The New Republic

Front runner!

- Pnaut

November 22, 2011 at 12:08pm

Anti-union sentiment is highest in the south, where there are few unions and union members. At one time I considered this a paradox, so few unions and such high sentiment against unions. But it actually makes perfect sense. It's easy to demonize unions when you don't know anybody in a union. Now here is another paradox: the Republican base is up in arms about those rapacious bankers, yet the Republican presidential candidates demonize . . . the unemployed and janitors. Could it be like those union members in the south, the candidates don't know anybody who is unemployed or a janitor.

- rayward

November 22, 2011 at 12:46pm

Wow, attacking child labor laws. What will Newt think of next? It's SO close to "let them eat cake", but I guess he has no sense of history.

- AllanL5

November 22, 2011 at 1:13pm

that load couldn't even bend down to pick up a wash cloth. In China they made young people do such things as part of their civic duties, but it didn't happen until they were 16 and even then they were all pretty half assed about it. The best benefit for having little children be janitors is that their little hands can reach deep into the toilet bowls and give them a really good cleaning. Please, please, please Republicans, nominate this gaseous, ego maniacal narcissist and the Democrats can win all 50 states.

- blackton

November 22, 2011 at 1:20pm

I'm so tired of all of those fatcat janitors.

- kluhman

November 22, 2011 at 2:49pm

A few things: 1. **"Get any job that teaches you to stay all day even if you are in a fight with your girlfriend."** What's that, Newt? Are you the subject matter expert on this? 2. I had steady work cutting grass from age 10 to about age 14-15, when I first got real paychecks pushing concessions at an amusement park. Small lawns $15, bigger lawns $20-30. This was under-the-table income. It still happens. You don't have to repeal child labor laws to facilitate the ability of children to hold a job. Now, convincing your neighbors that it's okay to let a 10 year old wield a mower on their property for 2 hours on a 98 degree afternoon -- that could be tricky, but the opportunity exists. 3. The letting-kids-be-janitors-at-school thing would be disastrous if not handled correctly. Unless you somehow have a policy to divide the time equally among the students, the janitor-kids are going to be picked on horrendously. If only the poorer kids are the ones doing the janitor work, then that would be devastating to their self-esteem, to their social lives, probably to their health. It's a terrible, terrible idea and Newt should feel ashamed for ever articulating it in his own stupid mind, and much more so for spewing this gibberish on camera.

- Konstantin

November 22, 2011 at 4:03pm

At what point does Newt slip over the line into a Monty Python-type rant? "When I were three year old, I were already shearing sheep and working in a barbed-wire factory. It were 'ard, but it did me a lot o' good. Taught me 'ow to stand on my own two feet it did, and the barbed wire only took one eye. Never regretted it!"

- ironyroad

November 22, 2011 at 5:06pm

LOL. This is so bad it's funny. Monty Python is right. Heaven help us.

- Sophia

November 22, 2011 at 6:49pm

That gas bag. The GOP "ideas candidate" . Recyling Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" can't be far behind. "There is malnutrition in this country. Yet a lot of obese kids. This is something that no liberal wants to deal with. What do we say to people in poor neighborhoods? 'Don't eat the chubby kids, the ones who are picked last in gym. Remember all that stuff about eating children is immoral? You talk to poor people as I have done, those who want to get off the dependency of food stamps. Well, the successful ones are those who have eaten their children, the kids with early onset diabetes. Cuts down on groceries, clothing, and medical bills. The whole process of making cannibalism worthwhile is central".

- dubyadoubte

November 22, 2011 at 7:38pm

Yeah, but Swift's "Modest Proposal" was meant by Swift as satire.

- ironyroad

November 22, 2011 at 9:10pm

Newt's janitor proposal reminded me of a documentary that came out a few years ago, "Alone in Four Walls," which follows the lives of Russian juvenile delinquents attending a reform school. In addition to attending classes, the students go about their days cleaning the facilities and serving each other meals. It's the most order many of them have had in their lives. For all the struggles though, after they are released, there are too few lingering benefits. Most go on to get in trouble with the law again.

- markbenl

November 22, 2011 at 10:19pm

As someone whose part-time on-campus jobs through four years of college were OFFICIALLY part of my scholarship-loan-job financial aid package, I see a valid rationale for extending the concept of work-study into high schools. My parents did not "give" me an allowance when I turned 12 (1964). Because both my parents worked, I was expected to earn every cent by cleaning the house every day after school, plus yardwork on the weekends. I had to pay for my bus fare to get to school, my NOT-free school lunch, and all my clothing that my mother did not sew by hand. I made extra money from 14-16, my dad's idea, by buying candy bars from the wholesaler two blocks away for five cents each and re-selling them for ten cents each in high school. If I had been caught, my high school would have expelled me.

- K2K

November 23, 2011 at 12:00pm

BTW, I had a friend whose ex-wife had their youngest son, at 13, work at home packaging brake pads in Connecticut in 2003. It was only illegal because he was under 14. Y'all might want to check those child labor laws in such hell-holes as Connecticut.

- K2K

November 23, 2011 at 12:03pm

Children of janitors unite! Dr. Warren, my check is in the mail. Many conservatives hated the school-to-work initiative, deriding it as a mirror of the "failed Soviet education system." I see now that Newt would rather have a school-at-work program.

- Lundell

November 23, 2011 at 12:50pm

K2k, there's a big difference between working at college as an adult (18+) and working in the school you attend as a high school kid. Also, a difference between that and working at home or in your parents' store or business. I mean, is this difficult or what? It's also the case that real janitors often have a kind of technical on-site authority (they get stuff done) that balances out some of the menial aspects of the job -- a 15-year-old boy would not have that authority in his own high school, for pete's sake!

- ironyroad

November 23, 2011 at 1:31pm

I don't know. It sounds more like Newt is already laying the ground work for eliminating those pesky, business killing child labor laws so that when Murdoch and the brothers Koch raise the privileged class to their position of exaltation in America in the next few years they can have an even greater supply of even cheaper labor upon which to stand their newly formed empire.

- GSpinks

November 23, 2011 at 5:44pm

oops..."pesky, JOB killing child labor laws".

- GSpinks

November 23, 2011 at 5:44pm

irony: it was wonderful to stop cleaning the house every day when I was 13-16 to start working in the college library when I was 17, mostly because the screaming stopped when I escaped to college. guess you decided to ignore that Connecticut, as of 2003, allows 14 year old children to package BRAKE PADS (hopefully asbestos-free) if performed as piecework at a location unsupervised by the manufacturer... Hey - the only thing consistent about TNR is that NO IDEA from anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is valid. as for Mrs. Warren? the "hicks" in the "not landlocked" Berkshires are already wanting to send her back to Harvard for life.

- K2K

November 23, 2011 at 6:54pm

Right, COLLEGE library. When you went to college. That's a rather important distinction. And fwiw library work is not like being an assistant janitor, normally speaking. I don't know what you mean by "ignore": so, as a clarification, let me admit that I am unfamiliar with the CT law you describe; however, it seems at first glance to have been put in place to favor some particular sectorette of the economy. In general, I am against kids under 16 doing what might be considered industrial piece work if it has a negative impact on their health or schooling. I agree that e.g. supermarket bagging is also pretty industrial but there's a certain tradition to that -- and certainly helping out in your folks' business should be fine in the normal course of events.

- ironyroad

November 23, 2011 at 7:51pm

And other than that, K2K, have a good Thanksgiving!

- ironyroad

November 24, 2011 at 2:18am

irony: I had to clean house for money so I could pay for the public bus to high school and not-free-school lunch, and most days I had to skip lunch so I could save enough to buy some clothes that kept the other kids from making fun of me. I would have preferred NOT being a child-slave. And, for the hours worked, would have made more money per hour at a real job with some dignity attached. you do not even realize how condescendingly nasty you are to me. you never believe facts when I write them. This thread reminds me of when I did my student teaching in 2004. Brand new "small school" with a locked library because the library, full of books and computers, cold NOT be made available to the students without a Certified Librarian. I had worked my way through college and the first grad school in libraries, had a BA, and two MS, almost finished with my MA, yet I could not be permitted to "act" as librarian because I did not have the two master's degrees that were required to be a NYC public school librarian. It stayed locked. Perhaps Gingrich used the wrong example...of how union rules and regulation get really stupid.

- K2K

November 25, 2011 at 3:01am

If Newt is proposing to repeal child labor laws, I disagree with him. But I don't see how Elizabeth Warren is a counter-example to his argument that kids working in their teens are more likely to be successful in life. Warren worked as a waitress in her teens and has been very successful in life. The fact that she didn't happen to work as a janitor is irrelevant. Dhurtado

- NR143296

November 25, 2011 at 6:58am

I was watching a reality show on TV the other day in which they follow people mining for gold in Alaska. My daughter and son joined in. There was a 16 year old kid that owns a mining claim that his grandfather gave him. In this show, he was switching between driving various types heavy equipment, to driving into town to get a new part for a generator, to instructing some 30-something laborers on what to do next. Both kids were shocked to learn he was 16, as he was doing tasks they could not dream of doing. Kids used to have their own farm at the age of 16, and a wife to go with it. When my mom was growing up, 14 year olds could drive on the roads as they were needed to run errands on the farm. And they were driving combines, tractors and other heavy machinery daily. We definitely expect less than ever from our kids today. Not sure if that good or not. Probably not. Most everyone I knew in high school had a part time job. Today, the kids all seem to look down on the jobs we routinely did in high school. I don't know any of my kids friends that work except for one. Hard work at a young age never damages self esteem. I got my ass in gear in college ultimately because I hated being a short order cook. I've read stories that schools have started giving lunches for "free" to everyone, because they didn't want the kids that had subsidized lunches to feel bad. If the entire school were responsible for cleaning the school, then it'd not be such a bad thing, nor would it carry a stigma. And some kids could work extra hours for more pay if they wanted to.

- seattleeng

November 25, 2011 at 11:52am

If I was either condescending or nasty, K2K, I apologize. It was not intentional, and I have to say it's not quite clear to me how I was being so, or where I suggested I didn't believe you. However, I am now somewhat puzzled as to where you stand on this whole issue of child labor. Presumably you do not want your particular experience as a teenager replicated for others, and yet you seem (unless I'm not getting it at all) to be valorzing other kinds of work done by kids if only it's better paid? Once again, I think we can be flexible, but securing the schooling that individuals are going to need in an advanced economy as well as kids' health should be the basic measure applied. Seattle, if all the kids were responsible for the upkeep of the school, then that would indeed be potentially a good deal for both students and institution -- but that's not what the Newt was proposing.

- ironyroad

November 25, 2011 at 12:13pm

blackton, You brought back memories. My father drove a truck for Railway Express Agency, but he had several part-time jobs, one of them as a janitor at REA. He took me along on weekends to help him. I was 11 or 12. Toilet brushes and rubber gloves were very uncommon in those days, so, you guessed it, I had to use a rag and stick my little hand inside the toilet to clean it. Later on I mowed lawns, had a morning paper route (brutal to get up at 4 A.M. on a freezing winter morn, before going to school), and helped my dad with other jobs, like house painting. By the time I was in high school I was working in a drugstore (not allowed to sell liquor) and at Kresge's as a stock boy (heavy labor). None of this damaged me, physically or mentally. It was simply what you did--in my case to pay for school clothes and supplies--in those days. At home I was in charge of the coal furnace (shoveling coal, stoking, grating, carrying out the ashes) and mowing the lawn. I also helped my mother with the laundry. We had an old tub washer with a wringer and no dryer. Those days are gone. I agree with Newt that children should be given chores. Many of today's kids expect a smart phone costing multiple hundreds for Christmas, without doing any chores. But Newtie's idea of child janitors in schools is beyond bizarre. Unions were formed in America to prevent the severe abuse of humans, including children, by employers. I am convinced that the GOP, which has basically lost what little mind it had, wants America to return to its early days, when children were forced to sleep next to their machines in textile factories, because they were too tired to go home, after working a 16-hour day. The GOP's main economic goal is to drive wages down. That's why Reagan gave all illegals amnesty, and G.W. Bush proposed giving them all amnesty and green cards. Republicans want wages as low as they can go. Newt's idea of child janitors to replace union ones is simply a logical development of Republican economic philosophy. But apart from that, can you see today's 12-year-olds doing a bang-up job of cleaning schools? Most of them can't even clean up their rooms! dubyadoubte, Brilliant send-up of Gasbag Gingrich!

- magboy47.

November 25, 2011 at 12:20pm

Kids do work. Child labor laws don't outlaw work they merely place some restrictions on work performed by minors and the conditions in which they work -- restrictions intended to protect their health and safety and their ability to get an education. In the poor neighborhoods Newt references it is the lack of available work, not child labor laws, that is the obstacle to employment for teenagers. The ironic thing is this, his solution to the depressed economic activity and lack of jobs in these neighborhoods is to provide a government job for these young people, something conservatives are suppose to object to. I guess its okay because he wants to take a government job away from an adult with a family to support and give it to someone who can be exploited at lower pay. Government jobs are great as long as they're significantly exploitative and don't provide a liveable wage? Do conservatives ever think before they open their mouths? Do they mean any of the nonsense that comes out of those mouths? By the way, when are all these child janitors suppose to attend class and do their homework?

- esmense

November 25, 2011 at 12:39pm

In an odd way, this does intersect with an inspiring story in my extended family. I doubt that are any general lessons to take from it, unless you know that a child is someday going to be rich. When my two cousins were pre-teens (in California), my uncle and aunt required them to spend several summers working in berry fields picking berries with migrant workers. The requirement was not presented in a punitive way. My uncle and aunt (who were comfortably middle class Americans, said to my their daughters, “You will have a wonderful opportunity for an education as American citizens. Many children do not appreciate this. We want you to spend your summers picking berries with children and adults who will do this all their lives, and probably never have an opportunity to get the education you will have. We want you to appreciate it. You will make some money picking berries. It will be your money. You can spend it as you wish.” My uncle and aunt eventually left California to become “citizens of the world,” living in places such as London, Sri Lanka, and Australia, and the rest of us lost all contact with them. We were reunited decades later at a couple of family re-unions. I was astonished to discover that one of my cousins, Joanna Nichols, had become fluent in Chinese in Taiwan, and with her Taiwanese husband, they had become millionaires, as they were the founders of Graco (a multi-national company that makes baby furniture, strollers, and cribs). Joanna obviously enjoyed her money (and did a lot of shopping on her first trip to America in decades), but she was also a very down-to-earth person with no airs, pretensions, or attitude. I also learned then (and more a little later — after she died at a tragically premature age, of breast cancer), that she is a bit of a national heroine in Taiwan. When her second daughter was born deaf, Joanna took her to Australia, where she became the first Taiwanese child to have a cochlear implant. Later, Joanna, used some of her money to set up a foundation that helps pay for any Taiwanese child who can benefit from cochlear implants (and the necessary and extensive training). I often thought afterwards that if you know that one of your children is going to become a millionaire, making him or her spend a few summers working in the berry fields with migrant workers was perhaps the best possible strategy to make sure their feet remained on the ground after they gained wealth. Here's a link to the foundation she set up, with a picture of my cousin. Unless (unlike me but like my cousin) you are fluent in Chinese, stick to the English pages on the web site. http://www.chfn.org.tw/en/index_e.htm

- skahn

November 25, 2011 at 11:39pm

I am really just dying for someone to make a political cartoon of a guying say he lost his job to outsourcing, another guy asking him "to India?" and the guy replying "no, to a 9 year old" only funnier, bc after all, I am not a political cartoonist I mean you thought the labor market was tough before, wait until you got compete with these damn scrappy kids. You know they can even fit down the chimney too.

- ahlesa4

November 27, 2011 at 2:54pm

Irony writes: "Seattle, if all the kids were responsible for the upkeep of the school, then that would indeed be potentially a good deal for both students and institution -- but that's not what the Newt was proposing." But what is the difference is all the kids are responsible for the upkeep, or it 30% are and those 30% just happen to need the money?

- seattleeng

November 28, 2011 at 10:55pm