The Wall Street Journal had a report Tuesday on newly mobilized sentiment among businesspeople intent on challenging the rapid ongoing expansion of federal governance and regulation. It profiles Rick Woldenberg, well known to readers of this site as a tireless agitator against the insanities of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act 
(CPSIA) of 2008. Woldenberg had been an Obama voter and basically apathetic about politics until the CPSIA debacle unfolded, putting at risk his medium-sized educational products company and many other makers and sellers of basically harmless products for kids. The indifference of the federal establishment to the resulting distress in the business community — and in particular the deaf ear turned by such lawmakers as Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) — propelled Woldenberg into legislative activism (AmendTheCPSIA.com) and then politics, where he has backed Joel Pollak in an unusually strong challenge to Rep. Schakowsky in her Chicago-area district.
On CPSIA’s tendency to ban rocks used for study in Earth Science classes, see our earlier post. More: ShopFloor.
PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGE from Elise Bake, Der Ball Der Tiere (“The Animals’ Ball”, German, 1891), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.
5 Comments
I have been following your posts on this and am just amazed that our lawmakers are so out of control. But today, you summed up the entire issue of the CPSIA debacle and what is going on in Washington (overall) with the comment, “The indifference of the federal establishment to the resulting distress in the business community…”
Waxman is the worst legislator in Washington. He sees the solution to every problem, real or imagined, as badly conceived legislation.
The name of Woldenberg’s organization is two letters too long.
[…] Woldenberg, a man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “fade.” From “CPSIA, business anger and the election“: The Wall Street Journal had a report Tuesday on newly mobilized sentiment among […]
Beware post hoc ergo proctor hoc. President Obama, a decent guy, does not understand law or government. But he is only tangential to the CPSIA problem. Crazy regulations involving lead were in effect for at least ten years before Obama was known outside of Chicago..
And we have a general problem with politicians who can not reason scientifically. Rep. Schakowsky is particularly horrible. Mario Como caused a $5.5 billion drain on New york State with his moronic decision on the Shoreham Nuclear Plant. Ed Koch too. He believed in the Gulf war Syndrome was related to a single event that was many miles away from all but a few soldiers in the Gulf. He, like most Americans, can not understand dilution. I find Harry Reid’s position on Yucca mountain to be treasonous. Nevada could use the jobs.
Let’s hope that CPSIA can be eliminated and that the 9/11 bill id killed in the Senate. How somebody as well educated as Kirstein Gillibrand can abet fraud so blatantly breaks my heart.