Professor of leisure studies asks: 'Why do Republicans want us to work all the time?'

The first thing you need to know about this essay by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt is that it was published by Politico, which is sort of like making the roster of the prison football team. Even the worst media outlet on Earth needs material from somewhere, so . . . congratulations?

But it gets better. A lot better. And funnier, too. Who, my friends, do you suppose wrote the essay titled "Why Do Republicans Want Us To Work So Much?" What do you suppose this man's job might be, if he even has one? It turns out he does have one, and it's a Democrat's dream: He is (drum roll) a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa. Leisure studies. Those of you laying around right now listening to the show . . . you're getting an A! It seems the "professor" is upset at Republican criticism of ObamaCare that focuses on its disincentive for people to work, as we told you about last week. Hey, why is removing another 2.5 million people from the workforce a bad thing? People can use the leisure!

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The initial Republican reaction was predictable: Pundits filled the airwaves, Cassandra-like, to paint ObamaCare as the ultimate job killer. Never mind that, reading the fine print, it's clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law -- not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back. And anyway, isn't that supposed to be a good thing? The president's critics, in high dudgeon, are fulminating about lay-abouts and scofflaws actually choosing to work less than what God intended, predicting a host of ills that will supposedly befall the nation, from moral turpitude to economic ruin. The fuss will doubtless soon die down, but this bit of political theater has resurrected a very old debate about working hours, and could conceivably reawaken what I have called the forgotten American Dream. That dream has not always been just about striving to consume bigger houses, fancier clothes, faster cars. The idea that "full time" work is something foreordained and the bedrock of morality is new, mostly a product of the last century.

He then goes on to detail the history of America since the Industrial Revolution, so knock yourself out if you really want to give Politico the unmerited click. His point, and that of other Democrats trying to spin this very unwelcome news about ObamaCare, is that people who were only working full-time because they had to in order to get health insurance can now make the choice not to. But there are several problems with the economic theory behind that, although I wouldn't expect a "professor of leisure studies" to recognize them. First, it's fine that certain people only work as much as they want or need to as long as they don't become a burden on the rest of us. But to the extent they were only working full-time because they had to in order to get health insurance, there were much better ways than ObamaCare to solve that problem. We could have repealed the special tax treatment for employer-provided health insurance and given it to individual-purchased insurance instead. We could have expanded Health Savings Account tied to high-deductible policies so people wouldn't be so dependent on employer-provided insurance paying every dime for every doctor visit. If people were chained to jobs only for health insurance, there were much better ways to fix that. But in a broader sense, yes, Mr. Professor of Leisure Studies, it's better when people work more. When they work more, they earn more, the nation produces more and we create more wealth - which is necessary, by the way, to pay for elements of our gigantic public sector that includes jobs like the "professor of leisure studies" at the University of Iowa. But the real reason Republicans want people working is that working empowers you to become the master of your economic destiny. It is the best way to succeed in the pursuit of happiness, and we Republicans want people to achieve their own happiness. Democrats would rather have people lay around doing what they learned in "leisure studies," while the Department of Happy serves their happiness needs. So that, professor, is why.