In a few days families will start Christmas shopping and toys will be a big item on the list. But there's been a long list of toy recalls this year (50 percent more than last year) and that's affecting a lot of parents. All in all, more than 21-million imported toys have been recalled, leaving some parents simply wondering what's safe to buy.

And in Congress, lawmakers are looking at legislation to straighten out the mess some say we're in when it comes to imports. "If it's important that it be made right and made safe, there's no excuse for just turning a blind eye on it just because it comes from someplace else," Congressman John Barrow told me recently.

Barrow says other countries, especially China, that import large quantities of toys and other products into the U.S. need to be proving to American consumers that their products are reliable. "We now realize it's every bit as important that they make those things as safe in China as we insist on them being made in this country," Barrow says.

This week the Consumer Product Safety Commission released its annual message on toy safety, indicating that most recalled items should be off the store shelves. The CPSC also reminded the public that the Chinese government recently signed an agreement to do more inspections to keep lead painted toys from getting into the U.S.

But the Public Interest Research Group said the same day that recent surveys had found some toys with high lead contents were still being sold. PIRG called for more funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission and said the CPSC simply doesn't have enough inspectors in their labs and at ports to catch unsafe toys entering the U.S. market. PIRG wants Congress to increase the CPSC's budget and raise penalties for violators.

Congressman Barrow agrees that the number of CPSC staff, which was about 800 people in the 1980's and is now down to 400 people, needs to be higher. Barrow, a democrat representing the 12th district, blamed the Bush administration, at least for the funding issues. "Well for the last six years we've been starving the Consumer Product Safety Commissioin of resources," Barrow says. "It has been flat lined in the budget, it's not getting the money it needs and staffing levels have never been as low."

But Congressman Jack Kingston, a republican representing the 1st district, isn't certain more funding for the CPSC is the ultimate answer. "Well, first putting up more money for additional staff would depend on whether they could be productive on this matter," Kingston says. Kingston says realistically, there could never be enough staff to police the billions of products, including toys, that are brought into this country every year. "The question would be, how do you make products safer and is it best to come in with more government inspectors or maybe more government regulations? Maybe it should be tougher recall measures or higher standards. I think those should all be on the table," he says.

Kingston does say recalls can be a sign that problems are being discovered and the marketplace is working. "Just about every toy recall we have had has basically been the manufacturer discovering a problem and coming forward with that," he says.

But some question if the problems are being discovered quickly enough. PIRG says more than 160 children died from dangerous toy products between 1990 and 2005. Congressman Barrow believes there's "corner cutting going on" in China that's not allowed in the U.S. And while Barrow thinks there should be a beefed up Consumer Product Safety Commission, he also wants foreign trade partners held to higher standards and says they should foot the bill. "If they respresent that their products are being made safe enough for America, but they aren't safe enough for America, why should be first 1) be poisoned and find out the hard way and why should we bear the burden of policing these folks?" We've got to figure out some way to get them to bear the burden of policing themselves," Barrow says.