How conservatives are poised to actually make paid family leave a reality

Many new moms this Mother’s Day won’t get what they most want: time to recover from childbirth and care for their newborns without great financial sacrifice.

The United States is essentially the only developed country in the world that does not guarantee mothers paid leave.

Most conservatives already support the principle of paid leave. According to the Pew Research Center, 75 percent of Republicans think mothers should receive some paid time off.

The principles behind paid family leave are deeply consistent with conservatism, and our movement is already showing that we are best equipped to move passable legislation forward. Done right, there is something there for all of us to like.

For fiscal conservatives, for example, there is the Rutgers study that found that women who return to work after taking paid leave are 39 percent less likely to go on public assistance and 40 percent less likely to need food stamps the following year. Or the Paychex survey of small and midsize businesses that found nearly half support the notion of paid family leave. Or the endless studies that suggest a positive correlation between female participation in the labor force and overall national economic growth.

For social conservatives, paid family leave is deeply consistent with the pro-family, pro-life ethic we champion. At its core, supporting and celebrating the irreplaceable role of mothers and their crucial work in bringing up the next generation in an increasingly gender-neutral world is inherently conservative. Much of conservatism’s maternal reverence is informed by religion; perhaps no faith elevates motherhood more than Roman Catholicism with its exaltation of Mary, the mother of Christ.

Unsurprisingly, Pope Francis, who once said that Mary is more important than the Apostles, bishops, deacons and priests, has a thing or two to say about maternity leave for women. He told business executives in 2015 that women have both “the right to work and the right to motherhood.” “The challenge,” he said, “is to protect their right to a job that is given full recognition while at the same time safeguarding their vocation to motherhood and their presence in the family.”

Pope Francis builds on the thinking of Pope Saint John Paul II, who wrote in his 1981 encyclical “Laborem Exercens” that, “The true advancement of women requires that labor should be structured in such a way that women do not have to pay for their advancement by abandoning what is specific to them and at the expense of the family, in which women as mothers have an irreplaceable role.”

But conservatives also understand that the true advancement of women usually does not come in the form of top-down, budget-busting, government mandates. Numerous studies raise legitimate concerns about whether the European models of long, mandated paid leave lead to more discrimination against women, never mind whether they are sustainable in the long term.

Thankfully, a new generation of conservatives is putting forward sensible paid leave proposals that have the potential to help lower- and middle-class moms without punishing their employers. Few have talked about the two-year trial provision that Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) slipped into last year’s tax bill. Companies receive a tax credit if they offer workers some paid leave. It’s the first time any federal paid family leave policy has been voted into law, and Republicans got it done.

Ivanka Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are shopping around a proposal that would allow new mothers to draw early from their Social Security, delaying their ability to access the benefit upon retirement by a few weeks. A variation of the plan is championed by the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative group. It has its critics on the right, but the plan’s ethos is conservative in that it gives workers more control over what is rightly theirs to begin with.

And while the left will criticize any policy conservatives put forward as too little, the reality is that America has no appetite for a heavy-handed mandate. Government-mandated paid leave simply won’t pass. Or as Rubio tweeted, “My goal isn’t the ‘perfect’ plan, it’s 60 votes for law better than status quo.”

Can the party that gave women the right to vote change the status quo and lead the way forward on paid leave? Can the conservative movement show that it is possible to help women flourish both as mothers and as workers without upending the esprit de corps of American free-market economics?

“Free” stuff has to be paid for by someone. Is it the business? Then it is a cost that will be managed and minimized, meaning that the most likely scenario is that expectant moms get fired.

Is it a government benefit? Then it will probably be funded by borrowing it from future generations. And we will get started now in paying interest on it, meaning even more for someone down the road to get the bill for.

“Discriminates against employees that don’t take time off.”

Reminds me of the NUMEROUS smoke breaks that were given while I was in the Army and it was still OK to smoke. Man, if you had a CO or First Sergeant that smoked, you got breaks all the time.

After a while, I just went and hung around the smokers so I got as many breaks as they did.

But, then, my true nature kicked back in and I kept my nose to the grindstone, answered the phones and helped anyone that needed it and did MORE than my fair share of the workload while they smoked and joked.

A 10-hour shift equated to about 100 minutes (an hour and 40 minutes - for those reading in Rio Linda) of ‘break’ time.

And I got promoted long before any of them did. True Story. Happy Ending. :)

There are exceptions to everything.

We’re not picking on women like you. We’re concerned that Mother Government will mandate this and stick her nose in where it doesn’t belong.

If the employer WANTS to pay their employee while she’s on maternity recovery, fine. It’s NOT Mother Government’s job to, ‘babysit’ every aspect of our lives. She does ENOUGH damage as it is.

*Steps Off Libertarian Soapbox* LOL!

“But far worse is the massive child care credit that Ivanka got into the last tax bill. That is not only destructive to families, but a huge cost to taxpayers.”

Yep. For some hare-brained reason, Governor Walker is giving everyone with kids an extra $100 tax cut per head, here in Wisconsin.

Exactly.

And when it comes to a vote, the Dems will be on board as it’s, ‘For The Children.’

Meh.

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