We can’t have this kind of
um
person (?)
in the White House
With regard to Gingrinch’s (Yes, I’m spelling it that way intentionally!) plan to replace school janitors by forcing poor children to clean toilets
I didn’t comment on this initially because, frankly, I really believed that Gingrinch would hold a press conference and apologize for the grossly insensitive comments that he made about poor children. If nothing else, in grand Gingrinch style he would have been sorry for our misinterpretation of his remarks. Regardless, this nonsense would have been over and we could have moved on to the general insanity that is the Republica primary. However, not only is this idiot not apologizing, but he’s defending his atrocious plan and even building on it.
In the latest debate Gingrinch received thunderous applause from a Republican audience by defending his Dickensian scheme to lay off hard working “union” janitors who are making way too much money (yeah, who doesn’t want to be a school janitor and bring home all that chaching?) and replace them with poor children. His expressed goal is to teach poor children “the value of work.” Cleaning toilets for their peers would make these poor children feel good about themselves. Of course it would!
As if this wasn’t going far enough, Gingrinch expanded on this strategy. He added that he would fire one janitor and replace him with “thirty-seven” students. Those students would make money that they could take pride is as they bring their checks home to their poor parents. Thirty-seven students for one janitor? How much money would they make? Is Gingrinch suggesting that we pay each student one thirty-seventh of the wages that we pay our janitors? And, if not, how does his plan save the school system money, as he has claimed? Here in Lee County the starting salary for a custodian is an ostentatious $9.33 an hour.¹ To break even on this deal, Newt Legree would have to pay children twenty-five cents an hour. An eight-hour workday would vouch these children a gross income of $2 a day. In exchange for this gracious supplement to the family income, the child will only sacrifice all of his education.
Maybe these children under the Gingrinch plan can go to college after all. Not as students, of course. They could replace those overpaid college custodians and continue to scrub toilets for their better-heeled peers. According to Gingrinch, there is nothing demeaning about cleaning toilets while your peers read Oliver Twist in English class. Toiling for pennies on the dollar and sacrificing any hope for a meaningful future will teach the poor the value of work.
Hey, Newt! Here’s a more radical idea. How about we teach poor children the value of work by, oh I don’t know, helping them do classwork. The research indicates that poor children don’t suffer from not cleaning enough toilets. Poor children suffer from a lack of educational support structures. If anything, they need more time behind the computer and in the books, not more time behind the mop handle and in the dirty bathroom stalls.
Suggesting this, according to the man whose heart is way more than three sizes too small, makes me an elitist! Yes. Only an elitist would suggest that it’s demeaning to exploit poor children as cheap labor by making them clean their peer’s crap for pennies on the dollar. That’s what elitism is all about.
Really? Can we afford to have this medieval-minded, sinister bastard anywhere near the White House?
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¹ For those of you who can’t help yourselves, this wage amounts to $19,406.40 a year before taxes. My, how do we ever afford to pay such exorbitant wages for janitors?
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