GOP Senator: Don't Force Employees To Wash Their Hands After Using Toilet TPM
In a week packed with news over concerns for public health, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) described his own history of opposing certain health and hygiene regulations, including those that require employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom.During a Q&A at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday, Tillis related a story from his time in the state legislature in 2010, complaining that the U.S. is "one of the most regulated nations in the history of the planet," video via C-SPAN shows.
“I was having a discussion with someone, and we were at a Starbucks in my district, and we were talking about certain regulations where I felt like ‘maybe you should allow businesses to opt out,'" the senator said.
Tillis said his interlocutor was in disbelief, and asked whether he thought businesses should be allowed to "opt out" of requiring employees to wash their hands after using the restroom.
The senator said he'd be fine with it, so long as businesses made this clear in "advertising" and "employment literature."
“I said: ‘I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says “We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom,” Tillis said.
“The market will take care of that," he added, to laughter from the audience.
Aside from the utter obvious stupidity of this way of thinking, the whole argument fails in its basic premise of "deregulating" business and letting markets police themselves without government "interference".Tillis opposes a law requiring food-handlers to wash their hands, but would impose a law requiring restaurants inform their customers that their employees are not required to was their hands.
He is replacing one regulation with another, so I fail to see where the whole "keeping government out of business" scheme comes into play.
And might I just add on a personal note: "Ewwww!"