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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
Mind you I’m just talking in hypotheticals here, but the thought I had was something like this:
Person taking maternity makes some salary of X. While gone, that work still needs doing either by way of internal shuffling or a temp worker, so employer is now paying X (for the departed worker) PLUS the costs of replacing that person some way. If you, for tax purposes, allow an employer to deduct some percentage of X (I’d push for 100%), that will help mitigate the replacement worker costs or lost productivity.
It’s a bit different in this case, though, as McCain would make a show of defying his own party in the Senate. It’s the difference between a traitor in the ranks and outside takeover attempt. McCain was disloyal, Trump has never been loyal enough to be disloyal.
Workers salaries are already tax deductible business expenses. You are still responsible for the employees FICA and unemployment taxes and you would be paying a portion of the temp workers taxes through the bill rate from the agency.
That doesn’t even count the lost productivity you suffer from having to retrain existing employees or train up a temp.
Right, I understand all that (all too well). I’m suggesting something beyond, though. Current deduction is an expense – above the line. I’m suggesting a below line deduction, perhaps in addition to the expensing out.
Assorted Comments
1.) As I have never been down on Bush or Rubio for being insufficiently conservative, I assume I have leeway to not be bothered by a $10B sop to parents.
2.) The Republic is doomed and we’re never going to balance the budget, so I don’t care. The Republic will go bankrupt 10 minutes earlier. In return, we pick up some votes and maybe save the Court. I’m strangely OK with that.
3.) To specifically answer Lileks’ most recent question: deducting the cost of child care, but not allowing a deduction for a stay-at-home parent creates an incentive to use childcare options. It’s roughly equivalent to the effect the mortgage interest deduction has on the decision to rent or buy. Now, being as I don’t have a great hatred for the MITD, I can be perfectly consistent in being fine with such minor deformations -but if you think the great problem of the American Tax Code is the differential incentives, then you should either favor this plan, or favor eliminating the child-care deduction in-toto. Again, I don’t care which, though good luck winning on the latter platform.
4.) I’m perfectly willing to concede that FWA will not cover the cost -but see 2. However, the idea that keeping people attached to the work force is better than having them detached by a pregnancy strikes me as quite arguable. Six weeks maternity leave, or 26 weeks unemployment. Choose one.
Put aside the whole childcare thing… is that really the only question? I’d kinda go with “What does ‘run the country’ mean?” and “How do we limit government?” and “When is the burden too much?” and, and, and…. :)
Double deductions? I don’t quite know how that would work, and that’s not even close to what was proposed.
All that said – while the prospect of lower taxes always gets right of center folks salivating – I’m against social engineering through the tax code.
If the Republic is doomed why does picking up some votes or saving the Court matter?
Am I mistaken or is it not already illegal to fire someone from their job for being pregnant? Can’t you take up to three months of pregnancy leave? The only distinction is you are not guaranteed pay…
If you choose to leave a job and are not fired or let go, aren’t you ineligible for unemployment benefits?
I don’t think it’s “6 weeks or 26 weeks” that we’re talking about….
Right?
Well, remember my first caveat – if we are going to have to deal with paid maternity leave anyway…
The idea is to figure out a way that does not involve transfer payments and more bureaucracy, and a minor fiddle to the tax laws is the least intrusive way I can think of anyhow.
Ah, see I’d rather head them off at the pass.
That assumes you will be able to do so indefinitely. There is a major advantage on issues like this in taking the ground before they can. It lets you define the issues in ways that they can’t touch.
Consider this thought experiment: Suppose, back in 2010, that the Republican Party had proposed some sort of national Marriage Amendment to the Constitution – one that would pre-empt the courts while also dealing with the state patchwork of laws and lawsuits. Make SSM legal by that means, and you can include language in the amendment that would also satisfy the religious liberty issues (explicitly exempt churches from having to perform any such duties, and exempt religious organizations). This would have torpedoed the courts below the waterline. Strangely, when I proposed this here, the Libertarians all rejected the concept as being somehow impure and taking away states’ rights. I reasoned that the issue would be stolen by the courts anyway and rammed down states’ throats without ANY religious protections, so why not steal a march?
I’m one of those weird libertarians that thought it should have happened democratically and state by state. Because what works in California does not work in Texas.
Law or not, it happens. I’m quite familiar with it here. “Got pregnant” is a fairly typical reason, according to the welfare workers I know, for why poor people who were in jobs are suddenly not in jobs. FMLA doesn’t cover that much.
Because between now and when they finally put us all up against a wall, a lot can happen. Just not going bankrupt isn’t one of them.
Not to put to fine a point on it -there may be a post on this eventually -but at this point I’m looking at what the Libertarian wing of the party is offering and wondering what good any of it is. Not only does it not win, but on issues important to me -from religious protections to immigration -they are utterly unhelpful. I nominally agree with them, but I’m not animated by it. If Trump were the Democrat and there were a better conservative option, I’d happily honor the old alliance.
But Johnson is a joke. If the Trump coalition can win with a small program like this, I’m sorry, friends -but I’m jumping ship. Best of luck with your liberaltarian alliance.
If you want to maintain the old alliance, then explain how it wins.
A lot can happen in [four] years. The sultan might die. I might die. Or, the horse might learn to talk.
I have a civic obligation to contribute to national needs, so no, I’m not saying that.
Doesn’t there seem to be a contradiction between the terms “getting to keep” and “subsidy”? Of you let you keep your dog, have I given you a Dog Subsidy?
Yikes. So if The Government decides that the tax rate shall be 96% for a year in order to achieve Desirable Goal #9634, which is indispensable for “running the country,” everyone must pay?
The paramount question is how to minimize it.
What should have happened, though, was made moot by the courts, which was rather the point in my proposal. SSM was imposed from above in the worst possible way.
It was rather obvious by 2011 especially that the Supremes were going to force the issue, states-be-damned, and impose a national norm. Better to steal the issue. Sticking to pure libertarian principles of state by state actually cost the more important opportunity to secure other rights by establishing a new Constitutional wall to further action.
Paid maternity leave is, I suspect, another such issue that will likely see an imposed “solution” by way either of the Department of Labor, or by a court order, or by a Democrat congress. If they foist it on us it will be guaranteed to be onerous and bureaucratic, and will likely also include provisions for women to sue employers for non-compliance with whatever byzantine scheme is imposed. Which is the more important principle then? Standing so firm that when you lose you lose big time, or make a couple of minor compromises and steal the issue from the opposition in a way that does note further burden businesses with compliance regulations?
I don’t have data to back this up, but my hunch is that the problem is less being fired because one is pregnant and more that one has more income by going on all the types of government assistance, including health care, and staying home with the baby instead of working unskilled labor with no benefits and needing to pay for child care.
Back when I was still working retail, one of my friends suggested that the easiest way to afford a child was in fact to quit my job and exploit Medicaid, WIC, and every other program out there. Certainly at that income level, getting a paper divorce and having children would have been a net increase in our income, thanks to all the single parent subsidies already out there.
The solution to that should be obvious: guarantee men an equal amount of paternity leave. After all, it’s both sexist and hetero-normative to presume one parental unit needs more leave than the other!
There is simply no conservative case to be made in favor of this proposal. Therefore, the proposal should be opposed by all Conservatives.
There. I said it. It was easy.
I thought that a lot of the anger at the “GOPe” that fueled the Trump campaign came from the idea that the Bush family had sold out small-government conservatives. Now it seems many of those same voters are coming around to the idea that “Compassionate Conservatism” is a pretty good way to win elections. After all, say what you will about him, W. did win two terms in the White House…
It’s not the primary season anymore. There ain’t no Conservative Savior in the race anymore. (I would have preferred Cruz) We have our nominee. And the Left has theirs. It’s Trump vs. Hillary now. Whatever Hillary proposes will be far worse. We need to make the least bad choice and vote for the most conservative person still in the race.
In my example (comment#1), one of the females took her full paid maternity leave and then quit her job. My boss was true to his word, and never hired another woman. Not while I was still there, anyway.
Welcome to team Red. Our only principle is beating team Blue.
If the only goal that matters is to defeat Hillary, then with the benefit of hindsight, wasn’t it a big mistake to have supported Cruz in the primary? After all, if moving to the center is the way to beat Hillary, then Cruz was far to conservative to win. We should have all rallied around someone like Jeb! or Kasich, right? Isn’t that the lesson we should take into the 2020 primary season (which I think begins next spring)?
Careful, don’t peel back the new paint on that uniform, Amy or you might not like the color underneath.
Sorry, forgot to include sarcasm tags.
Frank, Frank, There you go again. Telling me ‘you never want to hear’ things again. Not impressed by that at all.
I do not defend Trump, I support his candidacy.
I supported Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney and now Trump. That’s my cult of personality. Quite an assemblage of characters with real different policies.
What’s yours? Do you write in your own name every time?