Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com
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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Photo: Howard Fischer, AZ Capitol Media Services
