Tweet [1]
… is from George Will’s latest Washington Post column, “Paid maternity leave? Your baby will get the bill [2].”:
Evidently it is now retrograde to expect family planning to involve families making plans that fit their resources. Which brings us to the approaching birth of a new entitlement: paid family leave after the birth or adoption of a child. This arrival will coincide with gargantuan deficits produced primarily by existing entitlements.
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Although this will advance the left’s agenda of broadening and destigmatizing dependence on government, many conservatives support it in the name of “family values,” and because free stuff polls well. But it will not be free for someone, so the argument is about who should pay. The debate will concern ways to disguise the benefit’s costs while requiring others to pay for it.
DBx: See also the work on this topic by my intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy – for example here [3] and here [4].