in Congress.