[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.
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.
We think most Americans don't want the federal government to be their personnel administrators.
The family-leave bill is another example of the crass hypocrisy that afflicts the leisured class on Capitol Hill. Its champions sanctimoniously call it ‘pro-family,’ but it really places a tax on mothers who work because they must work to support their families. The type of ‘family’ it would truly benefit would be two lawyers who marry each other and have their first offspring at 38 after having purchased their big house in the suburbs and the his-and-her ‘Beamers.’ If Congress wants to help families that are economically stressed, it should simply cut taxes. In the meantime, the president should not waver on his promise to veto this yuppie vacation law.
We must also recognize that mandated benefits may limit the ability of some employers to provide other benefits of importance to their employees. The number of innovative benefit plans will continue to grow as employers endeavor to attract and keep skilled workers. Mandated benefits raise the risk of stifling the development of such innovative benefit plans.
It's just a bad piece of legislation…This continuous tendency to try to mandate benefit policy creates a bad business environment for Tennessee and the U.S. as a whole…[benefits] should be left up to the employers and employees to determine.
This is a great example of railroading a program through the system without thought of who will be paying for it or why. There was no public hearing, no contact whatsoever with our industry. The program's goal is worthwhile, but the method of funding and the lack of public input is unconscionable
Why should any of us strive to make that extra dollar of income when the government is going to lay claim to an increasing share of it?
[In 1981] we, as a nation, finally recognized that it is patently unfair to take more and more from a worker simply because he or she works harder, or longer, or takes more risk, or displays more innovation.
For years now we have moved inexorably toward a larger and larger share of resources being absorbed by government. This has translated into a greatly expanded role for government in business, society in general, and in our personal lives. Obviously, this involvement has carried a price tag—which has translated into fewer resources available for more productive use in the private sector.
