Democracy Has Prevailed.

November 22, 2011

The problem with this country is that there aren't enough nine year-old janitors


That's according to current Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich who thinks that child labor laws are "truly stupid." Via MEDIAite:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a crowd on Friday that the solution to income inequality is to fire school janitors, and replace them with children. I am not making this up, and it gets worse. He’s not talking about junior high or high school kids, he’s talking about “9 to 14 year-olds.”

He suggests that these nine year-olds replace “union janitors” in poor neighborhoods, and that the kids work under a single “master janitor.”
You just can't make this stuff up...

3 comments:

EdHeath said...

You know, Newt's point that a lot of the wealthiest people had jobs like lemonade stands or delivering newspapers when they were even pretty young, that is not a bad point. Such people sometimes have a drive to succeed, and do things like finds niches in a market which they can exploit. But Newt is twisting that reasonable point and taking it to a stupid extreme. Firing a full time adult and replacing him with thirty little kids for an hour a day, it's just teaching thirty kids that the government doesn't like adults and that hard work, instead of being rewarding, gets you fired.

As somebody put it, Newt, with all his talk of history and innovative ideas, is the stupid person's idea of a smart person.

Winding down said...

EdHeath..

Ur last sentence..I UNDERSTAND you are quoting/paraphrasing....you belittle yourself when you engage in ad hominem invective...maybe they are misinformed or ignorant(not pittsburghese). One can disagree and not be stupid. Leave the haughtiness to the 1percent...was that ad hominem? I apologize

Happy Thanksgiving... Ed

EdHeath said...

Yeah, WD, Newt taking a million eight to "advise" Freddie Mac, right around the time they started buying sub-prime mortgages, and then NEwt more recently suggested that any Democrat who took money from Freddie or Fannie should be thrown in jail.

But you want to defend Newt as some kind of honorable genius?