Newt Gingrich made the perfectly obvious observation that today’s child labor laws are stupid, and the mainstream media clobbered him for it. What, one might ask the tsk-tskers in Washington and New York, is so dreadful about tweaking the laws to allow children to learn the value of hard work in a safe environment?

Gingrich suggested that some children be allowed to help out their schools by doing some work around the building. “I believe the kids could mop the floor and clean up the bathroom and get paid for it, and it would be OK,” he said. He wasn’t suggesting sweatshops in American inner-cities. He was suggesting that the law should allow kids who are old enough to mop their school floors.

Many elementary school teachers already teach kids responsibility by having them do small tasks in the classroom, such as cleaning the erasers. The difference is, they don’t get paid for it. Maybe what the left hates is the idea that kids who got paid could take away union custodian jobs.

Days after Gingrich made his remarks, the Associated Press reported that updated Labor Department rules on farm operations threatened to put thousands of rural teenagers out of work by overprotecting them from work they’re already doing. “It’s not the farms that are going to suffer. It’s the kids,” one farmer told the AP. Gingrich is only talking about putting common sense back into the child labor laws so minors can learn work habits that will serve them later in life. There’s nothing wrong with that.