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View Full Version : Reports: Trump picks free-market proponent Andy Puzder as labor secretary




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12-08-2016, 11:09 AM
President-elect Donald Trump will reportedly tap Andy Puzder, chief executive of the company that owns the Hardee's and Carls Jr. franchises, to be the next secretary of labor.

Puzder, a proponent of free-market economics, was one of Trump's staunchest advocates in the business community during the election.

The Trump has not officially announced Puzder's nomination, but the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have reported based on anonymous sources that it will be announced as early as Thursday. The fast-food magnate has long rumored to be the top candidate for the cabinet post.

Puzder abandoned a career in law to take charge of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Hardee's and Carl's Jr., in 1997 and is often credited with saving the then-faltering company.

In Puzder, Trump has picked a person who matches President Obama's current labor secretary, Tom Perez, in ideological zeal, just in the other direction. Matthew Patterson, executive director of conservative Center for Worker Freedom, an arm of Americans for Tax Reform, praised the pick.

"Running vast franchise empires gives him rare insight into the bureaucratic nightmare that the Department of Labor has become. He's both what the DOL desperately needs and what its career paper pushers fear," Patterson said.

James Sherk, labor policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, called him an "excellent pick," saying he was "perfectly in keeping with Trump's campaign commitments to roll back excessive job-killing regulations."

Puzder has been a major critic of higher minimum wage laws, the administration's efforts to make franchise companies legally responsible for their franchisees, and the president's signature domestic achievement, Obamacare.

"Congress must understand that laws have a real impact on real people who are working in real businesses. We have to keep those businesses profitable and successful or we lose our jobs and endanger our future," Puzder said in 2011 testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.

In 2011, he co-authored the book, Job Creation: How It Really Works and Why Government Doesn't Understand It.

He grew increasingly critical of Obama's policies in recent years, telling Fox News in 2014, "I think basically everything this administration has done has been anti-business."

While many free-market economists were put off by Trump's rhetoric against immigration, trade and the financial sector, Puzder was among those who argued that the candidate was the fixer the economy needed.

"Trump's entire economic plan is populist and intended to generate growth that would benefit American workers and small to mid-sized businesses thereby reducing income inequality, increasing wages and opening paths to the middle class," he wrote in a November blog post.

Business groups applauded the news. Robert Cresanti, president of the International Franchise Association, called Puzder an "exceptional choice" due to his private sector experience.
"We applaud President-elect Trump for recognizing Andy's business experience and policy acumen on so many issues impacting employers and employees in today's economy," Cresanti said.

Liberal groups have been dreading the prospect of a Puzder nomination. A Monday column in the liberal American Prospect called him the higher minimum wage movement's "worst nightmare."

"Puzder opposes any increase to the minimum wage, believes that workers are kept in poverty because of government assistance programs, and thinks expanding access to overtime pay would diminish the prestige of entry-level management jobs," the article said.