Yes, a US Senator did just say that handwashing should be voluntary.

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

cdc poster
Like a jackboot on your neck

GOP politicians and the business leaders who own them are enamored with cutting what they see as onerous regulations. They are often supported by the public in this because they rarely mention the specific rules that are oppressing business owners and stifling prosperity, preferring instead to describe them using vague and bloodless terms like “red tape” or “bureaucracy”. You are meant to think of them as arbitrary and mostly unnecessary, and it never hurts their cause when there’s a story about some little girl’s lemonade stand being shut down by overzealous government agents for not being properly licensed.

But it turns out that most business regulations don’t merely exist as a full employment act for capricious civil service tyrants. They are there to protect the health and safety of workers and consumers. One such requirement, which I’m hopeful is in place everywhere, is that employees who handle food must wash their hands after using the restroom. Up to this moment I had lived in the naive bliss that this was something that everyone could agree was reasonable. Alas, no.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Monday that he’s okay with the idea of service industry workers returning to work without washing their hands after touching their unmentionables, as long as customers are made aware of the situation.

Tillis made the declaration at to the Bipartisan Policy Center, at the end of a question and answer with the audience. He was relaying a 2010 anecdote about his “bias when it comes to regulatory reform.”

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The unmitigated gall of these people

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

smirking ducey

Governor Ducey’s team decided to take a Friday news dump on Arizona by releasing his proposed budget. One of the items people noticed right away was the $75 million cut to universities. Which is weird since didn’t we spend the whole 2014 general election being told how we shouldn’t vote for that dastardly Fred DuVal because he was entirely to blame for college tuition increases while he was on the Arizona Board of Regents? Remember ad after ad featuring stock photos of fresh-faced concerned-looking young people and the ominous voiceover darkly warning of more increases – that would break middle class families! – if DuVal got near the Capitol? Candidate Ducey promised several times to “put more money in the classroom”.

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“Civics” means never asking the government you support with your taxes for anything

AZ Governor Doug Ducey announced, at his State of the State speech on Tuesday, that he would push for a new, high-stakes statewide civics test in the public schools to counter a “96 percent” failure of students on the current civics tests. It turns out that his numbers might have been a bit off:

The survey Ducey relied upon was done for the Goldwater Institute and is widely cited by groups promoting civics education.

But Goldwater spokeswoman Starlee Coleman told The Associated Press Wednesday the institute withdrew the survey results in 2009 after a company that conducted the survey for Goldwater failed to show its basic research met Goldwater’s standards. Another survey done for an Oklahoma group showing similar dismal testing results also has been discredited.

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Ducey’s “incremental” pursuit of Brownback’s policy is still a load of hooey

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

laffer napkin

Kimber Lanning, founder and executive director of Local First Arizona, delivered a fairly thorough smackdown to Robert Robb’s AZ Republic column whining that the Buy Local movement is a bunch of hooey.

Republic columnist Robert Robb is tired of hearing about the “buy local” movement and would like Arizonans to turn a blind eye to the economy and simply shop wherever they feel most satisfied. (“Shop where you want, guilt-free,” Dec. 19)

He claims the local movement is “hooey,” yet unabashedly has no statistics to back this. He just wants you, dear citizens, to throw the concept out the window.

In his article, Robb questions the countless economic studies released since 2002 but does not offer any substantive reasons for the questioning. Instead of following Robb’s simplistic calculations, let’s turn to the professional economists who back these studies, which have all concluded that an average of $30 more out of every $100 spent will stay in the local economy when money is spent with a local company versus a non-local corporate entity.

A Civic Economics study from 2007 showed the state of Arizona’s then-$5 million contract with OfficeMax was causing the state to lose $500,000 per year in economic leakage.

Definitely read the whole op-ed, since Lanning makes a solid case, bolstered with plenty of stats, for choosing local merchants over national chains whenever possible. I especially appreciated her calling out Robb for tossing out a context-free bit of frippery – “economies of scale” – to make himself look so very chin-stroking and serious.

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