Obama hates family farms

[patches70]

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/25/rural ... rm-chores/

There have been attempts in the past to go through Congress to put a stop to children working on family farms. Always those efforts are blocked.

Obama is attempting to go another route, instead of trying to get legislation through Congress, Herr Obama has instead directed his Department of Labor to just decree that any under 18 can't be allowed to work on farms.

This is quite clever of Obama to go this route. He'd never get Congress to agree but using a government agency to do the work by simply adding farm jobs onto the list of prohibited places of employment.

Now it will be spun that the government is merely "looking out for the children". This is bullshit. This type of thing benefits the big farming companies who cannot employ children. Family farms get cheap labor because it's a family affair. The kids do chores to assist the farm.

It's a sad state of affairs when government can tell people what chores a person's children can and cannot do on the family's own land. Monsanto and other big agro-companies have been steadily crushing the small family farmers for decades now. This is just another example of the crony shenanigans in the unholy alliance between corporation and government.

[BigBallinStalin]

This is great! By making labor more expensive for the smaller farms, more of them will be unable to compete. Then the larger businesses in the agricultural sector can buy them up! Anyone who opposes this is in support of child labor! EVIL!! EVILL!!! Isn't it so amusing how our morality has been flipped?

Crony capitalism is like this fantastic magic show, where bureaucrats make sure that the workers are protected, and that the children are saved from the evil capitalists. Never mind that some businesses (small farms) will go under, unemployment will slightly increase, real income for these families will significantly decrease, etc.

Hey, maybe the government can give them unemployment benefits and other forms of "poverty"-preventing welfare benefits? That'll fix the problem that the government initially caused!

If you ignore the consequences and buy the rhetoric, then everything seems rosy with government regulation! Yippee!! "It's a tough job, making sure people are protected, and sure, mistakes will happen, but we're doing everything we can to fix that and to be aware of potential problems--even though we are a monopoly and have no issues from competition to improve the quality of our services or decrease our costs, so no worries." MAGIC! If you disagree with this crony capitalism, you're an evil, pro-child labor industrialist!

[TA1LGUNN3R]

Well I expect this to be retroactive. If this goes through I demand reparations of some sort.

-TG

[Haggis_McMutton]

Step 1: Read the foaming at the mouth comments under the article

Step 2: Go to the linked article http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20111250.htm and read the first 2 paragraphs:

Aims to improve safety of young workers employed in agriculture and related fields

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor is proposing revisions to child labor regulations that will strengthen the safety requirements for young workers employed in agriculture and related fields. The agricultural hazardous occupations orders under the Fair Labor Standards Act that bar young workers from certain tasks have not been updated since they were promulgated in 1970.

The department is proposing updates based on the enforcement experiences of its Wage and Hour Division, recommendations made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and a commitment to bring parity between the rules for young workers employed in agricultural jobs and the more stringent rules that apply to those employed in nonagricultural workplaces. The proposed regulations would not apply to children working on farms owned by their parents.

Step 3. ???

Step 4. Profit!

[Nobunaga]

Farmers tend to be conservative.

... So screw em!

[thegreekdog]

You guys know that Republicans don't like family farms either right? I mean, right? You guys have to know that.

[BigBallinStalin]

The proposal would strengthen current child labor regulations prohibiting agricultural work with animals and in pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins. It would prohibit farmworkers under age 16 from participating in the cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco. And it would prohibit youth in both agricultural and nonagricultural employment from using electronic, including communication, devices while operating power-driven equipment.

The department also is proposing to create a new nonagricultural hazardous occupations order that would prevent children under 18 from being employed in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials. Prohibited places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.

Additionally, the proposal would prohibit farmworkers under 16 from operating almost all power-driven equipment. A similar prohibition has existed as part of the nonagricultural child labor provisions for more than 50 years. A limited exemption would permit some student learners to operate certain farm implements and tractors, when equipped with proper rollover protection structures and seat belts, under specified conditions.

All of the above is used to enrich the larger businesses at the expense of the smaller businesses.

The main effects of this regulation is to increase the costs of unskilled, young labor. This will cause affected businesses to marginally opt toward more skilled labor or further mechanization/automation--as they have become relatively cheaper to unskilled young labor. What does that mean?

1) Less unskilled, young labor will get hired--because the new regulation has forced them to be less productive. Less productivity doesn't justify a higher wage.

2) Guess who can afford the substitution toward more mechanization and more skilled labor at a relatively lesser price? Large agricultural businesses. Economies of scale FTW, baby.

3) Young labor that used to be shifted across the neighbors of a family's farm will occur much else, since the neighbors could be beaten down with regulation.


Never mind this form of education for these youths, and never mind that it makes them more expensive relative to the substitutes. If you disagree, you obviously hate children. Are we starting to see what crony capitalism is? Are we starting to understand what many regulations really cause?

[BigBallinStalin]

Step 1: Read the foaming at the mouth comments under the article

Step 2: Go to the linked article http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20111250.htm and read the first 2 paragraphs:

Aims to improve safety of young workers employed in agriculture and related fields

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor is proposing revisions to child labor regulations that will strengthen the safety requirements for young workers employed in agriculture and related fields. The agricultural hazardous occupations orders under the Fair Labor Standards Act that bar young workers from certain tasks have not been updated since they were promulgated in 1970.

The department is proposing updates based on the enforcement experiences of its Wage and Hour Division, recommendations made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and a commitment to bring parity between the rules for young workers employed in agricultural jobs and the more stringent rules that apply to those employed in nonagricultural workplaces. The proposed regulations would not apply to children working on farms owned by their parents.

Step 3. ???

Step 4. Profit!

The Dept. of Labor added that presumably after the backlash incurred by much of the public--if the dailycaller article's claims are true. The dailycaller article is roughly 8 months after such legislation was first proposed, and it's difficult to tell if the Labor Dept. edited that link or not.

Either way, I found the following interesting, but I'm not sure if they're true (as with many news articles):

The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

This claim isn't supported in http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20111250.htm. Either the dailycaller's author is lying, or the Department of Labor edited their link and removed that part.

Maybe it's in this 1 hour video, which I'm not too interested in watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPlO2Lfv0es

“They have said the number of injuries are higher for children than in non-ag industries,” she said. But everyone in agriculture, Boswell insisted, “makes sure youth work in tasks that are age-appropriate.”

The safety training requirements strike many in agriculture as particularly strange, given an injury rate among young people that is already falling rapidly

According to a United States Department of Agriculture study, farm accidents among youth fell nearly 40 percent between 2001 and 2009, to 7.2 injuries per 1,000 farms.

So, what's really the point of regulation if farm accident rates are already falling?

Boswell told TheDC that the new farming regulations could be finalized as early as August. She claimed farmers could soon find The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division inspectors on their land, citing them for violations.

“In the last three years that division has grown 30 to 40 percent,” Boswell said

Well, they have to justify their budget somehow!

The Department of Labor did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Aw, shucks. "We want to be open and hold discussions, but um, not really."

[Night Strike]

More unconstitutional stupidity from the Obama Administration.

They're doing this because most farm families are conservative and pass down their values from generation to generation. Furthermore, those children are taught to value hard work and the importance of private property, neither of which are proper in a socialized society. The administration wants to get these teenagers off the farms and into the government schools where their liberal teachers can teach them the proper way to live. This is further indicated by their banning of 4-H and FFA groups from teaching farming skills and instead requiring that they be learned from a government official. This is another hostile takeover of private businesses and families, which is the ultimate goal of progressives.

[PLAYER57832]

This is quite clever of Obama to go this route. He'd never get Congress to agree but using a government agency to do the work by simply adding farm jobs onto the list of prohibited places of employment.

Now it will be spun that the government is merely "looking out for the children". This is bullshit. This type of thing benefits the big farming companies who cannot employ children. Family farms get cheap labor because it's a family affair. The kids do chores to assist the farm.

It's a sad state of affairs when government can tell people what chores a person's children can and cannot do on the family's own land. Monsanto and other big agro-companies have been steadily crushing the small family farmers for decades now. This is just another example of the crony shenanigans in the unholy alliance between corporation and government.

Some history here.
#1 as you yourself noted, this is hardly an issue begun with Obama.
#2 Any idea how many kids die or are injured on farms each year? A "gentle" (ffarm friendly) estimate put it at 300 fatalities a year. Some reports have the number of farm injuries exceeding injuries from traffic accidents.

That said, I know first hand how beneficial working on a farm, helping care for animals and such can be for kids. I also know how abusive or just plain stupid some parents can be.

The real issue is how and when kids should be allowed to do this. There is a similar issue with restaurants, since a lot of immigrant families (particularly) rely on their children to help in the restaurants they own. I don't know that this particular piece of legislation is the answer, but ignoring the issue entirely doesn't seem a good idea, either.

At any rate, to lay this on a "Obama hates small farms" platform is very misguided. Debate it or don't on its own merits, but its not an "Obama-specific" issue. In fact, as several have pointed out, you can hardly argue that the Republicans are particularly pro small farm.

[Night Strike]

That said, I know first hand how beneficial working on a farm, helping care for animals and such can be for kids. I also know how abusive or just plain stupid some parents can be.

Then you prosecute abuse. You do NOT pass blanket regulations that hurt everybody in order to stop a few abusers.

The real issue is how and when kids should be allowed to do this. There is a similar issue with restaurants, since a lot of immigrant families (particularly) rely on their children to help in the restaurants they own. I don't know that this particular piece of legislation is the answer, but ignoring the issue entirely doesn't seem a good idea, either.

At any rate, to lay this on a "Obama hates small farms" platform is very misguided. Debate it or don't on its own merits, but its not an "Obama-specific" issue. In fact, as several have pointed out, you can hardly argue that the Republicans are particularly pro small farm.

This isn't a "piece of legislation". It's a regulation being written by the Department of Labor without any input or approval from Congress. We don't even get a chance to debate it on its merits (although it has none) because it's a dictate from on high. We have to accept it as fact and obey the unconstitutional edict.

[Night Strike]

The Administration has rescinded the proposed regulations (for now).
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FARM_LABOR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-04-26-19-44-56

[saxitoxin]

unconstitutional edict

Are there any bad laws or regulations in which our perception of their badness comes down to a matter of policy disagreement or are all bad laws/regulations unconstitutional?

At any rate, to lay this on a "Obama hates small farms" platform is very misguided. Debate it or don't on its own merits, but its not an "Obama-specific" issue.

Has the USA/Obama regime ever done anything that is, on the whole, negative, or are all instances of "bad" actions by the ruling regime simply misunderstandings?

[Night Strike]

unconstitutional edict

Are there any bad laws or regulations in which our perception of their badness comes down to a matter of policy disagreement or are all bad laws/regulations unconstitutional?

Laws and regulations are not the same thing. The constitution clearly states that the legislative power of the federal government lies solely with Congress. Laws are passed by Congress while regulations are passed by a member of the executive branch. The executive branch is tasked with carrying out the laws that Congress passes (which, by the way, is why the administration failing to carrying out laws like DOMA, they are in violation of the Constitution). If the executive branch is writing the regulations AND enforcing them, there is no separation of powers; therefore the enforcement of the regulation is in violation of the Constitution because it was never passed by Congress.

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

[Timminz]

This is great! By making labor more expensive for the smaller farms, more of them will be unable to compete. Then the larger businesses in the agricultural sector can buy them up! Anyone who opposes this is in support of child labor! EVIL!! EVILL!!! Isn't it so amusing how our morality has been flipped?

Crony capitalism is like this fantastic magic show, where bureaucrats make sure that the workers are protected, and that the children are saved from the evil capitalists. Never mind that some businesses (small farms) will go under, unemployment will slightly increase, real income for these families will significantly decrease, etc.

But the large agribusinesses earn a bigger margin than family farms due to economies of scale, so this shift will cause an overall increase in GDP, which is good for everyone, since it is an increase in average income.

Yay economics!

[patches70]

unconstitutional edict

Are there any bad laws or regulations in which our perception of their badness comes down to a matter of policy disagreement or are all bad laws/regulations unconstitutional?

Laws and regulations are not the same thing. The constitution clearly states that the legislative power of the federal government lies solely with Congress. Laws are passed by Congress while regulations are passed by a member of the executive branch. The executive branch is tasked with carrying out the laws that Congress passes (which, by the way, is why the administration failing to carrying out laws like DOMA, they are in violation of the Constitution). If the executive branch is writing the regulations AND enforcing them, there is no separation of powers; therefore the enforcement of the regulation is in violation of the Constitution because it was never passed by Congress.

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

I think saxi is asking PLAYER we she always seems to be the apologist in regards to Obama, Dems and the left for the things they do while attacking Rep and the right relentlessly as evil, greedy and corrupt.

[saxitoxin]

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

Your position is that every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

This is great! By making labor more expensive for the smaller farms, more of them will be unable to compete. Then the larger businesses in the agricultural sector can buy them up! Anyone who opposes this is in support of child labor! EVIL!! EVILL!!! Isn't it so amusing how our morality has been flipped?

Crony capitalism is like this fantastic magic show, where bureaucrats make sure that the workers are protected, and that the children are saved from the evil capitalists. Never mind that some businesses (small farms) will go under, unemployment will slightly increase, real income for these families will significantly decrease, etc.

But the large agribusinesses earn a bigger margin than family farms due to economies of scale, so this shift will cause an overall increase in GDP, which is good for everyone, since it is an increase in average income.

NICE!

[Night Strike]

unconstitutional edict

Are there any bad laws or regulations in which our perception of their badness comes down to a matter of policy disagreement or are all bad laws/regulations unconstitutional?

Laws and regulations are not the same thing. The constitution clearly states that the legislative power of the federal government lies solely with Congress. Laws are passed by Congress while regulations are passed by a member of the executive branch. The executive branch is tasked with carrying out the laws that Congress passes (which, by the way, is why the administration failing to carrying out laws like DOMA, they are in violation of the Constitution). If the executive branch is writing the regulations AND enforcing them, there is no separation of powers; therefore the enforcement of the regulation is in violation of the Constitution because it was never passed by Congress.

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

I think saxi is asking PLAYER we she always seems to be the apologist in regards to Obama, Dems and the left for the things they do while attacking Rep and the right relentlessly as evil, greedy and corrupt.

I think he asked us both the same premise using different details.

[Night Strike]

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

Your position is that every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

So our country survived almost 100 years without the executive branch passing a regulation (at a time when Congress wasn't even in session year-round)? Sounds like following the Constitution works.

[saxitoxin]

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

Your position is that every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

So our country survived almost 100 years without the executive branch passing a regulation (at a time when Congress wasn't even in session year-round)? Sounds like following the Constitution works.

I'm not making an argument, I'm just trying to clarify that your position is every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

[Night Strike]

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

Your position is that every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

So our country survived almost 100 years without the executive branch passing a regulation (at a time when Congress wasn't even in session year-round)? Sounds like following the Constitution works.

I'm not making an argument, I'm just trying to clarify that your position is every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

If they enforced regulations that were written by a department of their administration instead of by Congress, then yes. Actually, perhaps the president himself wasn't violating the Constitution, but any person who brought charges against a person, sued a person, etc. for violating a regulation was acting unconstitutionally.

[saxitoxin]

So with that premise, not all bad laws are unconstitutional, but all regulations, good or bad, are unconstitutional.

Your position is that every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

So our country survived almost 100 years without the executive branch passing a regulation (at a time when Congress wasn't even in session year-round)? Sounds like following the Constitution works.

I'm not making an argument, I'm just trying to clarify that your position is every U.S. president since Benjamin Harrison in 1887 has violated the constitution?

If they enforced regulations that were written by a department of their administration instead of by Congress, then yes. Actually, perhaps the president himself wasn't violating the Constitution, but any person who brought charges against a person, sued a person, etc. for violating a regulation was acting unconstitutionally.

Okay. So, just to clarify, your position is that each of the following -

Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William H. Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald R. Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama

- appointed officials who repeatedly violated the constitution?

[Night Strike]

Okay. So, just to clarify, your position is that each of the following -

Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William H. Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald R. Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama

- appointed officials who repeatedly violated the constitution?

Yes. Just because something is done hundreds of thousands of times doesn't make it Constitutional.

[saxitoxin]

Okay. So, just to clarify, your position is that each of the following -

Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William H. Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald R. Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama

- appointed officials who repeatedly violated the constitution?

Yes. Just because something is done hundreds of thousands of times doesn't make it Constitutional.

Should a President who is appointing dozens or hundreds of people he knows are violating the constitution, and continues to do it, be impeached and removed from office? If not, what is the threshold at which a President should be deposed?

[Night Strike]

Okay. So, just to clarify, your position is that each of the following -

Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William H. Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald R. Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama

- appointed officials who repeatedly violated the constitution?

Yes. Just because something is done hundreds of thousands of times doesn't make it Constitutional.

Should a President who is appointing dozens or hundreds of people he knows are violating the constitution, and continues to do it, be impeached and removed from office? If not, what is the threshold at which a President should be deposed?

I do not know that answer.