“So he is basically endorsing slave labor to reduce the cost of everything?”
Prisoners do everything from making license plates to running farms. I don’t see a problem with this.
I don’t necessarily see a problem with prisoners learning a skill or staying busy. The problem is see is when a government official compares the cost of prison labor to produce a good or service to the private sector and basically claims that he can do it cheaper. Especially one that supports red tape, union contracts, higher minimum wage, etc. Everything that drives the cost up to the private sector. Is he offering a union contract to the prisoners, is he offering a $15/hour minimum wage, are all OSHA safety rules being followed.
Come on this is not about prisoners working it is about the State of New York profiting off of them and trashing private enterprise.
Also my “demand” for a license plate is zero. I am forced to purchase it by law. I am also curious as to how many prison farms sell their produce on the open market rather than using it to feed the prisoners? Could be I guess but once again the issue is not the prisoners but the government utilizing cheap labor that they price out of the private sector and benefiting off of it.
What’s wrong is claiming this is “cheaper”. It’s “cheaper” because involuntary servitude is constitutional in this one instance. But it isn’t really.