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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.
Published in General
I grew up in South Carolina … yeah, I’m quite familiar with that particular slow-moving weapon of biological destruction. I heard it said once that it was advancing north of the Mason-Dixon line with considerably more staying power than Lee’s army.
I’m talking about the election of 1948, where Thomas Dewey won the GOP nomination again, by promising his fellow Republicans that he’d win pushing the idea of doing the New Deal better than the Democrats could. In other words being a “Me Too” Republican. He lost again, this time to Harry Truman.
The American people don’t want two Democratic Parties.
My recollection through the political PTSD of the past nine months is that Rubio’s tax plan was criticized for its meh provisions on capital gains, repatriation and marginal rates and few criticized the child tax credits.
I simply don’t see how Trump’s Republicanness is questioned when he is adopting central policy positions of younger Republicans like Rubio and Lee. It’s not my preferred policy. I associate it with Gordon Brown and prefer a flat tax.
In fairness the definition of Republican is pretty protean.
Our last two-term Republican passed a federal takeover of the nation’s classrooms, expanded Medicare, and proposed amnesty while our last two nominees were, respectively, a global warming alarmist who teamed with Russ Feingold to control political speech and the creator of the template for Obamacare.
I am not sure where the numbers come from, but my wife 30 years ago got 4 weeks before birth, and 8 weeks after, of “Salary continuance” which was a benefit of the employer, where the employer paid the difference between short term disability of 60% of salary, and full salary for the period my wife was on short term disability. That was California in the 1980s, Now in NJ my daughter received 6 weeks prior to birth, and 12 weeks after, but only short term disability, but at a rate of 75% of full salary, because she paid the supplement to increase it from 60% (base short term rate) to 75%, (employer provided supplemental short term disability), but because she paid the premiums from after tax dollars, all of the disability income is exempt from taxes, so similar to a full salary.
These are better that the program Trump proposed, but I suppose his program applies to everyone having a baby, and doesn’t depend on the employer actually supporting the state short-term disability insurance pool in their state. Not sure about how many employers avoid any short-term disability coverage, but an average number of two weeks seems short, unless the number doesn’t cover the women covered by their states short term disability programs through their employers.
Forbes on the Rubio plan:
If this helps get Trump a win in November, I will let this Bush-esque Big Government program slide.
Because Democrats will propose 100% Democrat policies. Whereas, a squishy RINO might only propose 25% Democrat policies.
We’ve known he was a progressive, at least to the extent he has any coherent views on policy, but it has to pass Congress, it has to be funded and the budget must be addressed in broader terms. He isn’t Hillary or Kaine, won’t be surrounded by progressives and an adoring press. So we’re back to big government conservatives, or compassionate conservatives. It hurt us before it will hurt us again, but Sowell’s metaphor still pertains.
By all means, let’s add another $10 trillion to the national debt. What’s the worst that could happen?
Ugh. Trump just cold-cocked this 54-year old “on-the-fencer” with this nonsense. Trump is to “conservative” as Obama is to “uniter.”
Which is worse, six weeks of childcare or Hillary as President?
An alternative to this, if we really must have paid maternity leave, would be to allow businesses to deduct the costs of dealing with maternity leave. That way it still leaves businesses free to set their own policies.
And what about the loss in productivity? How do I “deduct” that?
This may be about giving women a break after having a baby and helping the mother-child bonding, but how long will it be before the equality crowd stops the discrimination against the fathers.
I knew many Conservatives on Ricochet were going to criticize this proposal from Trump as soon as I heard an outline of the plan.
I am a Conservative/Libertarian who prefers small government but I am not locked into any stereotype or bound to any “party line”. I form an opinion on various issues based on the pros and cons and make up my own mind.
In this particular case, I think Trump is doing the right thing even if he does not realize it. The Replacement Rate (think birth rate) in the United States is 2.0. It needs to be at least 2.1 for a country to replace its dying citizens. When you don’t have enough babies, measures like increased immigration are usually the answer (ex: Germany).
This move by Trump will help increase our Replacement Rate at a relatively low cost. Many employers already offer Maternity Leave so the Government will not be picking up the bill for everyone. The tax credits have been proposed by other Republicans in the past, such as Marco Rubio.
Republican voters are pro-family and want to slow down immigration. This plan helps accomplish both.
It also helps Trump and the Republican party by appealing to women, and particularly single women who need some help to care for children. Republicans do very poorly with single women in poll after poll. This is not just a problem for Trump.
I see a lot to like in this proposal.
I will go a step further.
Which is worse, six weeks of Maternity Leave and child care tax credits, or years of Food Stamps and other benefits for an unemployed woman who has no choice but to stay home and care for her child? Or more and more couples choosing not to have children because they cannot afford them and forcing us to increase legal immigration quotas to compensate?
This is a clear illustration of how Trump will manage to drag the main body of conservatism leftward.
Except wasn’t this the very reason why we couldn’t vote for Jeb, or Christie, or Rubio? They were RINO squishes? Wasn’t the problem that Republicans were surrendering on conservative principles in order to advance themselves?
If I was willing to accept big government programs in exchange for keeping Hillary out of office, I could have voted for Bernie. Would one of you Hillary delenda est people explain why that would be different?
Yes, because subsidizing bastardy is such a conservative goal.
Of course up until now, until Trump mentioned it, there have been no family leave laws in place
That is extremely offensive. My sister is a single mother because her husband left her. How dare you call her children bastards.
It has been very clear all along that Trump looks at the world from a Democrat’s point of view. He said that he’s not like most Republicans, in that he doesn’t want to see people dying in the streets. If we don’t have government run health care, people will be dying in the streets. He said the roles of the federal government are defense, health care and education.
If you want to say Trump is more conservative than Hillary, I think that’s probably true. But if you want to argue that getting Trump elected is a great coup for conservatism, there is no evidence to support that. He is plainly less conservative than most or all of the Republicans he defeated to win the nomination. He might be worse than Hillary in that he’s so much better a politician than she is. Mandatory paid maternity leave spearheaded by Hillary would likely fail the way that Hillarycare did. Trump is so much more persuasive than she is, he might succeed where she would fail.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That is just so darn cute that you believe that.
There was a Mark Steyn column from many years ago, I wish I could find it. He tells a story of a town in New Hampshire(?) that got repeatedly buried in snow during a particularly bad winter, and exhausted their snow removal budget (for purposes of this recounting, let’s say they had been budgeting $200,000 every year). When they couldn’t clear the streets, they went looking for solutions and a federal program was found that would pay their snow removal costs in excess of the budgeted amount, with no need to pay the funds back.
The following year, the town budgeted $50,000 for snow removal.
If they were married when the children were born, they’re not bastards.
When Pat Moynihan warned about the breakdown of the black family, 20% of black children were born out of wedlock, compared to less than 5% of white children. Now, those rates are 70% of blacks, 60% of Hispanics, and 40% of whites. Paying women for having kids outof wedlock gets you more kids out of wedlock, with the accompanying problems of crime, poverty, and more children out of wedlock.
As for those like your sister who find themselves single mothers not by their own choice, I mean no disrespect. But a conservative solves the problem of family members needing help by giving it themselves, not by stealing from others.
I expect to disagree with about 99.8% of what Trump does if elected.
But I expect to disagree with about 99.9% of what Hillary does if elected.
It’s like Hitler and Stalin during WWII. Stalin was bad. Hitler was worse. So we helped Stalin. Then once Hitler was defeated, we turned on Stalin.
The election (if Trump wins) will be VE day. Then Conservatives can move into the cold war period with the Trump administration.
Someone else may have made this point already, but it bears repeating. This policy, like the minimum wage, is so nonsensical.
What Trump and the Democrats are telling us is, you can hire someone and include paid maternity leave and that’s okay. You can not hire anyone and not pay them maternity leave, and that’s okay (I do this everyday). But, if you hire someone, pay them a salary, but don’t include paid maternity leave, you’re greedy and hate women.
And of course, it’s the big corporations that can afford to pay these benefits. It’s the small businesses that shut down, or just don’t start at all, because of the increased cost. But the Democrats are “the party of the little guy.”
All of these compassionate progressive labor laws are a scam. Employers cannot afford to hire every single person that applies for a job. This means that piling more and more mandatory benefits onto full-time jobs just makes finding a full-time job that much harder. I am community college biology professor. I don’t have a doctorate, which effectively makes me low-skilled academic labor. I’d like to teach more classes at my college, but I can’t because if I did the college would have to give me full-time benefits. I’m so glad that I’m guaranteed great benefits from that job than I can’t get because they can’t afford to pay me benefits.
I agree Amy’s point is over-broad and that the correction is, therefore, warranted. It would, however, have the effect of subsidizing bastardy as well as women in your sister’s position.
Can I refuse to ever call any child a bastard and still be a conservative? Who is in charge of conservatism, and whom can I ask about this? :)
I listened to Ivakna yesterday and almost threw up when she trotted out the old “The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t provide <fill in the blank>” line. There are certain things that are fingernails on a chalkboard to me and that is one of them. I’m on the fence about whether to vote for this guy. If I do, I will be an extremely reluctant Trump voter. My request for team Trump: if you’re going to propose what are basically Democrat policies and you want my vote, at minimum try to avoid selling them with the most annoying lefty talking points. I realize I’m probably not the target audience for that speech/policy, but if I’m going to bite into the crap sandwich, at least try to convince me it’s a delicious cheeseburger.