There are bureaucrats in Washington who believe their judgment is superior to yours, as a consumer. So they want to “protect” you by insuring that the only choices open to you are those meeting with their approval. They are really a warmhearted bunch. Just a little conceited, that’s all.
[The Consumer Product Safety Act] provides no meaningful protection for trade secrets or confidential company information… this empty standard is patently dangerous to our competitive system.
I believe that Congress and the people must realize that if this bill…is passed, we are direct[ing] attention to less than 10 percent of the safety problems in the country….From my own personal experience and evaluation of available statistics, the basic cause (85% to 95%) of occupational injuries is some type of ‘people failure.’ Inadequate equipment or facilities accounts for a very small percent of the total injuries experienced….‘people failure’ cannot be eliminated by legislation.
[The legislation to permit consumer class actions] “is only nominally an act ‘to extend protection against fraudulent or deceptive practices.’ It is more accurately an act to line the pockets of ingenious attorneys. If this bill passes, the lawyers will be in high cotton; their client consumers will be still hoeing the short row.
The class-action bill would open a happy hunting preserve to ambitious lawyers with a quick eye for the plump bird. They are not likely to be much concerned with fraud in the ghetto: No money there. But has a major manufacturer gotten a little too exuberant in his advertising? Has he promised a ‘benefit’ that may not be fully deliverable? Well, then, let us find 10 customers ready to say they’ve been damaged, and let us sue in the name of 10,000 more.
But where will employers obtain the money to pay for that increase? It is unrealistic to assume that somehow the increase will be squeezed out of profits….In plain fact, the burden of an increased minimum wage will fall heavily on those least able to bear it. The fringe employers, the unskilled worker, the young and the handicapped are those who will be priced out of the job market.
Under the [Democratic] bill, according to the [Chamber], ‘employers would be treated worse than criminals,’ and there would be ‘penalties on the innocent’
The industry representatives also object to a requirement in [the Democratic] bill that employers provide ‘a place of employment which is safe and healthful’ as being ‘vague and undefined’ and possibly unconstitutional.
The class action concept is misdirected and does not meet the overriding need of establishing a workable method to prevent frauds and deceptions. At best, class actions are only remedial to the consumer. At worst, they are a deceptive promise of prevention which the consumer is unlikely to see fulfilled. This is especially true of the low-income consumer who is the typical prey of unscrupulous operators, particularly in inner-city areas.
Class actions constitute a grave economic hazard to business—and the magnitude of the threat is likely to be in inverse relationship to the size of the business. Indeed, the effects on small businesses would be particularly catastrophic if not fatal.
