Its not apples and oranges, its government and government. The graduated tax system, the capital gains tax break, the immunity of churches from taxation, unemployment benefits, medicare, and social security are all wealth transfer programs.
If you oppose the transfer of money from once citizen to another via paid maternity leave, why do you advocate the transfer of money from an employer to an employee for paid maternity leave?
If its not worth doing, then get rid of it. If it is worth doing, then pay for it. The middle ground, where we say it's worth doing and then force someone else to pay for it, is the most unjust way to transfer money from one to another.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -
beej67,
Saying apples and oranges are both fruit and are, therefore, the same thing is an exercise in intentional imprecision. I agree that all the programs you listed are probably wealth transfer programs, and most certainly are. However, earlier you tried to lump goods and services that government purchases on our behalf into the same category as wealth transfer programs and to justify the one by the assumed legitimacy of the other. This is a classic example of a logical fallacy, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
I don't recall where I advocated anyone paying for maternity leave, though Mike may have. However, if an employer decides that she wants to offer maternity leave as a benefit, then, I don't have a problem with it. In that scenario, no one is forcibly taking money from another.
"where we say it's worth doing and then force someone else to pay for it, is the most unjust way to transfer money from one to another."
Is this not exactly what you're advocating when you decide women should have paid maternity leave, then force, through the government, the taxpayer to pay for it?
"On the human scale, the laws of Newtonian Physics are non-negotiable"
Fire protection is a wealth transfer from people who's houses aren't burning down to people who's houses are burning down.
We decide we would like to have firemen, so we pay taxes and give those taxes to the firemen, to provide a service to people who's houses are burning down. We don't force someone else to pay for the firemen.
That's what's wrong with maternity leave laws in the US. Either pay for it with taxes or get rid of it. If an employer wants to offer it, fine, but don't force them to provide it out of their own pocket, because doing so creates a disincentive to hire women.
I don't see what's so hard to understand about this, and I get the feeling you're trying to interject a different agenda to the discussion.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -
Governments love to legislate but businesses are an easy target for voter appeal legislation they don't have to fund.
If the government had to pay for all these public holidays and maternity leave etc. they would find themselves faced with some civil rights wet liberal politicians demanding they pay them even if the recipient is unemployed.
Not sure that fire brigades are a fair comparison.
When the first fire brigades were created they were private companies, often in competition within the same area. Each house chose whether or not to subscribe to a fire brigade and had a badge to hang on the outside of the building.
IF a house caught fire and a fire brigade turned up they would do nothing unless it had the correct badge shown.
No badge, no fire brigade.
Of course, once the fire spread to a neighbouring property with a suitable badge they would go to work.
Chances are it would first spread to a property with no badge.
Understandable that as private companies they would only protect paid up members but hardly a good state of affairs so the transition to a unified fire service was a natural progression.
London had its share of fires, some of which did great damage - (or good if you think rebuilding London was good idea) and it was felt it was no longer safe to leave fire protection up to the private companies.
Not sure that this compares with Maternity Leave .... except perhaps we should all get it around the appropriate age whether we have kids or not? Or some replacement perk?
When you start worrying about what is fair and what is not, you end up in trouble. A lot of laws are discriminatory.
We now have the EU deciding that it is discriminatory to base insurance payments and pension funds on life expectancy and hence, because they live longer, to pay a lower pension to women for the same fund. What that says about other insurance issues is another matter. Does this mean that 16 year old boys with jet propelled cars should pay the same premiums as 70 year old ladies?
PS When the British Fire Service had its staff training College at Wotton House (Evelyn's home or was it Pepys?) they had a nice collection of these badges on display.
Sadly, as punishment for going on strike, the government relocated the college down to some manic depressive modern building on Moreton in the Marsh airfield and Wotton House is now some sort of hotel.
At least with the private fire brigades, the costs were being paid by those receiving the benefits. Imagine if government offered free fire protection, but paid for it by taxing any company who hired Asians. Suddenly companies would have a disincentive to hire Asians, though no fault of their own. That's what the US system of forcing companies to pay for maternity leave does.
Now, having gone through this recently with our first child, there are private maternity leave options you can work off of. For instance, disability insurance applies to a certain limit on maternity leave, so if you're planning a kid well in advance, you can adjust your disability insurance to help some. But that doesn't eliminate the fundamental drawback to hiring women, that you're going to be on the hook for paid time off more than hiring a man.
Government realized this problem with our national guardsmen. They don't require employers to give paid time to deployed NG members. Rather, the government pays them during their time off, and merely requires the company to hold their position until they get back. The reasoning is that the National Guard are providing an essential service to our country and society.
If we decide that child bearing is an essential service to our country and society, then I see no reason not to treat it the same way as the National Guard. If we decide that we as a country and society don't really give a rat's rear about future generations, then we should get rid of any sort of government laws regarding maternity leave and put everyone on their own. I prefer the former to the latter, but the current system is the worst of the three, because it puts women at a disadvantage in the workplace.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -
"If we decide that child bearing is an essential service to our country and society, then I see no reason not to treat it the same way as the National Guard."
This is a very good point. The proper support of a child by the parents during infancy is an important factor in how the child will develop essential social skills like compassion and understanding. Absent or abusive parenting are strongly linked to future behavioural issues (including criminal activity) with childern. This makes it an essential service in my eyes.
Although not all parents are good parents, these "safety net" programs are important to give parents a better opportunity to be better parents (whether it's financial support or free education on parenting). Are they 100% effective, of course not. But does that mean that they are not worth while?
Furthermore, absent or abusive parenting is a cyclical problem. Childern that grew up in that environment do not develop a sense of responsibility and hence are more likely to have childern that they cannot support. Many of you wrongly superimpose your mindset onto people in this situation and think they should understand that if they cannot support a child, they shouldn't have one - many of them are not as forward thinking as that (men and women). They are also more likely to be absent or abusive parents to their childern. So it's not good enough to say, people will learn from their mistake because (1) they likely won't due to a lack of development in basic social/life skills because of poor parenting/lack of education and (2) we already will be paying for it as the cycle continues.
For the argument that people take advantage of these programs, a better place for you to focus your attention of people "milking the system" is how big corporations go to great lengths to save MILLIONS off their taxes.
And for the argument that these social safety net programs are such a huge draw out of your pocket, let's look at where (US) tax dollars go...
- 25% Defense
- 24% Health Care
- 19% Job and Family Security
- 0.7% goes to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
- 0.6% goes to supplemental food programs for woman, infants and children
- 0.6% goes to child care, foster care, adoption support
- 14% Interest on National Dept
- rest in education, vetern benefits, science, etc...
So, not sure why you feel that these programs (that are fractions of a penny on the tax dollar) are a burden on you.
People are born into bad environments. They miss out on having caring parents and having the importance of education and financial responsibility taught to them. Certainly there are some that find these things out on their own and bring themselfs out of the cycle but the vast majority don't. It's more difficult than any of us (that had a much better upbringing) can understand. You can't look down on these people and think they are lazy and useless because then the cycle never truely ends.
Yes, you also can't give hand outs that don't solve the core issue. But programs like the ones we talk about provided parents with a greater chance to be good parents and give their children the morals and sense of responsibility that we had passed down to us. These programs are not 100% effective but they are very important.
The results of the analysis of the recent riots in the UK show a sizeable majority of the offenders were already on the way to being career criminals and a surprising number were from single parent families.
Make of that what you will but it has certainly been the case that some girls have elected having a child and being a single parent as their path to a secure future.
