Been conditioned to believe that paid leave is a privilege, not a right. in other countries, it is second nature. nobody thinks twice about it. it makes sense. some of us, including every member of congress has paid leave through our jobs. why don t all americans have the same right no matter whom they work for or what they do for a living? america is at a competitive disadvantage as long as paid family leave is not a national guarantee. we have the opportunity to change that. the initial proposal in the bill was to provide 12 weeks of paid leave. now at last check, we were down to four weeks of paid leave. that s good. up from nothing. it would make america one of two countries out of 186 that do offer paid leave to offer so little of it. by the way, there is an element of the paid family leave proposal to make it one of the most progressive in the world. it would cover care for all
Along with through tuition for community college, marginal tax rate increases and the clean energy program. joe mansion doesn t think the paid leave policy should be in the bill at all. one democratic senator telling cnn quote people are pissed he wants to take out paid family leave. the problem is with the members here although they re very few in number, there are a significant minority think they have a right to determine what the rest of the congress should be doing. the minority should not be dictating to the majority. the president s initial 12-week family leave proposal was scaled back to four weeks in an effort to get mansion support but that didn t work. neither apparently has an effort by senator christian gillibrand to find a compromise with mansion that says tonight quote, i just can t do it. the question is can democrats
But here s the thing about this reconciliation bill. if democrats want to be on the record for making necessary systemic change in this country, this bill, or again republicans have zero say might be their only chance to do it. it s never been more clear that government spending helps americans. with coronavirus spending causing a record drop in poverty, particularly thanks to child tax credits which the reconciliation bill would expand. it could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address the country s affordable housing crisis as an expert told nbc news. its paid family leave proposal could help 37% of unemployed americans return to work sooner. not to mention the benefits expanded child care and universal pre-k would bring to parents. and its clean electricity programs would be a significant step toward ensuring that we actually continue to have a planet to live on. so moderate democrats, for double-crossing progressives and caring more about numbers than about your constituents,
sandra: there s been a lot of praise for your proposal. pew research found 87% of americans favor your solution to paid leave. american action forms analysis found americans are extremely supportive of this approach. but that doesn t mean there s still not a rough road ahead when it comes to the senate and their take on this tax plan. where do you see things going next? well, for my part, i m glad it s a chairman s mark. it has scored from chairman hatch r it has support from republicans on the committee. this would be the first time in the history of this country that we would pass the paid family leave proposal. again, it s targeted to people who really need it. these are people who could take an hour or two off to take their child to a doctor or help an elderly parent. they don t have that benefit now. i think we need to reach out and offer this as an incentive. americans support it, as you said. it is very popular.
For a lot of that. so, yeah, the democrats are in a strange situation, because the next four years are going to be disastrous from a democratic and liberal point of view, but that doesn t mean that they did everything wrong in this campaign. they didn t. when you say she was pop kbru list, and this is a message problem, a lot of folks in the democratic problem saberny was the populist choice and at a messaging left, trump seemed to steal that appeal, even if we re now learning we ve got goldman sachs and exxon running the so-called fixing of the rigged system. he stole it on the big issue, which is anti-trade. and there wasn t that much you could do about that. but she had a lot of positions. most people didn t know them, because she didn t quite manage to drive them home in the right way. her college tuition proposal, her health care proposals, her paid family leave proposal, there are a lot of things like that that would benefit, you