Home
D&D
Music
Banner Archive

Marvel Comics Timeline
Godzilla Timeline


RSS

   

« Recap 82 | Main | New Democratic campaign slogan »

As If Kids Weren't Punishment Enough

Having kids means having to take time off to take care of them when the little germ factories get sick. And if you don't get paid sick leave, that can be a huge financial problem. So when people start demanding paid sick leave for all jobs, what do we get offered instead? A plan that says you can get some paid sick leave in exchange for losing some of your pension. How exactly is this making things better?

The argument here is that the plan cannot be said to impose a punishment on parents because all it really does is shift around the punishment we already impose on parents. Put simply, the Rubio-Trump plan replaces the lost-earnings penalty that our current system imposes on parents with a lost-pensions penalty. So, it eliminates (reduces) an old penalty while imposing a new one.

DeSanctis insists that because these two penalties are equal in magnitude, there is no punishment involved, but that's a bizarre rhetorical dodge. If normally I punch you, but then decide going forward that I am going to kick you instead, would a normal person say that my new kicking policy does not constitute an attack on you? I don't think so.

The People's Policy Project writes about it here and here.

I don't agree with Bruenig's argument for cynical support.

The cynical case is that, after such a policy was enacted, it would be trivially easy to subsequently kill the part where parents who take the benefits are forced to retire later. In fact, you would have about 25 years of time before the first recipients of the paid leave benefit would be retiring. If the Democrats took control anywhere in that 25 years, they could ensure that nobody who received the paid leave benefit has to delay their retirement for doing so. Indeed, adopting the popular plank of "ending the parent retirement penalty" may even make it easier for them to take power in the future.

I think the Democrats have demonstrated time and time again that they have little desire to do much of anything, regardless of who's in charge. I wouldn't rely on them to fix anything no matter how many years they had to get it done. The years the Democrats controlled the House and Senate, they would try for some milquetoast bipartisan crap that the Republicans would easily block. Then when the Republicans gained both houses, the Dems would spend the whole time sitting on their hands while peddling the idea that they are just powerless to effect change at this particular time, but boy are they totally on your side so please vote for them next time.

fnord12: Republicans have a "solution" for student loan debt which also includes trading away your social security. Republicans really want you to give up your social security.

By min | February 9, 2018, 4:50 PM | Liberal Outrage