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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/16/cpsia-safety-toys-oped-cx_wo_0116olson.html

A group in my MBA class did a consulting project on a local hat making company. While this law has a stay from one year from its February implementation date, the hat makers would have to pay $2000 per type of hat they make to have it tested. The company is already $70k in debt and is barely staying afloat.

This bill was past with much hoopla after the Chinese lead-in-toys incidents last year. However, this bill doesn't apply to toys, but mostly to "clothing, fabric, and textile goods." There are hundreds of small-town crafters that make these types of products. By having such strict rules and high cost of testing, the government is essentially putting these small businesses out of business. There needs to be a medium between child safety and free enterprise. This bill is not it.

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