DOGE Wants to Make Your Baby's Crib Unsafe

[justaprogressive]

n 2007, a law professor named Elizabeth Warren had an idea to better regulate mortgages and financial products. In her essay introducing the concept in Democracy Journal, she made a common-sense claim. “Nearly every product sold in America has passed basic safety regulations well in advance of reaching store shelves,” she wrote. “Just as the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) protects buyers of goods and supports a competitive market, we need the same for consumers of financial products.”

Implicit in this pitch is the assumption that everyone—Democrats, Republicans, whoever—supports safety in consumer products. Making sure that the things Americans buy every day do not poison, maim, or kill them was an utterly uncontroversial concept in 2007.

But that is no longer the case. Last month, the Trump administration began the evisceration of a domestic agency critical to safeguarding Americans’ health and well-being. And there has been tragically little outrage over this break with the obvious and banal consensus of the past.

In 1972, Richard Nixon signed the Consumer Product Safety Act into law. For over a half-century, the CPSC’s bipartisan commissioners has tested for lead in toys and other products, worked with companies to issue and publicize recalls, informed manufacturers of everything from bikes to refrigerators on how to make consumables that won’t harm customers, and taken action when companies violated the rules and endangered the public.

Almost immediately after its formation, industry groups and their sympathizers in the Reagan administration sought to draw and quarter the agency. Despite repeated attempts at assassination, the CPSC managed to stay alive, surviving even the first Trump administration. But this spring, Elon Musk’s minions showed up.

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-06-06-doge-wants-to-make-your-babys-crib-unsafe-cpsc/