I’ve posted before about the badly-thought-out law known as the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and the harm that it is doing to a whole range of businesses, especially small businesses.
Kathleen Fasanella is a consultant to small apparel manufacturers. She is also a blogger, and has written extensively about the CPSIA, the requirements for compliance, and the need for changes to make this legislation more rational. A couple of weeks ago, she received a letter from an Illinois Congresswoman which must be read to be believed. “Arrogant” and “presumptuous” are two words that come to mind. Be sure to read the letter along with Kathleen’s reasoned and knowledgeable response.
I think it is completely inappropriate for a Congressperson to send a letter with this tone to an American citizen who is trying to deal with very real problems created by bad Congressional judgment. I’m also not very impressed with those Congresspeople who blame problems with the law on bad decisions by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The business of Congress should be to write legislation which clearly specifies their intent. Congress is full of lawyers. If they can’t write legislation which is properly unambiguous in its direction to the agencies, what are we paying them for?
The growing arrogance of a wide swatch of the American political class, coupled with what appears to be an almost total ignorance of the make-and-sell aspects of the American economy, does not bode well for our future.
See also Walter Olson on the CPSIA.
Unbelievable things seem to be happening at an accelerating pace.
I see this all the time in my local paper (sorry to harp on the local angle, but it’s the politics I’m most closely involved with). It’s as if the people don’t understand how important it is to support x or y that the local politicians are proposing. Uh, guys, you’re supposed to be servants of the people. They really think that their schemes and ideas, as the enlightened class, are more important than the desires of their constituents. It’s amazing.
Those tea-party things need to be on a Saturday, I can’t make weekday rallies. I have a day job.
… and what would you expect from a congresswoman who proudly lists earmarks on her website http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/, on the top right.
The most exasperating thing is how clueless these politicians are, when faced with the economic damage the CPSIA will do to a whole spectrum of small businesses. It’s almost as if they have their minds made up, and their hands clamped over their ears, saying “blah-blah-blah-I-can’t-hear-you!!!”
In my really paranoid moments I wonder if they are willfully and deliberately attempting to bankrupt small businesses by the thousands, destroy millions and millions of old children’s books, and drive more and more individuals into an ‘underground’ economy.
I know that one should never attribute to malice what can be explained by sheer stupidity, but in this particular case blaming it on deliberate malice is quite tempting.
I should add that I have some experience with Rep. Schakowsky as a former constituent, and I can confirm that the “what would you expect” angle is accurate.
In a well run republic no one could hold an office like that without at least havig worked in the private sector and paid taxes. No lawyers either-they are too intimately tied to the legal system. We can’t let the monkeys run the zoo.
Schakowski has long had a reputation for mixing self-righteous arrogance and ethically challenged hypocrisy with her left-liberal extremism. I’m not at all surprised by the tone of her unsolicited letter nor the inaccuracies it contained.
I am to the point where I am surprised that anyone is surprised by this sort of event. I try to be politically active – I call my congressman, senators, state legislators, city councilmen, mayor, school board members, etc. whenever I am concerned about a policy or pending vote. I literally have never had one of these conversation that was satisfying. By satisfying, I mean the politician on the other end of the conversation was actually listening to me. These folks have become a nation unto themselves – the rest of us are the peasants.
Ah, Tired… you see, they are our new nobility, busy creating their new and dependent peasant class. By destroying small capitalists, they of course will hope to acquire sway and dominion over a large body of obedient serfs, who would never dare to criticize their betters.
Just hand over our earnings, and accept our ration of bread and free health-care, and it will all be so much better for everyone. After all, they know how to run things properly.