Sen. Cassidy torches Bernie Sanders' 32-hour work week proposal

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a democratic socialist, is bent on not only increasing pay for workers, but mandating a 32-hour work week.

Sure, it sounds great. Get paid more while working less, right? But such an asinine proposal comes with almost immediate consequences, as Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), recently pointed out at a hearing.

According to Fox Business, Cassidy torched his colleague's recommendation for the decreased hours per week and massive bump in pay.

As any logical-thinking person should be able to deduce, making such changes would wreck employers, forcing them to increase prices, dramatically, and possibly ship jobs overseas.

Cassidy made that clear during the hearing.

"The government mandating a 32-hour workweek while requiring businesses to increase pay at least an extra 25 percent per hour of labor will destroy employers, forcing them to either ship jobs overseas or dramatically increase prices to try and stay afloat," Cassidy said.

He added, "The Biden administration has been dumping gasoline on his inflation fire. This would be napalm."

Republican Sen Bill Cassidy slams Bernie Sanders' 32-hour workweek proposal as job-killer https://t.co/RmjBdzCTcn #FoxBusiness

— 🌴PalmTreePatriot🌴 (@FLMomNYGirl) March 16, 2024

Cassidy's argument came in the wake of Sanders' introduction of a new bill that would mandate such changes.

"If this policy is implemented, it would threaten the millions of small businesses already operating on razor-thin margins, in part because they are unable to find enough workers. Employers would be forced to eliminate full-time positions in favor of part-time ones," the Republican senator said.

Fox Business noted:

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, this week introduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, which would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours over four years by lowering the threshold for overtime pay for non-exempt employees.

The legislation would require overtime compensation at time and a half for workdays longer than eight hours, and overtime pay at double a worker's regular pay for workdays longer than 12 hours.

For his part, Sanders defended the idea, insisting that it wasn't a "radical" thought to make such changes.

"Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea," Sanders said in a press release.

He added, "Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. That has got to change."