Markets self-regulate, conservatives tell us. Just get government off our backs, companies tell us (after we pocket whatever subsidies we can grab).
The Washington Post reports today on the safety of theme parks that feature rides that can whirl kids at speeds reaching 100 miles an hour. Most parents think the government makes certain the rides are safe. Think again.
Under President Jimmy Carter, the Consumer Product Safety Commission probed ride accidents at Marriott theme parks. In 1981, with the election of Ronald Reagan, the industry carried the fight to the Congress, complaining that government policing was creating "economic hardship," and would "make the rides worthless." Legislators, awash in industry campaign contributions, exempted permanent parks from CPSC oversight. The only regulation comes at the state level which is scattershot at best. For the most part, the industry now polices itself.
So accidents are simply a cost of doing business. Last year, four people lost their lives in theme park rides; many more were injured and maimed. The companies make a simple calculation because markets do self-regulate. If the number of unnecessary deaths and injuries is small enough that it costs more to put in safety equipment than to pay the costs of litigation with the victims and lobbying the legislature, then the deaths of a few kids is simply written off as a cost of doing business. Kathy Fackler, who founded Saferparks.org after her son lost part of his foot on a Disneyland roller coaster when he was five, concludes: "I see a stream of human suffering that isn't broad enough to matter to Congress or to matter financially to the companies.... It's like this small number of children are expendable to them."
This isn't about small government. The theme park industry lobbies hard for big-time subsidies, even as they work to disembowel regulatory agencies. The Post quotes Robert W. Johnson, president of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association, who helped create the federal exemption 26 years ago: "Amusement parks need less taxes, less government oversight but they need federal support," with the industry pushing to tap more than $200 million in federal funding for a program to bring more tourists to the United States.
Even where regulations do apply, conservatives and the corporate lobby have succeeded in disemboweling the regulatory agencies. So George Bush names Nancy Nord, a former Chamber of Commerce lobbyist against regulation, to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Between industry-financed junkets, Nord declaims loudly on the effectiveness of corporate self-regulation. She opposed more resources and staffing for an agency that has half the size and budget it had when it was founded in 1974. Toxic toys are regulated. But with 80 percent of our toys imported from China, the CPSC has about 90 field investigators, most of whom work from their homes and are based on the East Coast, tracking 15,000 products. It has, although Nord denies it, exactly one staffer -- a guy named Bob- - tasked full time to test toys.
Worried about unsafe Chinese imports, with one toy recently exposed as laced with the "date rape" drug? Don't worry. Nancy Nord says the CPSC is more effective than ever. How can you doubt her word?