There is nothing profamily about putting people out of work--but that is exactly what this bill does. Estimates are that tens of thousands of working men and women will be put out of work if this bill passes….there is nothing democratic about Congress playing Big Brother and mandating one set of benefits over another.
America’s business owners are a resilient bunch, but let there by no doubt, HR 1 will be the demise of some. And as that occurs, the light of freedom will grow dimmer.
Passing this bill puts us on a slippery slope to closing exemptions and mandating paid leave.
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.
[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.
[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.
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.
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.
