Lead Paint in Children's toys
Maybe you haven't heard about it in the "news" recently, but
the problem
hasn't magically gone away and we continue to import products from China
that violate the US government's lead paint standards. Those standards are
actually the standards of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and
since the federal government is permitted by the constitution to regulate
foreign trade (interstate commerce), the CPSC almost makes some sense.
My simple question: Where does the lead go?
I mean it, where does the lead go? Lead is a hazardous, toxic metal and I
don't think that the amount of lead we're talking about in a single children's
toy is going to cause the world the end, but what about the amount of lead
in a million of those toys? It seems like that should be a significant amount
of lead, so where does it go? We import 1 million toxic toys into the US and
then what? Do we tax payers pay to export them back to China to be disposed of
properly? Do we tax payers pay to have them disposed of here in the US? Do
we tax payers pay to provide healthcare or legal judgements to the
"injured"? Why is it that Topps Beef Company here in Edison NJ can be hit
with one beef recall and basically be shutdown overnight - a family
owned business employing many local workers gone in an instant - but somehow
Mattel, Fisher Price, Toys-R-Us, etc can be faced with hundreds, maybe
thousands, of recalls for this lead paint problem and they continue to be
in business, in fact profiting based on stock prices and press releases? And
if even we don't pay for the return of these toxic goods through our tax money
then certainly we as consumers are paying for the "losses" when we purchase
other products.
Free Trade
I support free trade, but is it free trade to import toxic products, then
we pay our tax dollars to handle those toxic products? Why do we tax
payers pay for the CPSC if the CPSC is allowing these products to make it to
store shelves and into the hands of us consumers? Again, I support free trade
and I believe that the federal government should play some role in regulating
foreign trade, but the CPSC is defunct and ineffective and needs to be
abolished and replaced with a functional and effective agency, be it a
private industry supported by the federal government or a federal
agency, I don't care - but we tax payers shouldn't be paying for an
agency that repeatedly isn't doing it's job.
Frank Pallone loves to talk about healthcare, especially "for the children",
but if Frank really cared about "the children", he would be working to
ensure that "free trade" doesn't put toxic products into the hands of these
"children", which causes cancer or some other illness according to "the
experts". If Frank would take a pro-active role in protecting the American
tax payers and consumers, maybe they would need less health-care and thus
less demand for healthcare might help lower the cost of health-care. Frank
doesn't actually care about the health of this nation, only implementing his
pet projects that are too little, too late. Address the problem of toxic lead
paint poisoning before it effects us Frank, please. Frank has had 20 years
to protect the American tax payer and for 20 years, he has failed to get the
job done. Frank a career politician who has perpetuated his own existence
and need for his pet projects by ignoring the contributing factors, such as
this, to the very need for his pet project.