Herman

Cain

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October 22, 2007

Paid Family Leave: Hillary’s Panderfest Continues

If you read my October 15, 2007 column, you can simply replace “America’s Retirement Accounts” with “Paid Family Leave” to describe Hillary’s next step in her march toward socialism. Rather than repeat how this idea is also counter to the founding principles of our country, and how she ignores other serious problems, let’s examine the consistency of her political pandering strategy.

Each installment of Hillaryism targets a different group that feels victimized by a lack of success or some sort of worrisome stress. Not making enough money to support their family, insufficient health care or health insurance, not enough money saved for retirement, and now, not being paid to take time off from work. Of course, none of these conditions are due to any actions or decisions by the respective individuals or groups, but they are due solely to the inadequate assistance from the government, and the excessive greed of the yet-to-be-officially-identified “rich”.

Each week Hillary’s lead in the polls of likely Democratic voters gets wider over the second place contender, Barack Obama. Noticeably, each week she makes another promise to another group with a Hillary-defined need, which usually draws criticism from both Republican and Democratic presidential contenders.

She started with her answer to the correctly identified need for greater accessibility and affordability of health care. Hillary’s answer is socialized medicine, which she calls “universal health care”. The fact that it’s filled with mandates, unidentified costs, unintended consequences and factual deceptions does not matter. The Hillary-inspired followers do not care.

In front of an audience of the Congressional Black Caucus, Hillary promised to give every baby born in the U.S. a $5,000 baby bond. She quickly took that idea off the table the following week, since even the mainstream media did not give her an easy pass on that one. I can only conjecture that her quick retreat on that idea may have been prompted by not wanting to answer the question, “Does that include babies born to illegal aliens?” A yes would have infuriated legal citizens, and a no would have offended the Hispanic community to which all the Democrats are pandering.

While campaigning in Iowa during the week of October 7, Hillary proposed her program for “American Retirement Accounts.” Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler reported the program as a $1,000 annual matching fund from the government into a person’s 401(k) retirement account. The AP writer revised her story later that same day to call it a “matching refundable tax credit”. Now that sounds a lot better!

I suppose getting the money from the government indirectly with a tax credit should make us feel better than sending everyone a check directly from the government. In either case, according to Ms. Pickler, it would not be a requirement for people to work to participate. Hmmm. Where will they get the first $1,000 if they are not working?

The latest Hillary giveaway was proposed in Manchester, New Hampshire at a forum hosted by the Young Women’s Christian Association. As reported by the Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy publication (health08.org), Hillary’s plan “aims to combat workplace discrimination against pregnant women, expand paid family leave from work and increase funding for child care services.” Never mind the details, but she did leave out walking the dog.

I am not insensitive to the challenges many people face. Most of us are indeed caring and giving people when done the right way. Feeding a sense of entitlement is not the right way. Proposing another government giveaway program, while ignoring overspending and inefficiencies in current programs is simply not good public policy. Worse yet, it is not good for the future of this country.

But, it’s good politics for Hillary. Unfortunately, it’s working.

To paraphrase Bill Cosby, “Come on people, wake up!”

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