In a win for those in favor of child labor, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has announced that business mogul Donald Trump will employ at least 10 poor children as "apprentices."
On Monday, Gingrich became fifth GOP candidate to meet with Trump ahead of a Newsmax debate hosted by the notorious birther.
"As a number of you know, I've been making the case that we need work very hard to help poor children in poor neighborhoods acquire the opportunity to work," Gingrich said at a press conference with Trump.
"I've asked [Trump] to take one of the poorer schools in New York and basically offer at least 10 apprenticeships to kids from that school to get them into the world of work, and to get them into an opportunity to earn money, and get them into the habit of showing up and realizing that effort gets rewarded, and that American is all about the work ethic."
For his part, Trump gave Gingrich all the credit for the idea.
"It was a great honor to have Newt up here," the business mogul remarked. "He did mention if I could do something for some of the kids in very, very poor schools throughout the city. I thought it was a great idea. We call it apprenticeship and we all know about 'The Apprentice.'"
"We're going to be picking ten young, wonderful children, and we're going to make them apprenti. ... It was Newt's idea, and I thought it was a great idea."
(The word "apprenti" doesn't actually appear in the English dictionary. The plural form of apprentice is apprentices.)
The initiative is Gingrich's attempt to put a positive spin on his call to do away with some restrictions on child labor, which he has called "truly stupid."
"Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school," the former House Speaker told an audience at Harvard University’s Kennedy School in November.
Last week, Gingrich continued to call for the poorest kids to enter the work force.
"Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday," he said. "They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash, unless it is illegal."
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New York Times:
MIDLAND, Mich. — Here, at the nation’s oldest, most celebrated, school for would-be Santa Clauses, much has stayed exactly the same over its nearly 75 years. A proper Claus ought to have pleasant breath, his beard curled just so and a hearty laugh that rumbles not from the throat but from deep below the diaphragm.
Yet this year, from the holiday parades, to the cheery carols piping from Main Street loudspeakers, to the “this way to Santa” lines at shopping centers, something more sobering has cast its shadow: the economic slump.
The result is a Christmas season in which Santas — including the 115 of them in this year’s graduating class of the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School — must learn to swiftly size up families’ financial circumstances, gently scale back children’s Christmas gift requests and even how to answer the wish some say they have been hearing with more frequency — “Can you bring my parent a job?”
Santas here tell of children who appear on their laps with lists that include the latest, most expensive toys and their parents, standing off to the side, stealthily but imploringly shaking their heads no. On the flip side, some, like Fred Honerkamp, have been visited by children whose expectations seem to have sunk to match the gloom; not long ago, a boy asked him for only one item — a pair of sneakers that actually fit.
“In the end, Santas have to be sure to never promise anything,” said Mr. Honerkamp, an alumnus of the school who also lectures here. He has devised his own tale about a wayward elf and slowed toy production at the North Pole for children who are requesting a gift clearly beyond their family’s price range. “It’s hard to watch sometimes because the children are like little barometers, mirrors on what the country has been through.”
The Santa school itself, held in this small, central Michigan city over three days every fall, may offer some measure of the nation’s woes. Last month, it drew the largest class of its history. And while most of the men were longtime, passionate Santas looking to hone their skills in hair bleaching, story-telling and sign language, at least a handful, including an aerospace engineer and an accountant, said they were testing out Santa school in part because of slim times, shrunken retirement accounts, or a dearth of work altogether.
“I’m trying it,” said Joe Stolte, who, at 28, was decades younger than most of the bearded, portly, jarringly similar-looking men in rows all around him. “There are no jobs out there — it’s ridiculous,” he said, adding that he had been surviving by doing odd jobs and cutting lawns in Saginaw and that his mother had helped him come up with the tuition ($400 for first-timers, $350 for others). “I like being Santa Claus. And I figure it comes once a year. It’s a thing that’s going to be there.”
At the school, which takes place partly in an elaborate, cookie-filled Santa House on Main Street, there is a long-standing if polite debate over the role of money in this entire jolly endeavor. The essence of the split? Nursing Home Volunteer Santa versus Mall Santa.
Kevin Scott Fleming, of Evansville, Ind., lectured fellow Santas on the evolution of a character resembling Saint Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra, and described making money off the beloved character as “poison, absolutely poison.” Others, like Pat Adams, of Madisonville, Ky., who was soon to fly to Las Vegas for a 40-day stint in a mall, with help from an agent and paid casino-hotel and plane arrangements, saw no harm. “I do well,” he said, adding unapologetically that Mall Santas may earn between $25 and $50 an hour.
“It’s a personal choice,” said Thomas F. Valent, a longtime Santa, who took over operations of the school in 1986 and moved it to Midland, where he also runs a construction company. “The important thing is that people really like Santa. He stands for all good things. So you just have to be the best Santa you can.”
Still, this is a practical education. Along with training in how to store your wig, how best to answer the questions of kindergartners and how to perform on your local cable access television station, a financial planner advised the Santas (and a handful of Mrs. Clauses) to open pension funds and contribute as much as possible to 401(k) retirement accounts. A marketing consultant and gym instructor urged the Santas, a few of whom dozed in their chairs, to create their own Web sites and extolled the benefits of Facebook and Twitter. “Drive ’em, drive ’em, drive ’em to that Web site!” Sabrina Ann Zielinski, the consultant, told the class.
There are other Santa schools. But this one carries a history that leads many here to describe it as the Harvard of the genre and to list it prominently on their résumés and business cards. The school was started in 1937 by Charles W. Howard, a former Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade Santa whose memory is revered in these halls. It was initially based in Albion, N.Y., setting a set of more professional standards for department store Santas.
Some of the lessons might come in handy any year: do not stay too long or children will lose interest; insist on a good, private place (not a boiler room) for changing into your suit; keep your hands in plain view.
But the message has shifted with the times. Some Santas say they now feel a larger obligation to speak up in the face of giant, expensive wish lists, an obligation to lower expectations in a way that only Santas (not parents) can get away with. At least one Santa, Gary Christie, had devised a specific routine for talking children out of their demand for an iPod or the like.
Another, Rick Parris, said, “When kids start asking for the world now, I just say, ‘Hey, look, Johnny, you ain’t getting all that.’ ” The former Alabama state trooper added, “I just make sure to let them know that Santa seldom brings everything on a list.”
Even with the economic downturn, not all the Christmas lists have grown shorter. Some children show up with elaborate printouts, cross-referenced spread sheets and clippings from catalogs. “I try to guide the children into not so unrealistic things, and I do tell them that Santa’s been cutting back too,” said Tom Ruperd, of Caro, Mich., who added that parents often silently signal their appreciation.
When questions get more complex, Mr. Ruperd said, they sometimes require “creative answers.” The solutions, it seems, may be beyond what any school could prepare one for, and possibly out of Santa’s reach altogether. “If they asked for something that’s totally impossible — a job for Daddy, say — I usually tell them, ‘Santa specializes in toys, but we can always pray on the other,’ ” Mr. Ruperd said. “ ‘Is there anything in toys that you’d like?’ ”
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