Every day our Goodwill store sends 500 – 1,000 pounds of donated clothing, toys and hardgoods to the landfill because we cannot be positive there is no lead in it. While some consider the product safety law to be a well-meaning effort gone bad, I am more cynical and suspicious of congressional motives.
I know manufactures, distributors and sellers of new goods for children are certainly happy with the result. Poor parents are not. Which of those two groups contribute money to election campaigns?
Regardless, we must tell them that Americans are not so stupid as to throw away perfectly good children’s bicycles in order to protect a child from the possibility they may ingest a trace of lead while eating that bike, or winter coat, or stuffed animal, or ….
Downsize DC makes it real easy to send a message to your congresscritter. You give them your contact information (yeah, a bit hard for some of us). They look up your [mis-]representative’s contact information, pen an e-mail to them and append your personal comments. You can even borrow mine, if you wish:
“Please Repeal the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
This is ridiculous. I can only think of two reasons for the law:
1) stupidity
2) greed
If there is a third, I am open, but extremely skeptical. “