CPSIA - Eroding Trust in Our Leaders

The CPSIA spectacle over the past two years of Democratic leadership in Congress has been a sign of the times, something that revealed basic problems with these new stewards of our futures. Not only have the Democrats alone stood up against altering the CPSIA, the source of well-documented misery and phantom benefits, but they have ruled with an iron fist in an attempt to suffocate opposition. Please note that for two years, Congress under the leadership of Californians Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi has successfully resisted having a hearing about this law with stakeholder witnesses who could shed light on the problems (rather than the joke of hearing last Fall featuring one witness, a newly-appointed Party-loyalist Chairman of the CPSC). The message control and forum management has been revolting. Despite the fact that these folks work for us, there seems to be NOTHING we can do about this sham process.

Readers of this blog are well-aware of the mounting ANGER over this astounding indifference to the facts of the awful CPSIA and to our suffering. The latest low point engineered by Democrats is the Commission's failure to approve public discussion of the recommended changes to the CPSIA, a report due next Friday. This is no small issue - read my post from yesterday for a summary of legal changes necessary to restore sanity to safety administration in children's products - yet the Dems apparently feel discussion of these issues in front of you might somehow limit their discretion. Huh? It is very tempting to believe that handlers from Congress (Guess Who) have given strict instructions to the Dem Commissioners that there will be NO public debate of these issues. And there won't.

These blows to our faith in government raise serious questions of character. Leadership is accountable to the American public. A failure to operate openly and with an open mind is intolerable. People will not forget.

I understand that bipartisan meetings between Congressional staffers and the CPSC have been cancelled or postponed until the report is issued. Furthermore, I believe that Mr. Waxman is already circulating new language for his amendment redux quietly, sans hearing or public discussion. Connect the dots - the Democrats have decided what the report will say (they have the votes to ram it through), it has been pre-approved by Guess Who (which means it will not fix the CPSIA because the Dems on the Hill don't care about our little problems) and a public discussion between Commissioners is pointless. As the self-appointed Prince of "Darkness", Bob Adler, put it, "I think the positions at this point are pretty firmly set." Right - set by Guess Who. Discussion in public will only embarrass the Dems on the Commission - they are only allowed to read from the script and will be unable to defend loopy positions without looking loopy themselves.

If all of this has not fully eroded trust in these folks, let's not forget that we are not living in a vacuum. The behavior of the Dems on other issues is part of the milieu. These same "leaders" are making other messes for us to regard, such as Harry Reid's "apology" for incredibly racist remarks about Obama's skin color and "dialect". OMG, can you believe the shamelessness? The Dems made everything nicey-nice by Obama and Al Sharpton forgiving Reid's "poor choice of words". Please, you can't say something like that without thinking it, and if you think it, you are a bigot. Plain and simple. No apology will cover up this disgusting fact. ANY person in a minority will tell you that prejudice is deeply rooted, and no apology will rid the system of that poison. Reid's apology rings rather hollow to me. And he's the voice of the Dems in the Senate.

And then there's health care. To protect you, Mr. Obama and the jackals crying out for health care reform have insisted on taxing "Cadillac" health care plans. This sounds "bad", right - like someone's getting something they don't deserve, all at your expense. More benefits for "fat cats", right? A great sound bite for the saviors to make their case . . . .

That's what Obama and the other Democratic do-gooders are all about, making things fair for "regular" Americans, isn't it? Well, Fortune Magazine has a different slant on this critical term in the Obamacare plan - namely, that the tax on so-called "Cadillac" plans will mainly punish the elderly. Why? Well, here's a shocker, more expensive health care is generally health care delivered to sicker populations, like older Americans. Here's an example of a plan that crosses the Cadillac boundary: "Now to Medicare -- no Cadillac plan -- which will spend about $510 billion this year to cover fewer than 46 million people. That's more than $11,000 a person, well over the Cadillac threshold of $9,850 for single retirees 55 and up. And that's without counting Medigap coverage (for which I have no numbers), which would send the average higher." Right - Medicare, the health plan for older Americans. While the health care proposals do not tax Medicare, the math makes it clear that care for older populations costs more and may well be subject to the new tax.

I am sick of the misleading messaging, the manipulation, the indifference, the obstruction of this crop of Democrats. I have no idea if the CPSC Democratic leadership will rise to the occasion and do the right thing or whether the House and Senator Democrats will wake up to the terrible mess they made and take the appropriate steps to fix it or whether (as seems likely) the fix is in and we are cooked, but this much I DO know - I am sick of this treatment. I cannot support this kind of leadership and cannot abide by it.

The Democrats have made this mess entirely themselves. No one forced them to be so deaf and so indifferent. No one required their arrogance, high-handedness or insensitivity to the misery that they caused. When November 2 comes around and the American people exact their revenge, the party leadership will have no one to blame but themselves.

I look forward to that day.