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Free Childcare! From a Republican!
Donald Trump has figured out suburban women. He is going to guarantee six weeks of paid maternity leave for every new American mom. And if we vote for this compassionate man, we’ll also get tax credits for daycare and the government will help us set up “dependent care savings accounts” to support future generations from cradle to grave. Soon, all our of kids will have trust funds as big as Ivanka’s.
Provide 6 weeks of maternity leave to new mothers – The United States is the only developed country that does not provide cash benefits for new mothers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor: “Only 12 percent of U.S. private sector workers have access to paid family leave through their employer.” Each year, 1.4 million women who work give birth without any paid leave from their employer. The Trump plan will enhance Unemployment Insurance (UI) to include 6 weeks of paid leave for new mothers so that they can take time off of work after having a baby. This would triple the average 2 weeks of paid leave received by new mothers, which will benefit both the mother and the child.
That’s so awesome. Why has no one ever thought of this sort of initiative before? Ummm… wait. They have: They’re called progressive Democrats. And I’m a Republican woman because I have long-spurned policies that sound good but lead to rational discrimination, new entitlements, and exploding debt that will crush future generations.
Look, I understand kids are expensive. I’ve struggled in the past with childcare costs. I actually set up my very own “dependent care savings account” with the spare change I earned as a waitress when I was a young, single mom. (The bills that folded went to bills, you see; nickels and dimes went into the college fund.)
So, how can I explain my reaction to this latest proposal? It’s like when I was handed a New Coke as a kid. “It’s a better formula,” they said as I spat it out onto the sidewalk. I remember thinking that, if I wanted something that tasted like Pepsi, I would have just bought a Pepsi. Is that a hard concept for a businessman to understand?
Just asking.
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You can call a dog’s tail a leg, but he still only has four legs.
Trump can call himself a Republican, but he’s still a Yankee leftist. Only the fact that he’s to the right of the other Yankee leftist in the race makes him look conservative.
Trump is not a conservative. At all, never has been, never will be. This is to be expected. He’s the white man’s version of ID politics.
I’m beating a dead horse, i know, but he isn’t a leftist or to the right of anyone. He’s a new thing.
We drew a line between 2 stars in the sky and began arguing which is the best. Some said this one, some that one, some were in the middle somewhere. This year we have a new constellation. Trump is a new star and we’re drawing a line between him and one of the old stars. Only for some reason nobody can see that he’s a new star.
I’ve been writing about this new thing since well before Trump but for some reason nobody listens to Cassandra.
Now that is humorous. Trash the man, call him a buffoon , a clown, an idiot, not one of the club, a know nothing , withhold support, act like the Hillary cheering squad and you get surprised when he takes his search for voters elsewhere?
Now , going right at the Julia voters, that’s a heckuva move.
Time to make more popcorn.
It is actually. I agree. Not a conservative move though. So there’s that.
Well, at my age I am not going to live long enough to see a conservative win, so I will settle for a Republican, that’s long enough odds.
Okay, I’ll admit I’m going by impressions more than citable facts, but Trump to me sounds like an old-school Democrat, like a Dick Gephart. They’ve been driven out of the Democratic party, and they definitely don’t fit well into the Republican party either. It’s economic populism and protectionism combined with glorification of the working man and lip service, if that, to the concerns of the social conservative movement. I know some people hate to hear this, but it’s the ghost of Archie Bunker. If, as the meme goes, people don’t want to hear others’ opinions but rather their own opinion coming out of others’ mouths, then Trump is avatar of those people. But he’s only “new” in the sense that his kind of voice hasn’t been heard in 15 to 20 years.
I would agree with you completely, but I know that conservatives are all about subsidies too. Do you argue for tax deductible donations to charities that are not taxed like churches? Do you think that taxing a married man differently from a single man is a good idea? How about child tax credits? Tax free retirement savings? Tax deductible mortgage interest?
If you said yes to any such program, you are in favor of government subsidies! You just want your subsidies not the progressive ones.
The list of conservative government subsidies is also long, just not as bad in quantity or quality as progressives.
I believe that I am currently the exact demographic that he is aiming at with this policy… not the Julias of the world who are already happily sipping through neon-colored whacky straws on Pepsi and aren’t truly up for grabs.
Or am I mistaken? He isn’t trying to secure college educated white women who live in the suburbs?
For the record, we aren’t cheering Hillary either. (Those pom-poms really do belong to the Julias.) We’re just drinking a little more wine at our book clubs and worrying a lot more about our kids.
I don’t know. Maybe other college educated white women who live in the suburbs feel/think differently than I do.
I’m just one person.
I haven’t studied these issues, so please bear with me :) I was under the impression that the earned income tax credit was originally the idea of Republicans; the idea was that it was cheaper, better, and more conservative to just cut the working poor a check at tax time then it was to set up a new bureaucracy. From what I could tell, most if not all of Trump’s ideas are based on the same philosophy. Am I wrong about anything here? Genuine question, like I said, I haven’t studied this.
You are correct. He is a throwback to the GOP when they were competitive in 50 states. When they had a mix of conservative and liberal values. When they could win national elections without threading an impossible and improbable needle of a 22 state party. An old school Republican. An Eisenhower who would see the need to nationalize the polio vaccine, a Nixon who saw the Cuyahoga river on fire and created the EPA to fix it since the states were overwhelmed, a Reagan who knew we had to spend to win the cold war and made a devil’s deal with the Dems to do it.
Any conservative who gives their congressman a pass on voting for sugar subsidies or other stuff cannot get their back up at spending money that actually gets votes instead of donor dollars.
I am not for subsidies in general, but if we are to go down the line that I love the subsidies that one associates more with conservatives–i.e. tax breaks to encourage marriage–then Trump would still not look like a Republican to me when proposing these new subsidies.
This is a proposal from a much different playbook, which I associate more with progressive thought.
Heck. Let’s throw some more cash to Planned Parenthood then.
Do you stand for anything?
Republicans have used earned income tax credits, sure, but Trump is proposing a much wider entitlement than that which would help just the working poor.
For example, you can claim childcare deductions against your income taxes as well, which means you are making enough money to pay income taxes.
Remember–I believe though it’s proposed I may be wrong–that he’s aiming at the suburbs here.
The thing is, all that money from all those people–poor and not poor–has a cost associated with it, right? Who carries that cost?
I hope we get one next election so that can happen for ya.
I am just guessing, but I believe the target is lower middle and working class single women who work at jobs without any maternity leave. I would believe they have twice the numbers of your cohort.
Just my guess, but that’s the way I would target it. In politics, you target voters who are not comfortable, they are easier to move than those who are comparatively more comfortable.
My daughter is a college educated white woman , mother of three who is a professional biochemist/director , in the suburbs who just came off 24 weeks of fully paid maternity leave.
She will hate this plan on an ideological basis, and I will remind her of the 24 weeks paid leave she gets.
@amyschley, I think you’re right. I know it annoys people here, too, but he has always reminded me of George Wallace.
Jamie, I have been fairly open about what I stand for. It is tempting to take your question as an insult, but I believe it is sincere.
The answer is yes.
I have not a problem in the world with women getting maternity leave. I have a problem with government mandates of such.
(“The Trump plan will enhance Unemployment Insurance (UI) to include 6 weeks of paid leave for new mothers so that they can take time off of work after having a baby. This would triple the average 2 weeks of paid leave received by new mothers, which will benefit both the mother and the child.”
I’m not sure what “enhance unemployment insurance” actually means when thinking about what he’s proposing to do here. He says it will cost 2.5 billion annually. That seems… small.)
But perhaps you’re right. Maybe he isn’t targeting college educated suburban white women. Maybe he’s written them off.
Well, I would view this would be the most positive pro life move in a long time, on a real and practical basis. If one single mom has her child because the modest safety net provided by the unemployment fund instead of going to Planned Parenthood, I think it could be worth it.
Or, Paul Ryan could throw the money at Planned Parenthood anyway.
With this, we can now say, “We need to divert the planned parenthood funds to maternity leave” and shut the opposition up.
Well, I can’t argue with that. All I can say is that I drink more now when standing in the cul-de-sac star gazing. ;)
Sounds like a good plan. Enjoy the calm times, it’s going to get bumpy.
Is this just the daily two minutes of Trump hate?
I didn’t read the details of his policy proposal (is that a thing now?) but the bulletpoints read like they were written by Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Reihan Salam.
I know principled opposition to Trump, for some, is based his appointing his sister to SCOTUS, nuking Belgium and doubling down on Smoot Hawley, but since his positions — and his advisers and policy experts — are rolling out tax, immigration, trade and judicial nomination plans which resemble Senator Rubio’s, why the continual snark?
Is it galling for former supporters of Walker, Cruz and Rubio like me? Sure.
It is also encouraging.
First, you’re aware that not enough money goes to Planned Parenthood to pay for this kind of program.
Second, you must know that PP is such a sacred cow that no such argument would ever be accepted. It is actually easily countered. “It’s great you are funding maternity leave like we on the Left want, but you know we still think moms should have a choice, and PP doesn’t use the funds it gets for abortions on any count, so there. Let’s just give them more, thanks.”
Third, Mr. Trump is fine with funding for Planned Parenthood, so my goodnatured snark is ironic.
On this we can agree.
I will slightly disagree. The GOP has always been cut funds or not cut funds. A very stupid proposition.
If you make it “Ice cream or candy” you force a choice and can kill sacred cows by introducing two sacred cows. It can work, the GOP does not know how to play that game.
It’s fair enough to say that other Republican candidates were trying to find solutions for what is a problem. However, that doesn’t mean that no one ever criticized Marco Rubio for his proposals, does it?
Second, I think the framing bothers me, and I’ll admit this because my larger point is that Trump comes across to me as much more liberal than anything else when I give him credit for any ideology at all.
This is not style over substance but a real… I don’t know… problem for me.
For example, Rubio talked about the people’s money being the people’s money. Trump says, “The United States is the only developed country that does not provide cash benefits for new mothers.”
The framing is much different, and I’m afraid the end program would be as well.
Perhaps this is unfair. But I’m not engaging in the two minute hate. I’m taking your counter seriously.
@judithanncampbell, Also, I should compare and contrast the Rubio/Trump proposals beyond the broad strokes I know per your question. That would be doing due diligence beyond my first impressions, which would be better…
I was not thinking about his proposal when I first responded to you–when I first responded to Trump via this post!!–but Marco also had tax cuts as well as tax credits in his plan. (He was criticized within the Republican Party, but that is what you were probably referencing/remembering.)
Of course, as people point out all the time on Ricochet, Rubio didn’t win the nomination. The question you had is still very fair.