Representing the Consumer Interest in the Federal Government

In 1964 President Johnson established both the President’s Committee on Consumer Interests and the position of Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs. The President declared that he was “taking action to assure that the .voice of the consumer will be loud, clear, uncompromising, and effective in the highest councils of the Federal Government.” Never before had the consumer been expressly represented on so high a level. The Committee on Consumer Interests was given a unique task. “The value of our society,” the President said, “cannot be measured in the mass, but in the condition of each individual.” The Committee is not responsible for representing any organized sector of American society, but rather millions of individuals-the wealthy, the poor, the young, the old, the college-educated, and the illiterate-who collectively purchase more than two thirds of all the goods and services produced in the United States.