Congress passes the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act as the usual political knee-jerk reaction to China shipping crap to the United States. And as is typical, they did it without any consideration of the consequences for all of the business that operate safely, the small businesses that have zero ability to comply with the draconian testing requirements. You know. Pretty much business as usual in the Capital.
Many businesses are not sitting on, at last count, about $600Million in new and used products that at the stroke of a pen, Congress turned into hazardous waste. Not because it’s dangerous, but because there is no practical way to prove that it’s not.
My suggestion, made safely from the confines of my domicile where I don’t have to stick my neck out very far, is for the companies that are hardest hit to start loading all of these compromised products into dump trucks and dump them on the steps of the Capital. Yeah, they might have to pay bonuses to the drivers for the legal hassles.
Congress lives in the proverbial bubble, isolated from the realities of the legislative disasters they unleash upon the rest of us, but they are always protected from…like taxes. Congress has a long history of exempting itself from regulations that the rest of the country, heck the world, has to deal with. It would be nice to see some consequences laid at their doorstep for once.
I suppose somebody could also sue the government for violation of the 4th amendment. By taking assets with value and making them valueless, Congress has essentially seized property without compensation. Heck, an addition half billion in an Obama budget…who’d notice.
BTW: As much fun at this would be, the long term answer is still term limits.
