Look, here’s the thing. Every young child who falls onto a table saw is not going to have a brother who grows up to be Johnny Cash, OK?

I mention this because another fabulous new notion has emerged from the steaming bouillabaisse of ideas that is conservative policies in the Trump Era. From Bloomberg Law:

The DOL will propose relaxing current rules—known as Hazardous Occupations Orders (HOs)—that prohibit 16- and 17-year-old apprentices and student learners from receiving extended, supervised training in certain dangerous jobs, said the two sources. That includes roofing work, as well as operating chainsaws, and various other power-driven machines that federal law recognizes as too dangerous for youth younger than 18. The sources’ accounts were corroborated by a summary of a draft regulation obtained by Bloomberg Law.

“The Department proposes to safely launch more family-sustaining careers by removing current regulatory restrictions on the amount of time that apprentices and student learners may perform HO-governed work,” the DOL states in the summary. One source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency deliberations, confirmed the details of the summary. A second source—who also requested anonymity—verified that the general outline of the proposed rulemaking language was consistent with the department’s intentions.

Great. Hey, poor people, we’re going to help you to sustain your families by handing your teenage son an earthmover and pointing him at a swamp. We all know what’s going to happen, right? If this policy passes, the first thing that will be cut by the budget hawks is the money to train the kids, and the private sector isn’t going to pony up for it either, so Jimmy with the chainsaw will be called Lefty for the rest of his life.

The regulatory initiative, which hasn’t been previously announced, fits with the Trump administration’s broader goal of expanding earn-as-you-learn apprenticeship programs by replacing government red tape with industry-generated standards.

Wait. “Industry-generated standards”? Stop. No, really, you’re killing me here.

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It is also likely to have at least some bipartisan support from Democrats eager to create job opportunities for youth who aren’t on track to attend a four-year university.

Domestic chainsaw fodder.

But the effort will receive sharp criticism among child labor advocates and former government officials, who say the rule would erase decades of progress in reducing youth occupational fatalities and injuries. Some also worry it would lead companies to abuse their newfound regulatory leniency by pushing lower-paid, younger workers into hazardous jobs and ignoring the tough-to-enforce supervision terms.

Nothing gets by those pesky child-labor advocates.

Again, this has nothing to do with the president* or the 2016 presidential election. The Republicans have had child labor laws in their sights for decades. Senator Mike Lee, the konztitooshunal skolar from Utah, first got famous by claiming such laws were unconstitutional. I assure you, the Labor Department under President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker would be doing exactly the same thing.

A former WHD senior official who spent 20 years enforcing child labor law didn’t mince words when learning of the agency’s rulemaking intentions. “When you find 16-year-olds running a meat slicer or a mini grinder or a trash compactor, we know kids are severely injured in those circumstances,” Michael Hancock, who left the WHD in 2015 to represent workers at the plaintiff firm Cohen Milstein in New York, told Bloomberg Law. “That’s why the laws exist in the first place.”

“Now we’re saying, ‘We’re going to open those hazards up to kids; we hope that the employer is going to follow the law to a T and make sure the kid is being closely supervised,’” added Hancock, who worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations. “I think that stretches credulity to think that’s how it’s actually going to work.”

Contacted at home, Credulity was unavailable for comment.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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