Tim Scott for the Workers

I'm not sure which weekly email is funnier, The Borowitz Report or Tim Scott's weekly message.  I know which one is more accurate, and kudos to Andy Borowitz for that.  Whoever is doing Tim Scott's messaging apparently thinks his audience not only will believe anything, but won't notice when he leaves out important things, like facts.

I was excited when I read today that Senator Scott is going to bring back the 40-hour work week.  And then I though, gee this is Tim Scott, I'd better read the fine print.  So I clicked on the link that said "Read more about the Amendment here," and I got what amounts to more nonsense about Obamacare and how requiring employers to provide health insurance to employees is destroying full-time employment, here.  So, to summarize, no guarantee of a 40-hour work week, just another way to keep employees from being guaranteed health care.

Of course, Tim Scott has a lovely paid health insurance plan, paid for by us, who I guess theoretically are his employers.

What I would like to say is that it is insulting for Scott to lie to his constituents.  He is not introducing a bill that will bring back the 40-hour work week.  If guaranteeing health insurance was the thing that was killing full-time employment, everyone would have had full-time employment before the Affordable Care Act.  In fact, when I got my first full-time job in a supermarket way back in the last century, in 1971, months into that job "time-study experts" descended.  Of course that means the harder you work the fewer people you need, and my full-time job was cut to part-time.  During the halcyon days of Ronald Reagan there was another wave of job killing, again nothing to do with requiring health insurance, but with increasing profit.

Here are a few more reality based comments on requiring employers to provide health care:

There has never been a correlation between employers cutting hours in order to avoid paying health insurance.  Now, that doesn't mean that they won't whine and threaten.  And I'm sure there are some employers who will actually follow through.

But employees with health insurance (and benefits like sick pay) are more reliable, and yes, healthier.  Employers who provide decent health insurance coverage (not Walmart) tend to have more respect for employees.  A business that is large enough to fall under the Obamacare mandate should have an employer that is savvy enough to understand that accessible health care is important to a smoothly running business, and able to budget insurance for employees in as an expense.

Chris Haire had a little fun with Tim Scott's nonsense.  I think we should all thank Scott for pretending to care about his working constituents.  After all, unlike his predecessor Jim DeMint, he at least cares enough to lie, whereas DeMint just pretty much ignored us.  Of course, just as with Scott's health insurance plan, his disinformation campaign is brought to us by us, the taxpayers.