“There’s just a lot of people in this country that don’t want to work, period,” Rep. Virginia Foxx said during a hearing about people who work too much.
House Republicans held a hearing Wednesday throwing cold water on President Joe Biden’s plan to give more workers overtime protections.
Even though the hearing was about employees who work long hours, the GOP chair of the House Committee on Education & the Workforce took a moment to argue that too many Americans don’t want to work at all.
“There’s just a lot of people in this country that don’t want to work, period … and want other people to take care of them,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).
We aren’t supposed to be working. Seriously. Members of hunter gathered tribes put in about 15 hours per week and a medieval serf worked about ⅔ of the year. Our lives are supposed to be filled with leisure time. We are our neurobiology evolved around having fun and doing the minimum necessary for the survival of our community. We aren’t supposed to be spending huge swaths of our life toiling to make someone else rich so they can have 100% leisure time. We aren’t supposed to live in persistent existential dread because we are one sniffle or broken bone away from homelessness. We aren’t built for our world.