Jeff Coleman: A conservative’s case for paid family leave
It may not be the end of covid-19, but in the words of Winston Churchill, we may be seeing “the end of the beginning.” Even at this stage, we’ve watched trillions spent to help families keep their heads above water as the unemployment rates seem stuck in the double-digit range.
Pennsylvanians will weather this storm — that is, after all, what we do — then we’ll have something else that defines the national experience. For the foreseeable future, we’ll study our triumphs and learn from missteps. Like the world waking up from World War II, we’ll emerge with clearer thinking about our values and a healthy family debate over the role of government in crisis.
Meanwhile, the jarring effect of covid-19 and the disruption to which it led will shake basic assumptions, particularly on the political right — the space many of us occupy. Among the questions that should be asked with a renewed intensity: How do we best safeguard the long-term security of American families? How do we prevent the most important health, education and welfare institute from collapsing under the weight of disruptive economic pressure?
It’s important to note that “security” is not code for “disposable income in a given year,” but instead means what it says: the ability of Americans to live as they wish, raise their children, care as circumstances demand for aging relatives and look forward to retirement without constant fear.
For years, the phrase “family leave” has raised alarm among conservatives. Their visceral disdain for government intervention in the free market and the short-term interest of their donors in the business community have combined to produce an effect usually reserved for a red flag in a bullring.
A moment such as this, with a nation paused for a few months and economic shifts that would ordinarily take place over the next decade almost certainly compressed into the next 18 months, is also an occasion for conservatives to reflect on exactly what it is they wish to conserve.
Beyond a handful content to conflate bumper stickers with a coherent political philosophy, most conservatives would answer that they wish to conserve an aspirational society, one in which individuals and families can pursue their dreams. This has, for so many of us, been the beating — some might say bleeding — heart of conservatism.
Yes, we know that there is more to most people’s dreams than dollars and cents: Financial security is usually, as the lawyers are wont to say, a necessary but insufficient condition for a fulfilling career, a reasonable family life and long-term stability.
Above all, few really believe it makes sense that new parents are routinely forced to choose between caring for their newborns and genuine economic hardship. A society — and a government — that genuinely values family life can and should take appropriate steps to foster that in ways that reward personal responsibility and other small-c conservative values.
There is no serious conservative argument that what America needs is another government program funding what is thought to be desirable behavior, nor would any conservative I know support such a proposal.
What we can and should do is remove obstacles to the things that form the building blocks of a functional society. It’s not difficult to make the case that stable families are far more important than either home ownership or saving for higher education, both aggressively promoted by public action for decades.
To succeed, such a program must exist not as the sort of emergency measure we have seen in recent weeks nor as something subject to the vicissitudes of budgeting in Washington and 50 state capitals, but rather as a reliable feature of a life shaped by prudent self-management. Paid family leave must be built on the foundation of personal responsibility.
The unheralded winner in such an arrangement could well be employers, who have an often-overlooked stake in a stable workforce — something they are far more likely to establish if their employees are not on a knife’s edge of struggling to balance work and family life.
At the moment, the most viable legislative proposal seems to be that advanced by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, to allow new parents to essentially trade a one-time payment of $5,000 for an annual reduction of $500 in the federal tax deduction for that child for the next 10 years.
Few imagine that that measure or any of several competing proposals will come up for a vote in the months ahead, given our super-charged political atmosphere. But the time is plainly at hand for conservatives of all stripes to take them seriously as a reflection of our values and an integral part of how we can strengthen our sometimes-frayed social fabric.
Jeff Coleman is a former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and principal of the Harrisburg-based, Churchill Strategies branding and communication firm.