Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Bots, you would not give any other Pub candidate a pass for this kind of lapse in principle

The Persimmon Messiah placates his thoroughly modern daughter by putting forth a plan for paid family leave that is nothing but the same old tyranny and redistribution that the Freedom-Haters have been much more overt about for decades:

When Ivanka Trump pushed for more government regulation on businesses for family leave at the Republican convention, some wondered whether Donald Trump took it seriously. The answer, according to the Washington Post’s Robert Costa, is apparently yes. Trump will propose six paid weeks of maternity leave, along with child-care tax credits aimed at families earning $500,000 a year or less:
A campaign memo shared early Tuesday with The Washington Post shows that Trump’s plan “will rewrite the tax code to allow working parents to deduct from their income taxes child-care expenses for up to four children and elderly dependents.”
That deduction would be capped at the “average cost of care” in the state of residence, and it would not be available to individuals earning more than $250,000 or a couple earning more than $500,000. …
Another policy proposal will be guaranteeing “six weeks of paid maternity leave” through an amendment of current unemployment insurance policies.
Currently, employers are required to give twelve weeks of unpaid maternity leave, allowing new mothers to return to the same position (or one of similar rank and equal pay). That creates a burden on employers already to fill positions temporarily, and the costs are not a wash. If employers have to pay six weeks of salary on top of that, the costs will be enormous.
Costa’s description of this proposal sounds like it won’t be a mandate on employers, at least not directly. Trump may propose to pay benefits through the unemployment insurance system, even though the mothers will still be employed. All that does is shuffle the costs around, because employers already pay unemployment insurance tax on every employee to both the state and federal governments in order to fund unemployment payments. Adding maternity to the conditions that trigger payment will force those taxes upward, and probably sharply.
Let’s do the math. In 2014, the latest period for which the CDC has birth data, the US had 3,988,076 births — 40% of which were to single women, by the way. Using the current labor force participation rate for women (56.8%), we can estimate that women who are employed had roughly 2.27 million of these births but that figure may really be higher than that, especially given the high percentage of births outside of marriage. The average per-capita income in the US is $28,555 (2014 figures, Census Bureau), which would amount to $549 per week, or about $3300 for six weeks. The cost of this program would be another $7.5 billion in payouts from the unemployment system each year, on top of the payments already being made for actual unemployment.
Now consider the current status of budgets, not just at the federal level but also in each of the states. Almost every state has a looming pension crisis, and the federal budget operates on 40% borrowed money — on top of having an entitlement-program crisis looming. The system does not have room for another entitlement program, and businesses are already struggling with costs. This program would have to burden employers because it has nowhere else to go, and it’s going to hurt smaller businesses more because of the realities of the economies of scale. It will be yet another reason for businesses to refrain from hiring as a way to limit their exposure to higher taxes, along with the other employer mandate that came from ObamaCare.
When Ivanka highlighted the “wage gap” in her speech at the Republican convention, I warned this might be coming:
What made this stand out even more was that it was the only issue in which Ivanka went into detail. The other political points raised in her introduction were at the level of my father will fight for you on this. Ivanka spent three of the 22 paragraphs of her speech on this point alone. Clearly, Team Trump understands that they have a steep gender gap to bridge in the general election, and they may have wanted to pre-empt (or “triangulate”) the issue ahead of next week’s Democratic convention, when Hillary Clinton will ride it hard. To conservatives who already worry about Trump’s propensity toward top-down governance, it sounded like a signal for the kind of government intervention in marketplace decisions that they usually fight Democrats to stop rather than Republicans.
This is more than triangulation — it’s a surrender on the principle of limited government. The tax credits may or may not be wisely configured, but guaranteeing pay will require precisely the government intervention at which Ivanka’s speech hinted. We’re still giving away fantasy money, spending cash that even our grandchildren’s grandchildren haven’t yet earned, and now Republicans want to indulge that same Democratic fantasy.
Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Wayne Allen Root, call your offices.

10 comments:

  1. Even if you could get Trump to drop out, Cruz would not be the candidate. He is simply not liked.

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  2. Such is the rancid state of post-America at this late hour.

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  3. I wouldn't follow Cruz to the men's room.

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  4. He was far and away the best candidate in the Pub field.

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  5. Guess I'm fond of reasonable gentle persons

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  6. Why worry? This wont apply to nearly half of the work force which is 1099 now. Neither does unemployment, workers comp, sick days, paid holidays and vacations, or employer paid portion of OASI. Just the way you creeps want us all.

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  7. Here's what "us creeps" (those who love individual liberty and understand that it is an essential prerequisite for human advancement) want: We want whatever kinds of arrangements individual people desire to have regarding how they work. Apparently a lot of people like the 1099 arrangement. I know I do. But to address the argument that they are choosing the 1099 working arrangement because the arrangement whereby an employer provides unemployment, workers comp, sick days, paid holidays and vacations, or employer paid portion of OASI is drying up, that may just be the lay of the land at present. There is no big outside force that is obligated to make it otherwise.

    Which get us back to the point of the post and why Ivanka is fundamentally misguided. No organization is obligated to provide child care or family leave to anyone. If there is a market among job seekers for such benefits, we will see employers budgeting in such a way as to be able to offer it.

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  8. Just the way you want it. Taking more jobs and benefits away from Americans? If that is the result of individual liberty, whose liberty are you speaking of? Where do you get this "apparently a lot of people like the 1099 arrangement? What's to like about it? Please enlighten me.

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  9. Nobody's going to take away your right to like your little 1099 gig with Uber, dude. What other 1099 work have you done? Your business as a writer does not count. That is self-employment. Say, what happens if you become a paraplegic in a bad wreck while driving for Uber? First of all, zero wage loss bennies, zero permanent impairment bennies and your health insurance limits cannot begin to cover your medical bills. You'll be in the poor house on the gummit dole. Admittedly, you can go out and purchase your own work comp. Ya think the premium cost might cut in to your glorious wages? How do you like paying an extra 7 per cent for the employer portion of your OASI. Don't cry me a river about socialism and that seizure at gunpoint crap. You aint gonna repeal OASI. How do you like it? Huh? We're going backwards, dude. Guess you do like it. Your principled theories you claim come from God's love fall apart in the face of what's really happened in America.

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  10. Is some outside force obligated to see that it turns out okay for me?

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