Newt Gingrich To America's 15.7 Million Poor Kids: Get a Job

Sure, everyone knows that the problem with poor adults is that they refuse to just JUST GET A JOB ALREADY, GOD, but did you know that drooling millionaire tool Newt Gingrich has expertly deduced that this is also the problem with America's swelling ranks (one in five these days, by the latest report ) of hobo kiddies? Why are there are so many able-bodied 11-year-olds always trying to attend school for free, on the government dime? Maybe they need to try working  for once in their lives, as school janitors, say?

Oh right, those pesky socialist "child labor laws" prevent them from obtaining gainful employment most of the time.

From the transcript, via CNN:  

"It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in child laws which are truly stupid," Gingrich said. "Saying to people you shouldn't go to work before you're 14, 16. You're totally poor, you're in a school that's failing with a teacher that's failing."

"I tried for years to have a very simple model. These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work; they'd have cash; they'd have pride in the schools. They'd begin the process of rising."

Meanwhile, those unionized janitors can begin the "process of getting an unemployment check," so that America might return to the more successful "Dickensian work-study orphanage model."

And because Newt is an irredeemable jerk who will say anything he thinks will make him popular with the legions of disgruntled teabagger assholes who resent poor children for existing, he was also against child labor in 1996. [ CNN ]