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“REGULATIONS PREVENT JOBS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H581 on Feb. 8, 2012.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REGULATIONS PREVENT JOBS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg) for 5 minutes.
Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago during a district work period, I had the privilege to catch up with many of my constituents back in Michigan's Seventh District.
Business owners graciously invited me into their facilities eager to talk about the economic climate as well as what can be done to promote growth. These conversations continued in coffeehouses and town halls across the district where citizens packed into rooms eager to exchange their ideas, triumphs, and concerns with me.
But whether I was being given a tour by the owner of a manufacturing plant or having a cup of coffee with an engineer, a similar theme kept cropping up: People are worried about excessive, Big Government regulations, in particular how they impose unreasonable costs on businesses, create uncertainty and, in turn, affect job growth.
This time, many of my constituents expressed outrage over a new youth agricultural labor rule program. The Department of Labor proposed regulations to restrict the types of activities young people can participate in. While the rule includes an exemption of children on nonincorporated farms owned by their parents, it could prevent kids from working on incorporated farms owned by their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, and close neighbors.
Even on such extended family farms, children under the age of 16 may be banned from working with animals or in specified farm situations while those under the age of 18 would be prohibited from any job
``involving farm product raw materials.'' That could come to mean any job involving grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges, and livestock auctions. If carried any further, the rule may end up barring kids from selling animals at their local 4-H fairs. This is nanny statism to the absurd.
My kids were all in 4-H, and some of the best memories we have together are these events. It was always a positive experience for my sons and daughter as well as every other child I know who got involved. Besides the life lessons learned--responsibility, hard work, and self-
sufficiency--children often use the money from the sale of their animals for their college funds. This rule would not only hurt their ability to find a job now but also hurt their future.
In addition to participating in 4-H fairs, my kids also worked on farms where they were asked to drive tractors and run other farm machinery, all under the age of 16. The worst mishaps one of my kids ever had was running over a neighbor's mailbox with his duallies. But even through that experience, he learned responsibility. He not only had to pay for a new one out of his own pocket, but to replace it himself.
Farmers depend upon young people to take on these extra jobs so they can focus on the bigger picture. Parents depend upon their children to work on the family farm, not only to help out but instill a love of farming at a young age to keep their family farm going.
Lastly, young people, themselves, depend on these jobs as a source of income and a way to pay for college. There are often fewer job opportunities in rural areas, and if we impose more rules about what jobs young people can take, what have we gained?
I'll always stand behind regulations that genuinely protect the workers, especially when those workers are children. But when government bureaucrats are regulating in what capacity a young person can work on a farm, then it's clear they've overstepped their boundaries. It's time to fix the flawed and broken regulatory system that allows such rules to slip through the cracks.
Mr. Speaker, related, it's also the time to push back on Big Government's attack on our freedom to choose and our constitutional liberties. The recent assault on our religious rights of conscience and the separation of powers by this administration must be defeated. Kids on the farm and in the city deserve the rich future that our Constitution and Americans' exceptionalism can provide. This will then be a Nation that God can truly continue to bless.
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