Neither GOP nor Dems backing Ivanka Trump’s family leave plan

First daughter’s proposal seen as too weak by some, too generous by others

Ivanka Trump thrust her paid family leave plan back into the spotlight this week, penning a defense of the White House’s proposal for The Wall Street Journal. The program, she wrote, would not be an entitlement, as her critics have charged, but “an investment in America’s working families.”

The missive came after the newspaper’s right-leaning editorial board slammed Trump’s proposal in May, arguing it would open the door for future Democrat administrations to beef up the benefit at great expense.

But the president’s eldest daughter, who is also one of his official West Wing advisers, faces a bigger political hurdle than unfavorable opinion columns. Liberal lawmakers won’t back the plan, arguing it doesn’t go far enough to support low-income parents. And Republicans aren’t getting on board, either — not even the GOP leaders who support the idea of paid leave.

Take Sen. Marco Rubio, Fla., who met with Trump last month to discuss child care policy. Rubio has praised the first daughter for tackling an issue Republicans have only recently begun to address — the party’s traditional stance is that a healthy economy would support families better than a broad government mandate — but he has not endorsed Trump’s particular proposal.

“Ivanka Trump has been a leader on making profamily issues an essential piece of tax reform,” his office said in a June statement. “The meeting between Ivanka Trump and members of Congress demonstrates the momentum for this push.”

Applauding momentum for Trump’s pro-family efforts, however, isn’t the same as explicitly supporting her plan.

“Ivanka faces a major dilemma in having to construct a plan that appeals to both Republican lawmakers and the long-time advocates of paid leave on the left,” said Samuel Hammond, a policy analyst at the libertarian Niskanen Center. “Too generous, and the plan will be dead in the water. Too weak, and the left will excoriate her. It’s not an enviable position to be in.”

Currently, the United States doesn’t guarantee a single day of paid time-off for new parents.

The White House plan that Trump is promoting would provide six weeks of paid family leave to new mothers and fathers whose employer doesn’t supply the benefit, to be paid through the nation’s unemployment insurance system.

The estimated cost would reach $25 billion over 10 years, and the president’s proposed budget cuts from other national programs would cover it, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Trump’s proposal might never become a bill, but the president’s daughter has already won a tough battle: sparking a robust, bipartisan debate around paid leave, said Aparna Mathur, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

“I think the idea is not to propose a plan but to get both sides first to say that a policy is needed,” said Mathur, who discussed paid leave with Trump at the White House last month, “then work with both sides to decide on the actual plan.”

The fact that lawmakers can’t seem to agree on one approach “makes a lot of sense,” she said. “I think they are wary of offering a concrete plan and then facing pushback on the details, rather than having people support the policy in general.”