ublic Relations Department at corporate level (Lockett, 1990).
Several public policy issues are of critical interest to the organization in early 1990. The most urgent of these issues (from the organization's perspective) are (1) the thrift institution crisis, (2) banking regulation, (3) Third World debt, (4) the drug problem, (5) homelessness in the United States, (6) environmental pollution, and (7) public attitudes toward Security Pacific (Lockett, 1990; Huher, 1990).
Each of the issues identified in the preceding section is considered separately. Along with the analysis of the issue, 3
the response to the issue by the organization is also consi dered.
Both the Congress and the Bush Administration are strug gling with the problem which has come to be known as the savings and loan crisis. A governmentally funded organization is in place to deal with the problem. This organization, how ever, has proved to be controversial in its own right, its dir ector has resigned under pressure, there is evidence that the Administration and Congress purposefully failed to fund the bail out program at the levels required, in a effort to mini mize the impact on the federal budget, and judicial blocks to federal seizures of troubled thrifts are causing additional problems.
Hundreds of savings and loan associations are either insolvent, or are in danger of becoming insolvent in the rela tively near future (Dentzer, and Plattner, 1989). It is esti mated that the savings and loan industry, as a whole, is "hemorrhaging at a rate of $10 million to $12 million a day" (Skidmore, 1989, 1)
Many things depend upon the development, implementation, and execution of an effective solution to the savings and loan problem. Among the more important of these things are (1) the maintenance of public confidence in the nation's thrift insti tutions, (2) the health of the homebuilding industry, which isheavily dependent upon the mortga...