Clark Howard's Tips

Two agencies highlight government failure to protect consumers

October 9, 2007

Clark's reputation for being cheap is so intense that sometimes people come up to him and ask him if he's found any good Chinese toys (with lead paint) for his kids lately. While the intention is humorous, the point is no laughing matter.

Right now there's fear in the land because several government agencies have obviously failed in their duty to keep the American consumer safe.

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The Consumer Product Safety Commission has for a long time been perceived as an anti-consumer agency hijacked by people who wanted to protect industry giants making unsafe products from evil consumers. That belief was confirmed during recent Senate hearings when the CPSC's acting chairwoman basically said it is a bad idea to let consumers know about defects in items.

Clark is also upset that the CPSC helped a crib-maker keep secret that their product was unsafe. Several children died as a direct result of the agency not recommending a recall.

Clark loves capitalism, but he knows that there needs to be some referees in place for it to work optimally. When there's not a cop on the beat, the marketplace suffers because parents can't have confidence that the feds are on the case to make sure imported toys are safe.

Another recent episode also shows the government's unwillingness to protect consumers. There was a recent scandal with unsafe ground beef, and it turns out that the Department of Agriculture knew about E.Coli contamination for nearly five weeks before issuing a recall. The DOA obviously felt its responsibility was to protect the processing plant, which later went bust when the government recall was finally issued.

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