Posted on 02/03/2018 6:51:13 AM PST by reaganaut1
Leftists have been pushing the idea of paid family leave for a long time. It was one of the big early crusades of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The notion that the government should help cover the costs of having a child springs naturally from the “progressive” mindset that government should be there to provide in case anyone needs (or merely prefers) assistance. It also dovetails with the liberal political mentality that many votes are to be won by giving people stuff.
And now, we find that people who are not on the left are nevertheless backing a paid family leave plan, with the twist that instead of forcing employers to pay the benefits, the federal government would. That idea was floated recently in a Wall Street Journal piece by Kristin Shapiro and Andrew Biggs, “A Simple Plan for Parental Leave.” The authors state that the concept of paid leave has widespread public support (no doubt true, but that is true of every proposal for seemingly free money), but they don’t like the old Democratic plan of mandating that employers pay because employers would cover the cost by lowering pay for women.
Instead of a business mandate, therefore, Shapiro and Biggs advocate a different approach. They would allow prospective parents to collect Social Security benefits for a period of time (probably 12 weeks) upon the birth of the child, but offset that by delaying their eligibility for Social Security benefits upon retirement. Shapiro and Biggs calculate that the delay needed to make this financially neutral for Social Security would be six weeks. Parents would get money now to help with the newborn in exchange for having to wait six more weeks for their retirement benefits – sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
No.
Um, so a breastfeeding mom and all other mothers who need to bond with their infant for the good of emotional health and well being doesn’t deserve any more time off work than the father would get? How do you figure that? I’m all for letting dad’s take some time away, a manager at my job just did. But if having to choose between one or the other an infant needs its mother a little bit more wouldn’t you say?
I totally agree with your comments!
After a life change (birth, death, divorce), the best thing to do is as soon as possible continue your normal life day to day. It’s survival of the fittest, my opinion.
Ivanka is wrong in her advise to her dad on this one.
I meant ‘but, beyond that’. Sorry.
We’ve been using ‘incentives’ and other tax policies for years for social engineering. No thanks.
It’s the parents’ responsibility for having the baby, not the company’s.
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Exactly.
It wouldn’t be a bad thing for the survival of civilization to go back to most families being a mom and dad, with one person’s primary responsibility being a job and physical and financial support of the family, and the other in charge of loving care, day-to-day household chores and relationships with neighbors, community, and society as a whole. Paid family leave isn’t a good idea. It encourages the breakdown of family and community structures.
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I agree wholeheartedly with that.
But I am not a Luddite. And please don’t smash my ‘puter.
I figured it out-——I’m good at interpreting typos because I make so many of them myself.
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This issue is more than just having a need for it or not. Leave, period, is geared toward vacation time that is normally consistent with the outside world. It figures to about two weeks a year to three depending on rank and position. But it’s a two fold problem.
Because of the mission and manpower shortfalls, planning and getting leave can be very difficult depending on what’s going on. I got so much leave during my tenure because I couldn’t take it due to job needs that I was forced to take the minimum at the end of the year or when I could during the next year.
Many jobs in the military are one deep because the people who pay the bill don’t want to spend too much so they can get reelected and anyone getting leave in the chain effects everyone in it to cover. The work continues whether Col. Important is there or not. He/she has a leave problem also. And when Uncle Sugar started forced leave over 90 days in hand prior to the end of the year with justification, it can get sticky. Prior to that you could have more on the books. That’s when two or more disappear and the job continues. Justification is it actually was not available to use it during the year. (Almost impossible to justify) So, you lose it.
I sold leave back once. Once is all you can sell back in your career. I did, however, have the max leave amount on the books for terminal leave when I retired military. So for the last four months of my career there I was pretty much on leave, mine and closing work to retire when I wasn’t on the job the last month. I was authorized a week to go to my selected new home to find one, but I settled in the area so it wasn’t used. So when I walked military, I was zeroed out on the books. For civil service, I was out of leave due to illness when I was retired medically.
So, as you can see, the perks have always been there properly used if they could be used. All the family leave will do is give the military member a guarantee that leave to help the spouse, or have a child, or handle a family emergency is protected and available. This is not a lot different that the outside world. It just takes better care of the member. Lord knows we are gone a lot anyway and have babies born, or deaths happen, or family business go vital when we’re deployed. At least for a major need when we can be there, we will have some protection. We can’t just say okay, you won’t give me the leave, I quit! We go to jail for that. The outside world loses a job. So there are goods and bads to the thought.
rwood
Our office manager and a staff attorney used Clinton’s Family and Medical Leave act several times to leave their babies with the grandparents while they took three month extended vacations, jetting to Europe and putting their feet up at home for three months while we soldiered on.
This is a sop to Ivanka and I don’t remember voting for her.
Since most companies give 2 weeks vacation plus sick time, why can’t one just forego time off and save that for maternity leave every 3 years. If one doesn’t like that option save enough money to cover the leave prior to getting pregnant.
Unfortunately family medical leave is not just for pregnancy. I know someone who uses it to transport a parent to dialysis and back even though there are other family to do that and other resources. This person works in state government in a useless job so no actual work is affected.
Paid leave should never be government mandated. Sorry Ivanka.
It is ludicrous for employers to have to pay staff for weeks' worth of unproductive time just because the employee had a baby. If women want to compete against men in the workplace, then they have to play by the same rules.
And no, the answer is NOT to pay "paternity leave." That is simply pandering to the lowest common denominator.
One point in favor- there are some who say that Americans, in particular, *my* kind of Americans (employed, law abiding, tax paying, English speaking) don’t have enough kids.
I kind of like the idea for those who actually contribute and intend to raise solid citizens. As with everything else, it should be only for those who aren’t mooches.
NO!!
>It’s time may have come.
??? Did We change the Constitution and I missed it?
>Trump is getting ahead of the idea
And *that* makes it legal/constitutional?? Holy Schiff, I think some around here think DJT is akin to the 2nd coming: his word is the gospel.
>He’s already cut enough government regulations
He HAS? I didn’t hear\read of any agencies/dept. closed and shuttered. Exactly how many books from the Law library have been pulled from the shelves?
Prob. is govt doesn’t STAY ‘small’. Govt is like a flat form, cut it into the tiniest of pieces and it WILL grown again.
It is a wonderful idea to nurture strong families and support them but, how far can a society go with this? If a few days or weeks of paid leave is good why not extend it to months or years? If providing this benefit for your employees is good why not extend it to your customers? Why not have the tax payers give every newborn housing food and medical care for 18-26 years?
Americans colonized the continent giving birth on the trails west. This is politicians looking to buy votes.
Anything that reduces productivity of the employee -- and by extension, the employer -- is going to have a serious down side.
I run my own business, and I only employ contractors and outside vendors for the work I need to get done that I can't do myself.
It's high time we realize that a full-time employee is one of the biggest drags on the efficiency of almost any business operation.
You are so right.
And how dare those evil companies look out for their bottom line? They should be donating all of their profits to Greenpeace or something.
Would they get paid for all three months they are off, do you know?
I had double hernia surgery and my boss pressured me to be back after a long weekend, though I had trouble walking.
This is the only `clinker’ in his SOTU address, maybe one or two more in an otherwise outstanding speech.
(Upside, I have a bulletproof kevlar groin now, heh.)
The 10th Amendment is a good idea.
The whole of progressivism is not.
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