Bernie Sanders emerged from the land of the sugarplum fairies earlier this month to advocate for a 32-hour work week — all with no reduction in pay.
Sanders, the Vermont socialist, recently introduced a bill that would create a four-year transition period to a four-day work week in the United States. The government would then require overtime for anyone who toiled more than 32 hours in a week, while also preventing companies from readjusting pay and benefits to reflect the extra time off.
At a Senate committee hearing, Sanders presented Juliet Schor, a Boston University sociology professor, who testified that trials show the reform would increase worker happiness and productivity.
If so, Schor, who has spent the past two decades in academia, has identified a potential market inefficiency. Perhaps she and Sanders should find investors — while maybe contributing a bit of their own money — to fund a small business that would pay its employees top dollar to work less, throwing off massive profits as it exploits Schor’s findings to bury its traditional competitors.
We kid.
Sanders' bill has no chance of passing. But it is yet another example of progressives operating in Never Never Land when it comes to the private economy and job creation. Imposing this plan on the country by government fiat would be a reckless and massive disruption to commerce and productivity. Among many other things, it would drive up prices for the very employees he professes to represent.
Sanders should first pitch his proposal to lawmakers in his home state of Vermont. After adopting the 32-hour workweek, the Green Mountain State could also defund the police and impose a $50 minimum wage — all while offering residents free health care, housing and college tuition.
Surely, the folks in the rest of New England wouldn’t mind absorbing the massive exodus of Vermonters fleeing the state after Sanders had finished turning it into a barren economic wasteland resembling Venezuela.
Sanders might do well to remember the late George McGovern’s epiphany. In a 1992 Wall Street Journal op-ed, McGovern — a Democratic U.S. senator from South Dakota who was his party’s 1972 presidential nominee — recounted how he tried to open a quaint Connecticut inn after leaving the Senate only to be stymied by red tape.
"My business associates and I also lived with federal, state and local rules that were all passed with the objective of helping employees, protecting the environment, raising tax dollars for schools, protecting our customers from fire hazards, etc.," he wrote. But while he "never doubted the worthiness of any of these goals, the concept that most often eludes legislators is” that such regulations can smother employers.
"I also wish that during the years I was in public office,” McGovern admitted, "I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender."
Oh, that Sanders would be so humble.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
•
Biden proposes another massive spending spree
•
Dems increasingly desperate over No Labels
•
Biden hams it up during stemwinder
•
Economies roar in red states
•
To establish 'absolute tyranny over these States'
•
Biden condemns himself in attack on shrinkflation
•
If only Taylor Swift were dating the national debt
•
Biden bows to Putin, environmentalists
•
Defenders of 'democracy' want Voter ID off ballot
•
'No one is safe if they had any hand in' Oct. 7
•
Biden infrastructure bill: A failure to launch
•
US government revenues hit record highs
•
Why Biden can't convince voters he's beat inflation
•
Why Biden can't convince voters he's beat inflation
•
Biden needs to stop the mixed messages
•
The hating class as brave defenders
•
Blinken only emboldens Hamas terrorists
•
White House green Slush fund throwing around cash
•
Biden immigration policies souring even Dems
•
Dems fret as the bad news mounts for Biden
•
Billions in coronavirus money still sitting around
•
Senate delegation reassures Israel; where's the House?
•
Senate delegation reassures Israel; where's the House?
•
Chicago takes victim blaming to an absurd new low
•
The utter failure of money to improve education
•
Group identity drives American division
•
The downside of Biden's drug price control scheme
•
WARNING: Here's why top insurers are fleeing
•
'They even laughed in my face'
•
Red states power Biden's economy
•
'If you have private insurance, you can' … OOPS!
•
Ignoring the Bill of Rights when its convenient
•
Hunter cops a plea --- but the Biden probes continue
• Will we every truly know the depth of pandemic fraud?
• Hello there, Big Brother! Please, come right in
• Its not perfect, but it's a start on immigration reform
• IRS wants to branch out
• Gas stove ban conspiracy theory comes true
• Biden's busy bureaucrats beef up regulatory state
• Don't even dare think of emulamating New Yawk!
• Where have all the nation's college students gone?
• Soft-on-crime policies hit hard wall of political reality
• Joe Biden and Monty Python is no comedy
• Global warming was supposed to wreak havoc on polar bears. Looks like someone forgot to tell the polar bears