Marco Rubio & his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad paid leave policy

Last week, in an eyebrow-raising move, Senator Marco Rubio detailed a plan for providing paid leave to workers. It’s a prudent political decision, seeing as 80 percent of Americans are in favor of requiring companies to provide paid family leave  and also because the US is the only OECD country that doesn’t mandate such a policy . Before you start thinking he’s a socialist in Milton Friedman’s clothes, note the key caveat in Rubio’s policy proposal: Whereas Democrats like Sanders and Clinton would institute paid leave via federal legislation, Rubio would merely give tax incentives to businesses that offered paid leave, thereby passing the responsibility of basic worker protections on to businesses themselves. Because if we’ve seen anything in the short history of capitalism, it is that businesses always have the best interests of their employees at heart. Here’s how his plan would work: Rubio’s plan would offer a 25% tax credit to employers who offer a minimum of 4 weeks of paid family leave. The maximum pay out per employee, to full-time and part-time workers, would be $4,000, and the maximum leave time would be 12 weeks. “For instance,” Rubio explained, “if you are offered $1,600 in paid leave for four weeks while you take care of your newborn, which would be the equivalent of about $10 an hour, your employer could claim a tax credit for $400.” Rubio’s plan acts as a voluntary, market-based approach to solving a huge problem in America:  less than 15% of US citizens have access to any kind of paid family leave . This is certainly not the first time Rubio has put the market in charge of improving complicated issues. In the past, he’s argued that we should leave it to the free-market to fix the environment  and yes, he thinks we should repeal Obamacare and replace it with a market-based health care program instead . What’s more, he finds it troubling  that most people believe “we need big government to protect the little guy.” Instead of being a guardian of the little guy, he thinks “big government — more often than not — is an impediment to the guy who is striving.” In essence, Marco Rubio has a cult-like devotion to the Republican god of all solutions, The Market. Give me a break. The Market
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