Raw Story has the latest from Republican Newt Gingrich:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed Friday evening that public school janitors be replaced by children in order to help solve the income gap in America.....
“This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” Gingrich said, according to Politico. “Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.”...
“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You’re totally poor,” he said. “You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model,” he said. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”...
Wow. Gingrich has really shown his true self with this latest dumb idea. Gingrich wants to abandon child labor laws, allow poor children to go to work as janitors under a "master janitor," and pretty much abandon any chance for further education. Did you notice that Newt used the word "master" to describe someone in charge of the children working?
Why am I not surprised that someone who had a credit account at Tiffany's (once owed Tiffany's up to $500,000, according to CBS) and took a Greek cruise in the middle of a campaign, would call child labor laws "stupid"?
As one pundit said on a talk show the other day, Gingrich's baggage has baggage. I'll let Stephen Colbert explain Newt:
