Save Handmade Toys

Please check out this link.  In the government's frenzy to keep lead and toxin-filled toys off the shelves (good thing), the CPSIA initiative was so quickly and poorly written that it will effectively make handmade toys illegal (bad thing).  Why?  Because small businesses and artisans can't pay the $4,000 per toy to have it tested by the government.  

The ironic part is that these small toymakers have been offering safe, beautiful, unique toys for children all along, and they are being punished for the big box toymakers' greed for profit.  And once the little guys are out of business, the big box folks will be raking in their share of the money.  

AND, the toymakers put out of business won't even be allowed to donate their products to charity, they will be forced to put the in the garbage.  As a side note, that goes for clothes, books, and accessories (like hairbows, blankets, burp cloths) too, so thrift stores will be trashing children's clothes produced before Feb 10, 2009 (when the CPSIA goes into effect).  

So this law adversely affects:  buyers and sellers of handmade children's items, small toy companies, thrift and consignment shops, parents who buy children's clothes secondhand, poor families and non-profits who rely on donated clothing, books, and toys for their children.  That's a lot of people who will be hurting in an already struggling economy.

The CPSIA has already been passed, but we can still do something about it.  The link will show you some easy ways to make your opinion heard, and President Obama will be considering it if it makes it into his top 10 issues on change.org

Please help.