Republicans toying with idea of “paid” family leave

Feb 4th, 2018 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Princess Ivanka and Marco Rubio have an awesome new plan for Princess Ivanka’s pet project of family leave. It’s so genius. What you do is, you tell people to pay for it out of their savings, and then they can have it! The CEO and the WalMart employee alike can have paid leave if they pay for it with their own money! It only costs about $1.50 a week, right? And people are getting these huge raises of $1.50 a week thanks to the tax cut – except for CEOs and similar who are getting like $10,000 a week – so it all works perfectly.

Marco Rubio is starting to strategize with Ivanka Trump to win over skeptical Republicans on a traditionally Democratic issue: paid family leave.

Capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the idea in his State of the Union address, Rubio is trying to marshal Republicans behind a plan that would neither impose a mandate on employers nor raise taxes to pay for it — two hurdles that have long halted the GOP from embracing paid family leave.

And they finally hit on it! Make the people who want the leave pay for it! And go right on calling it “paid family leave” at the same time!

Rubio has barely started crafting a paid leave bill, much less a broader legislative strategy. But he envisions an idea that has recently gained traction in conservative circles: allowing people to draw Social Security benefits when they want to take time off for a new baby or other family-related matters, and then delay their checks when they hit retirement age.

For instance, a person who would begin receiving full benefits when he or she turns 67 years old but wants to take six weeks of paid leave wouldn’t draw Social Security checks until six weeks after his or her 67th birthday.

It’s practically FDR-level progressive, yeah?

“That’s a new idea for Republicans who still identify it as something that comes out of the left,” Rubio said of paid family leave. “Forcing companies to provide it is perhaps an idea that finds its genesis on the left, but the notion that pregnancy should not be a bankruptcy-eliciting event is one that I think all Americans should be supportive.”

I don’t know, it seems kind of scary-lefty for Republicans to say use your own savings to keep from going bankrupt when a baby turns up. Shouldn’t people be made to give half of the money to the nearest CEO to balance things out?

Rubio and Ivanka Trump have recently exchanged emails about paid family leave. And in his Senate office in late January, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also privately pitched the concept to the president’s daughter, who gave it a warm reception, according to one person familiar with the meeting.

Yaaaaay paid family leave for all, paid out of their own Social Security! Utopia at last!

Rubio argues the overall plan would benefit those with lower incomes, since they’re less likely to work for companies that proactively offer paid family leave.

Of course, they also won’t have much in their Social Security accounts, because it’s based on income, but oh well – they should have thought of that before they decided to be low income.

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