And now the bathroom hand-washing debate begins

When Sen. Thom Tillis was in the last minutes of his appearance at the Bipartisan Policy Center yesterday, whatever self-preservation instinct he has failed him from trying out an analogy to explain why businesses are over regulated.

There are plenty of examples he could have used.

Instead, he chose the regulations — state regulations, by the way — requiring employees at restaurants to wash their hands after going to the bathroom.

“I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says we don’t require our employees to wash our hands after leaving the restroom. The market will take care of that. It’s one example,” he said.

And a mighty poor one, senator.

Tillis, in effect, advocated giving business the right to opt-out of regulations, so long as a regulation is added requiring them to notify people they’ve opted out of regulations.