President Donald Trump proposed six weeks of paid family leave in his State of the Union address, but not all conservatives are behind the idea, the Washington Examiner reports.
“I am also proud to be the first president to include a plan for nationwide paid family leave so that every parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child,” Trump said last week.
“The biggest concern is the potential explosion of the program over time, and then having a federal program be the one source that everyone has to go to would not serve workers well,” Heritage Foundation research fellow Rachel Greszler told the Examiner. “They would be far better off having a more tailored policy through their employer.”
“The issue of paid leave from a conservative standpoint is competing values,” American Action Forum Director of Labor Market Policy Ben Gitis said. “It’s pro-work, it’s pro-family, but on the other hand would be a new government program. It would require new spending and it impacts the private sector and some form of private market intervention, which conservatives aren’t too often excited about.”
“We need to not forget about how the Republican Party has traditionally been really invested in guarding and protecting federalism and allowing different states and cities to experiment with different public policies, especially when it comes to a paid benefit program,” Vanessa Brown Calder, policy analyst at the Cato Institute, told the Examiner.
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