Posted on 01/15/2020 4:34:59 AM PST by Kaslin
People who want to work should be allowed to work. That includes people who once went to jail.
With President Donald Trump's support, Congress spends your money giving ex-cons "employment assistance."
Why bother? State laws often make such employment impossible.
Courtney Haveman had an alcohol problem. When she was 19, she got a DUI. Then she took a swing at a security guard. "I made dumb decisions," she admits in my new video. "Served three days in jail."
Eight years later, and now sober, Courtney enrolled in beauty school. Such schools invite applicants to "turn your interest in beauty into a rewarding career."
The schools do provide good careers -- to owners of cosmetology schools. In Pennsylvania, where Courtney applied, they typically charge $6,000 tuition and require 1,000 hours of courses.
All that training is required by the state to work.
Courtney had worked in a salon and wanted to do more. Unfortunately, "doing more" requires not just serving customers well, but getting permission from bureaucrats.
Byzantine state laws demand you get a state-approved license before you may become a hairdresser, tour guide, travel agent, house painter and all sorts of other jobs where customer happiness should be the guide.
So after taking hundreds of hours of cosmetology courses, Courtney paid more to apply for a Pennsylvania cosmetology license.
Pennsylvania then told her she couldn't do cosmetology there because she has a criminal record.
The bureaucrats said she could appeal. She could prove she has good moral character.
"I sent letters, and people in my 12-step program wrote letters on my behalf, character letters," she says.
The result?
"They sent me a rejection letter that said, 'Sorry. You lack the good moral character requirement'," says Courtney. "One time in my life that I felt like a productive member of society, I was proud of myself... people were proud of me, and then it was just like, you're not good enough still."
This is wrong.
Courtney did her time -- all three days of it. She should be allowed the "second chance" that politicians keep promising former prisoners. Her arrest was eight years ago. She then got sober. Now she sponsors other women in AA. She has a toddler to support.
But Pennsylvania says, to protect "public health and safety," she may not practice cosmetology.
The rule doesn't "protect" anyone. Barbers don't have to prove they have "good moral character."
Courtney is allowed to work as an "assistant."
"I'm allowed to touch clients, just not allowed to do what I went to school to do!" says Courtney.
She shampoos customers' hair and has intimate contact with them. She's just not allowed to do facials, makeup, waxing -- the work she trained for. "Our government makes it extremely difficult for people like me," she says.
"People can't just be kicked out of society," says Institute for Justice lawyer Andrew Ward. He took Courtney's case for free because he believes that the cosmetology law is unconstitutional. "Everyone has a right... to pursue their own happiness... a right to engage in any of the common occupations of life."
Who benefits from restrictive licensing laws?
"It's certainly convenient," says Ward, "that established players have a law that gets to keep new people, that would compete with them, out."
Right. Cosmetology boards are dominated by people who run beauty schools. They benefit by making it hard for newcomers to compete for customers by offering better service.
The established schools and salons lobby legislators, demanding stringent "safety" requirements. It's "accidental" that they limit competition.
Courtney says, "Years of my life have been wasted." She paid to train for a job she is not allowed to do.
State licensing rules like Pennsylvania's cosmetology rule don't protect public health. They don't help customers.
They crush the little guy and limit competition.
Get rid of them.
By eliminating law that protected the tyranny of audiologists, many Americans are free to buy high quality inexpensive hearing aids
Utter horse manure. effing stupidity
IIRC shortly after the Civil War SCOTUS made a landmark decision that concluded Americans do not have the Right to practice their profession. Something about Southern Meatpackers, IIRC.
She might have the option of moving to a state which doesn’t have such restrictive rules. Maybe they all do but at least there is that.
I used to work at a church here in NorCal that was required to have a wheelchair lift to get to the stage. A whopping 3 feet. If that. Every few months some state inspector would come around and hit the "up" and "down" button to make sure it worked and then hand us s bill for $75.00. The guy moved slower than a slug and spent more time bullsh*tting with employees than doing his job and then he'd get in his official state vehicle and drive off.
>People who want to work should be allowed to work
ALLOWED?? Oh, how quick the fall our once Republic
Is it any wonder the deluge cannot be slowed, let alone halted nor reverse...utilizing the verbiage of the Left. One concedes the ‘debate’ from the word “GO”.
FL is talking about looking into some these guild, I mean govt theft, I mean ‘license’ requirements (IIRC, 1400hrs. for a interior decorator vs. 40 for pilot? WTF??)
Course, the same (R)-led just popped outta committee some BS bill they’re trying to brand as closing the ‘gunshow loophole’
W/ ‘small-govt *friends*’ like this....
Before I retired I was required to have an automatic door that could be opened with the press of a button. It cost about $10,000. It can be broken if someone pushes the button when the door is locked. The “Inspector” came once a year. She called in advance. I would put the button up that morning. It’s called “smile for the camera”. Such games shouldn’t be required but they are. I also was required to have a bathroom that could accommodate a wheelchair. In all the years I had that office I never once had a patient that required an automatic door or a wheelchair accessible bathroom.
These arcane licensing requirements are intended merely to restrict competition. Nothing more.
“This is idiotic and makes no sense”.
Let me underscore that. Five years ago I started a vocational training school catering primarily to veterans. After a sizable investment in land and equipment was made we found out that the VA has a two waiting period before they will fund the tuition for a vet.
They say it weeds out fly by night operators who might abscond with some money. (Seems like that would be an issue for the Sheriff’s dept. and not the VA) It took me over 6 months just to get the VA to give me a date of when the two year window actually started. Which according to them was almost two years AFTER we started operation. So that, with the mandatory two year wait actually made it FOUR YEARS before we could enroll and train a veteran.
During that time we were struggling to stay open while we turned away veterans on a DAILY basis that wanted to enroll.
I tried everything I could to get a waiver from the VA including asking for help from Senator Marco Rubio and my Rep. even wrote a letter to Trump.
The VA would not budge.
In Louisiana, where I used to live, florists require state licenses. There was a case a few years ago that went all the way to SCOTUS. The monks at a monastery in Louisiana were handcrafting wooden coffins and selling them for well under the rate one found at most funeral homes. The State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors issued a cease and desist, stating that by selling coffins, the monks were providing funerary services regulated by the board without being properly licensed. In a moment of sanity, SCOTUS ruled with the monks.
But you paid for the inspections, right?
No. There was no charge. Except for the license to have a business I guess.
The funny part was the strange silence I got from the bureaucrat when I asked if I could just give a disabled patient (should I get one) a garage door opener for my garage. “Would that satisfy the requirement to have a ‘door that could be opened with the press of a button?’”
Check this out. I recently applied for a job doing building maintenance for a new casino here in NorCal. As part of the process, I had to be interviewed by the State Gaming Commission (even though the casino is on a Reservation) to get a Non-gaming License.
Think about that. I had to get a license to NOT do something.
Thankfully I received another job offer from a hospital on the same day my interview was scheduled so I cancelled that interview and took the job at the hospital.
In a way, you were charged. You pay taxes to pay that “Inspectors” salary and benefits.
But it was bizarre, to say the least. Every year I had to have an inspector come to certify I had the required amenities to satisfy the needs of patients I didn’t even have.
Crazy.
I like and respect John Stossel, but his Pollyanna vision of ex-cons is delusional and dangerous.
90% of the people in jail are sociopaths.
In the USA, prosecutors bend over backwards to keep non-violent defendants out of jail.
Almost every person in jail has pleaded down from a more serious charge - and that includes the hundreds of federal convicts that Trump releases from prison every month with his First Step Program.
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