Today, I’m sharing an original poem about Newt Gingrich that I included in The Republicans’ “Ideas Man” & The Junior Janitors of America, an article I wrote for Jonathan Turley’s law blog. Some of you may remember that Newt said he thought child labor laws were stupid when he spoke at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government last year. He had a hare-brained idea that unionized school janitors could be fired and poor students could earn some “honest” money working as assistant janitors under one master janitor.
Newt’s own words:
“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid. 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.”
“You’re going to see from me extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America.”
That’s one radical proposal for sure. And one for which the Republicans’ “Ideas Man” received quite a bit of criticism. Later, Newt bowed “to concerns that janitorial work is dangerous.” He then decided he needed to clarify his proposal and provided more specifics. He said poor kids could mop floors and clean bathrooms after school. He also suggested that they could sit in a clerical office greeting people.
Click here to read my Turley blog post.
Here is my poem:
Newt’s Poem to Poor Kids
Go fetch a bucketAnd grab a mop.
Now get to work.
Clean up that slop.
Scrub the bathrooms
From stem to stern.
Don’t be a slug.
It’s time to earn
Your living, kid.
You’re poor. Boohoo!
I have no pity
For kids like you.
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The Poetry Friday can be found at Hey, Jim Hill!
