By Dave Gorak
08/31/2007
Nobody cares more about children than the jolly fat guy, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) has just showed why he has to be acknowledged as being a very close second. During the Aug. 29 airing of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Durbin took off the gloves and let reporter Christine Romans know in no uncertain terms that he has had it with unsafe goods coming into this country from China (read the entire transcript).We're about to launch the holiday season, the purchase of toys by families all across America. And there’s some real misgivings, as I've said over and over. Families don’t want to play Chinese roulette when they go into a toy department.
Durbin, who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee for the Consumer Products Safety Commission CPSC), then took aim at this understaffed agency that is charged with making sure little Billy and Susie don’t put their eyes out playing with goodies manufactured by our Chinese friends and allies:
… they (CPSC) have to take a much more aggressive attitude when it comes to dealing with these products. And I don’t like the responses that I've heard out of this commission over the last several weeks. It is the kind of weak approach which really doesn’t give confidence to consumers across America, who count on their government to make sure that products are safe.
It’s obvious that inspecting one out of every 100 shipments is not good enough. And this commission has to wake up to reality. Either they should do the job or get out of town.
Whew! Go get 'em, Dick! No more Mr. Nice Guy! Durbin said Americans are willing to pay more for products that don’t make them or their kids glow in the dark, but I wonder, given his support for immigration legislation calling for bringing more cheap foreign workers to this country, just how long will it be before many Americans simply won’t be able to afford much of anything regardless of where it is made?
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.