Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Is it really paid family leave?
Trump’s push for bill in SOTU differs from most proposals on the issue
President Donald Trump called for paid family leave Tuesday night in the State of the Union, the first Republican president to do so. But the bill he supported does not offer what has generally been considered paid family leave.
It is a bipartisan bill, introduced in December by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. And it would enable new parents to collect a portion of their future child tax credits early and receive a smaller credit for the next 10-15 years.
Here’s why it’s different from most paid family leave proposals.
It does not provide a new source of funding to pay parents during leave; instead, they borrow from their future selves. It covers only leaves for babies or newly adopted children under 6; it does not cover care for sick family members or to take care of personal medical problems. And it does not guarantee that a person’s job is protected when taking the leave.
Supporters of the bill describe it as a partial solution and a place to start, and say it doesn’t preclude Congress from pursuing more comprehensive paid leave. It has some important advantages, they say: Its sponsors are bipartisan, which is rare on this issue. It doesn’t raise taxes or create a mandate for businesses, two top priorities for Republicans. It also gives parents the freedom to use the money as they see fit, whether as wage replacement while on leave or to pay for infant or adoption expenses.
“Not only is it a good solution, but it’s possible in the political world we live in today,” Sinema said at an American Enterprise Institute and Brookings event in September.
Since first campaigning for president, Trump has expressed support for some kind of paid parental leave, and it has been a policy goal of his daughter, Ivanka.
Until Monday, the White House had said it was keeping every plan under consideration. This is the first time it endorsed one.
Traditionally, Republicans haven’t supported paid leave — voicing concern about spending on new government programs and burdening businesses. So why is a Republican administration doing so?
Politically, analysts say, it appeals to a group of voters they need: suburban women, especially those who voted for Trump in 2016 but have considered Democrats since then.
“Everyone’s talking about suburban female voters because they’re deciding elections,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for the Winning for Women Action Fund, a political group dedicated to electing Republican women.
Paid leave, in general, is an easy sell with voters. Families need it — 72% of mothers and 93% of fathers with children at home are in the labor force — and a large majority of voters support it. But Americans, like their elected representatives, disagree on the details, particularly how to pay for it.
There is one model of government-run paid leave that has already been successfully adopted in the United States. In eight states and the District of Columbia, paid leave has been financed by a small payroll tax increase, paid by employees and employers. This is also the model that Democrats have proposed for all Americans, in a bill called the Family Act.
The child tax credit is worth up to $2,000 per child. If the Trump-backed bill passed, the average worker with a new child could receive $5,000, and then collect $500 less in child tax credits each year for 10 years.
The Family Act has minimal GOP support, and the deal breaker is the tax increase.
“A payroll tax increase is not going to be passed into law anytime soon,” Ivanka Trump said on “Face the Nation” on CBS in December.