Yesterday Democratic Sen. and 2020 candidate Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. DeLauro re-introduced the FAMILY & Medical Insurance Leave Act which would create a national guaranteed paid family leave program. Part of the plan would provide 12 weeks of guaranteed federal paid leave to parents and caregivers regardless of sex or sexual orientation. However, it comes at a cost, a tax will be implemented in the form of a payroll tax similar to social security. Just a note, former president George H.W. Bush vetoed two bills on the same issue during his time in office.
Isn’t this a socialist program? Or is it a humanitarian program? The President just emphasized in his State of the Union a few weeks ago that he wasn’t a fan of socialists, “America was founded on liberty and independence – not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.” But is he okay with a socialist program?
The U.S. is the ONLY high-wealth country that doesn’t guarantee a single day of paid leave to new moms and one of a few that doesn’t guarantee paid leave to new dads.
According to the Huffington Post, “The Family Act, as the legislation is known, would allow all workers in the U.S. to earn 66 percent of their monthly wages, up to a certain maximum, funded by a small payroll tax of two-tenths of 1 percent paid for by employers and employees. And advocates say they might tweak the bill further so that lower-income workers are able to earn a higher percentage of their pay.”
There have been some people pushing for even a 6-month guarantee opposed to 12 weeks. Six states already offer paid Family and Medical Insurance Leave laws including Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey, California along with Washington D.C. Only 13% of the private sector employers offer this benefit to their employees. Most the businesses in these states have seen barely any negative effects from the implemented legislation, some argue that the proposed legislation if it were to be passed on a federal level it would actually take certain costs off the employers.
Dr. T Berry Brazelton testified before Congress 35 years prior on this exact issue, here’s what he said:
“Our children are our future, why wouldn’t you want every single one of them to get the best start possible for all of US?”
Some arguments against paid family leave are it hurts production and hurts the bottom line of companies. Another complaint is what will it do to the morale of other employees who are single and have families that are grown when they have to take on the extra workload of the missing worker. Will, it cost money to the company to bring in temporary workers? What happens if they get into a similar situation? Wouldn’t a company have to pay someone to not be at work for half a year if a six-month leave was ever approved? I’m not saying that families don’t need time off, they do. The businesses would still require someone to do that work. A gigantic danger is that a big company like Walmart would eat the cost and just hire all part-timers to avoid this.
The irony of the whole thing is there s a massive danger in this for women even though the bill, in theory, is protecting the mother and her family. If business pushes back against a bill like this wouldn’t they just hire all men?
Democrats and some Republicans have been pushing lately for this kind of legislation, even president trump mentioned he wanted to work on giving family paid leave during his The State of The Union address a few weeks ago. When he mentioned it got praise from all Democrats and a few Republicans, the other Republicans didn’t stand. But, for Republicans isn’t this against what your salary stands for? Isn’t this the party that doesn’t like mandates? And wouldn’t this be one? Social security is 12.4% and provides about 40% of your income for an estimated 18 years of benefits. They would want 75-100% of income for 1/2 of every year for about 40 years regardless of what percent they say. Government mandates like this could stifle small business growth which in turn would affect jobs and incomes nationally. Isn’t this just too much government overreach?
Government’s role isn’t to steal money from people and then redistribute it to others, Governments should provide freedoms of individual sovereignty, not this. It sounds good in theory, but in its proposed execution, I don’t agree with. If we could find a way that wouldn’t be a tax on Americans and pay for it some other way where it could accomplish the same goals, I’m with it. it just isn’t the government’s role to force things like this nor to provide it.
Just, so I’m clear, socialist structures are usually initially emotionally based & look good but are never long term solutions. The problem is that in the long-term more people are hurt, rarely do these short term structures extend to work properly.
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