SandBoxBlogs: Summit Daily News "Liddick: Regulatory hits and misses"

Morgan Liddick:
"This about regulation, the good and the bad. We'll leave the ugly for November.

Recently, a small outbreak of common sense descended on Washington, D.C., a town that seems to partake more of Wonderland than wisdom.

A popular outburst among farm folk and those who represent them has apparently derailed — for the moment, at least — a really bone-headed rule from the Labor Department concerning child farm labor.

While the term “child labor” invokes images of toddlers tending power looms, that's not what's involved here. The proposed restrictions would have prevented children from doing almost any farm work, save on “family farms,” defined as a farm owned by mom or dad, or both. As an aside, this is a little confusing: A group that has no problem with Heather having two mommies doesn't think Uncle Bob should be considered family. In farm country, that's a real problem.

I grew up on a family farm. We raised hay, grapes, horses and cattle. My grandparents had a vegetable garden that, to an 8-year-old charged with weeding, seemed to stretch from the banks of the Columbia River to Cleveland, Ohio. Or at least, Boise.

When I was 12, I took command of a 1958-vintage two-cylinder John Deere tractor. I towed rotary discs, ditchers, harrows, an antique hay-baler and when the time came, a trailer for baled hay or 40-pound boxes of grapes. Friends helped; sometimes, we spelled each other driving and hoisting. Was it potentially dangerous? Yes. But we respected the equipment, understood the downside, and came away unscathed, as the vast majority of farm kids did, and do.

None of this would have been possible under the proposed regulations. Instead, we would have had to hire help; the extra cost would have forced us out of the farming business in short order. Perhaps that's what the Department of Labor had in mind, small businesses being so pesky to regulate and all....."
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"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Town Hall/Chuck Norris "The Feds' Intrusions Into American Farms and Families"

Rick Perry.  2016.

Chuck Norris:
"After a national decry by American farmers (and all of us who support them), the Obama administration has just shelved its plan to severely restrict kids younger than 16 from working on family farms. But mark my words. As the feds often do, they merely are regrouping to march again on those great American homesteads.

Part of the very words of the U.S. Department of Labor's "withdrawal" statement: "The Department of Labor is announcing today the withdrawal of the proposed rule dealing with children under the age of 16 who work in agricultural vocations. ... To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration."

"Will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration"?

So, until Jan. 20, 2013, right?

Kudos to the bipartisan group of 98 members of Congress who sent a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis protesting this rule, which would have severely limited teenagers and younger children from learning the family trade, not to mention undermined the very business fabric of rural America. It might sound legislatively crazy if it weren't coming from one of the most overextended federal governments in the history of the U.S.

According to The Raleigh Telegram, "the rule would have prevented children younger than 16 from doing 'agricultural work with animals and in pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins' while also forbidding them from using 'power-driven equipment' and working in the 'cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.'"

Can you imagine? What's next? The feds' crackdown making it illegal for kids to wash dishes, because a knife might cut them? No grinding up food, because the garbage disposer might malfunction and start suddenly while their hand is in it? No more cooking or ironing, because their hands might get burned? No more housecleaning, because the Environmental Protection Agency has designated the mixture of certain cleaning chemicals as hazardous to touch or breathe in?

Let's get real, folks! How far do the feds have to mingle in our manure before we say enough is enough? How far do we have to slide down the slippery slope of socialism before the descent becomes irreversible, before we say, "Welcome to Greece"?..."  (Read more?  Clickt title)

"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."