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Trump’s Daycare Proposal Is the Harriet Miers Nomination
In October 2005, a political earthquake struck when President George W. Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to fill Associate Justice Sandra Day-O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court. The reaction was swift and fierce. After a bruising reelection campaign — and years of water-carrying through the Iraq War — the conservative movement expected Bush to at nominate a justice who wasn’t the favorite of Harry Reid. But demonstrating considerable political deftness after an unforced error, Bush reconsidered his position and, ultimately, nominated Samuel Alito in Miers’s stead. Alito’s nomination, due to the immediate reaction of conservatives, remains one of the best legacies of the Bush years.
On September 13th, 2016 Donald Trump — with his daughter, Ivanka, in tow — proposed a passel of benefits to be paid at taxpayer expense for the benefit of pregnant women and people with children in daycare. Senator Bernie Sanders could hardly have proposed a more generous set of benefits.
So, how do conservatives, who correctly came down on Bush like a ton of bricks for the Miers nomination, react when Trump echoes the Left?
Need to see details re. how Trump proposes to pay for a new 6-wk maternity benefit. Savings bc those women won't go on disability?
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) September 13, 2016
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/775878261905563648
Uh-huh. Remember, Hannity is the same guy who was hell-bent for leather (even pointing out that the hated Bill Kristol thought Miers should step aside) over the Miers nomination.
But before we accuse Ingraham and Hannity of shilling for Trump, let’s check their past statements on state-supported child care:
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/557729254314881026
That was them live-tweeting President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union. It’s bad enough to think we’ve fallen so far in 11 years, but 19 months?
In 2005, conservatives rapped Bush’s knuckles for his apostasy, prompting a serious course correction; in 2016 “conservatives” pat Trump on the head for assembling a coherent sentence.
When future anthropologists excavate the ruins of our civilization and try to put a date on when the Conservative Movement died, it certainly would be closer to September 13th, 2016 than October 2005. And with more of a whimper than a bang.
Published in General
Aside from the wretched economics of this thing, as an opponent of daycare, I especially dislike anything that makes it easier for anyone to warehouse their babies on my dime. I’m not going to stand in your way if you choose to give over your child to strangers, and if your finiancial situation requides it, you have my sympathy, but please pay for it yourself. I suspect Trump was lobbied on this, since some of the “benefit” now goes to mothers who stay home.
Excellent post, by the way. The contrast in reactions to the two situations is funny, but also makes me want to grind my teeth.
I am one too.
And I have yet to see my tax reduction from this draconian change.
I supported President Bush’s recommendation of Harriet Miers. I wanted someone from the business sector on the Supreme Court. And I was amused later when Roberts laid the final plank in the ObamaCare plan approval.
Had Miers been approved, Alito would most likely have been the chief justice, not Roberts.
I agree this is an awful reformicon/social conservative policy straight from the Bush/Romney/Ryan/Brooks/Lu wing and the least libertarian of the GOP thinktanks. Not sure why you expect consistency from the punditocracy, though.
This is the worst sort of proposal, the social spending proposal paid for by eliminating “waste, fraud or abuse.”
Or deficit spending for those of us who live in the real world.
Oh come on. Not even in the same universe.
I’m curious, could you expand on this? (Seriously, I had the same reaction but I want to know what your thoughts are.)
A minor domestic policy proposal. Not conservative, but would be popular. Not a big deal.
Compared to a SCOTUS nomination that would have resulted in bad court decisions affecting multiple laws and the constitution for decades.
You aren’t remembering things correctly. Roberts was nominated to replace O’Conner but before he was confirmed Rehnquist died and Roberts was moved up to the Chief Justice spot and then Miers was nominated to fill the 9th seat. Alito was nominated once Miers was withdrawn. If Miers had been approved Roberts would still be Chief Justice and Alito would not be on the court.
Miers would probably have been a very reliable conservative vote on the Supreme Court. However, she had no history of prominent jurisprudence or a very distinguished record so the conservative punditocracy complained. They wanted another Scalia or Thomas on the court that made decisions from a very principled originalist philosophy. I agree with them. The work that Scalia and Thomas have done in influencing how jurisprudence is practiced in the US is very important.
What we have learned is that Roberts is too durn smart for his own good.
I stand corrected. You are right about the sequence, and Alito, as Miers would have, dissented against ObamaCare.
My sense at that time was that Roberts was a hurried choice that ultimately failed. But now that I look over the timeline, I’m not sure why I thought that. I must have had a reason, but I can’t remember now what it was.
Sorry.
And it goes on… Now Trump wants to expand Medicaid too. What other parts of the Sanders platform is he going to plank up?
That’s pretty speculative. Do you have a statement from Miers saying that she would have decided the case differently from the Chief Justice?
First of all, let’s look at his actual plan:
On the tax issue, I think deductions tend to be middle class bribery. If you’re going to have things like a home mortgage interest deduction, then you really can’t argue that child care deductions are any worse. I’d just as soon have a flat tax and NO deductions, but that isn’t going to happen. So I can live with this part fairly easily. The use of unemployment insurance here is intriguing as well, though I have no idea if the costs are better or worse using this method. I wonder if the same people automatically knocking this proposal think unemployment insurance itself is a bad idea. What’s interesting here is that this isn’t a mandate. It still isn’t painless. But it’s not the same thing as a mandate.
He clearly states that if an employer doesn’t offer paid leave, then the insurance is used in that stead. Frankly, after coming to see big corporations as part of the Liberal Political Complex, I think I’d laugh if big corps DID get a direct mandate. Exempt small biz, and I’d be onboard. If Apple, Starbucks, Target, etc, are going to use the Chamber of Commerce to shove leftist political directives down our throat, then I’m all for making them feel the pain on this stuff. Want us to be more like Sweden? Fine. You first, Apple. You first, Target. Out of YOUR pocket.
Isn’t the ’emergency’ extension of unemployment by the feds still at least partly in place? Remember, prior to that there was 26 weeks under state programs. That was increased to 99 weeks. I believe it has been shortened since then, but there is still a federal program. (The last number I heard was 77 weeks, but that may have just been a proposal.)
Eliminate the fed involvement, and you can pay for something like this. And I would rather spend the money this way.
No. I should have said “probably would have.”
Well, they agree on trade. As to the Medicaid expansion, he proposes funding that through elimination of waste, fraud & abuse, just like with the child care entitlement. Whoda thunk it?
I don’t care if he proposes free heroin for children Majestyk if it gives the GOP a chance to put a halfway decent person or three on the supreme court.
Vote for Pedro and all your wildest dreams will come true.
Unemployment insurance is mostly a state run program and the premiums are paid by the employer. The premiums are set based on a number of factors including which industry the employer is in and the employers balance of payments in vs. withdrawals from history. (i.e. if an employer has a habit of laying off people regularly who then collect unemployment their premiums rise). There are several industries with high unemployment premium rates due to the history of regular lay-offs. The construction industry is notorious for this as a contractor will lay off his employees between jobs, even for short periods. This is called “job-attached” unemployment. If the unemployment insurance premiums are readjusted to keep things actuarially sound then you might not get a whole lot of push back from employers as it effects their competitors equally.
The whole child-care tax deductions and credits are getting pretty ridiculous. If you add deduction of child-care, between S-CHIP (free health insurance for children) and the refundable child tax credits you are subsidizing children like crazy. You would think we would be having a baby boom.
There’s a lot of space between here and Trump nominating Supreme Court Justices.
Trump’s fundamental incompetence as a campaigner and the justifiable skepticism that many people have of him and his underlying “principles” that have to be overcome.
Remember: it’s not me that Trump has to get. The cake is baked here in Louisiana. If he doesn’t win here by 20% he’s toast anyways. No, it’s the Majestyk in Bucks County, PA that he needs to get.
I’m not voting for Trump, but that’s a vanity with the complete understanding that I have no control over the outcome. We have more serious fish to fry here with a Senator to elect.
So, why are you hatin’ on Harriet Miers ?
The discrimination-against-two-male-families card has already been played.
Next comes mom goes back to work while dad stays home with the kid and collects the benefits.
This baby indeed should be thrown out with the bath water.
I think the most important point here is that we need to criticize candidates and elected officials at all times. Bush was a decent president, but frequently had to be pressured in the right direction to make good, conservative decisions. I think Mitt Romney would have been similar. I think Trump will or would be even less conservative, and needs to be criticized even more than those others. Certainly during this election we should focus our energy on criticizing Hillary, but we should never ignore the Republican candidates errors.
It’s not enough to nominate conservative justices. You also have to fight to get them confirmed. Reagan nominated Bork and we ended up with Kennedy. We can hope that Trump will do as well or better as Reagan and the Bushes, but I think it’s nothing more than hoping.
This is what gets me nervous – according to Trump, he got the idea from his daughter, who pressured him. I don’t believe that’s how this proposal happened, though it makes a nice story. The daughter’s plea just adds to the “optics.”
What bothers me is my suspicion that this is nothing more than a consultant-driven proposal … “Donald, you need women, this will appeal to women.” And never mind the prudence of the actual proposal (I doubt this will make much of a financial impact anyway), the campaign is clearly trying to capitalize on Hillary’s weakness in the polls and make a pitch for women.
Notice that I take it for granted that this proposal isn’t policy-serious, and this is all dressed in optics. The policy isn’t serious, it’s only optics.
Donnie said that he was going to make a pitch to Bernie voters, and he appears to be doing just that. I feel sorry for the rubes that have been bamboozled into believing Donnie’s “not a politician” pitch (reminds me of “this time is different” in the financial world), and for thinking that he actually deeply cares about any of the issues he is proposing. Much like your average politician (sadly), Donnie’s calculation is designing the most effective strategy to buy votes.
I am in emphatic agreement with you.