Republicans Quotes

Passing this bill puts us on a slippery slope to closing exemptions and mandating paid leave.

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Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX).
11/13/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

On that family leave bill, I think that it would impose a burden upon businesses, including small businesses.... You would be telling businesses, through that act, that they are required to bring temporaries in, go through a training cycle, and lose the continuity that is so important to making a business function well. It has the effect of making it more expensive for them to do business. More expensive per employee, more expensive per job. The business can only defend itself by offering fewer jobs. That's the only way they can pay for it. It is a job killer….It makes it more expensive to hire people, so businesses say we won't hire people.

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Representative Ernest Istook (R-OK). Daily Oklahoman.
10/25/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

Listen, these are the same people who will be standing in unemployment lines if the Clinton-Gore proposals are put into effect.

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John T. Truscott, Press Secretary to Republican Governor John Engler, The New York Times.

[The Democratic Party] don't get that the ability of American businesses to create jobs is directly related to the burden government places on their backs. They don't get that mandating family and medical leave is just one more burden added…. Mandating that business pick up the tab for these benefits allows them to advance their agendas without spending Federal dollars.

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Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX)
330509/30/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

[The FMLA] is an unprecedented, inflexible, Government-mandated employee benefit that will strangle both individual and employer flexibility in addressing workplace needs….Government mandates…do not contribute to economic recovery and growth. Resources spent to comply with Federal mandates cannot be spent to create jobs. These mandatory costs on business are not good for the economy as a whole. Employers must be free of the same kind of rigidities that have plagued the economies of many nations in Europe.

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Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
09/24/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

We can fix it for you. We fix everything in Washington. We raise your taxes, we raise the deficit, we have more regulations, so we can give you more mandates and tell your employer what to do in Topeka, KS, or wherever it may be in America…. Well, Mr. President, this is one of those cases where Washington does not know best….The real world impact of this well-intentioned legislation--this mandate--is that employers will revisit those projections and budgets and cut back on something else, including creating new jobs at the very time that we need new jobs.

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Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) during consideration of the conference report on the FMLA before the Senate.
08/11/1992 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

Even though the bill mandates unpaid leave, it is still costly for businesses….the costs of offering 12 weeks of maternity and infant-care leave and providing health insurance during the absence could run as much as $7.9 billion per year--costs which would be paid by consumers in the form of higher prices, a damaged economy, and a loss of jobs…Furthermore, America faces its stiffest economic competition in history. If our Nation's employers are to succeed in an increasingly complex and competitive global marketplace, they must have the flexibility to meet this challenge. It is vital that we do not mandate Federal policies which stifle the creation of new jobs or result in the elimination of existing jobs.

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Representative Bob Doran (R-TX).
11/13/1991 | Full Details | Law(s): Family Medical Leave Act

The cost to the nation and the economy is going to be dramatic. This goes way beyond the bounds of reason.

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Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX).

If our bureaucrats in Washington, our regulators—maybe that’s a better word—write the regulations too stringently and too tough, there are aspects of this bill that could make it very difficult for the free enterprise system.

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Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), The New York Times.

Rather than merely prohibiting discrimination against the disabled, the bill compels employers to make significant expenditures and extensive physical alterations to their facilities to accommodate an unlimited variety job applicants.

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Gordon J. Humphrey (R-NH), The New York Times.

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