CPSIA redux

[unixronin]

By way of masgramondou:

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal noted a study by the Motorcycle Industry Council that concluded “90% of the youth fatalities and injuries on motorcycles occur when kids ride adult vehicles.”

[...]

The Journal quoted Ken Luttrell, a Democratic state house member from Oklahoma as noting the obvious: “With these new regulations, Washington has only succeeded in making biking much more dangerous for kids.”

[...]

Whenever I report on the law on air my e-mail box fills up with small business owners who cannot cope with the expensive (and in some instances impossible to comply with) mandates of the law.  Follow a blog like Overlawyered.com that chronicles the chaos, and the picture of an extraordinary blunder by Congress emerges.

Billions lost and who knows how many jobs disappeared is a scandal in good times and an unpardonable one in a severe recession, but the idea of a measure intended to increase child safety resulting quite directly in the death and injury of children really does set a new low mark for Congress.

Unfortunately, yet another sad comment on the failure of our government is that it no longer comes as any surprise when Congress once again throws the baby out with the bath-water.

Comments

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

The thing that just kicks me in the teeth about this mess is that the federal government is throwing billions of dollars to shore up big businesses that are shedding jobs, and putting many small businesses out of business, where the real fuel for new jobs comes from. If the government would stop propping up failed businesses and stop overregulating new business, I think the economy would cure itself pretty quickly.

(I think it is pretty telling that our new DOJ anti-trust chief thinks Micro$oft is no longer an antitrust threat, and that Google needs to be reined in.)

If the government wants to help the working Americans, shouldn't they stop hindering the people that want to offer people jobs?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Quite honestly, right now, everything that the government is doing "to fix the problem" is in fact contributing to the problem.

"We're from the government, and we're here to help."