Why stop at paid family leave?

Operation Hope
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Might be a leap here but please feel free to expand on the idea…

New federally funded job: Parent.

Once you have a child, that becomes your full time job. You are paid by the government as a government worker to love, raise, educate, and assist your child/children in understanding our reality and how to maintain a benevolent and sustainable existence on our planet.

Paid family leave helps a little, but capitalism is still crushing us. We need to let parents focus all of their time and energy on the future generations.

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That’s an interesting idea but I don’t see a lot of Republicans going for it. What if we reserved or gave great preference to parents for certain jobs. Maybe we could give them preference for remote positions.

I like your idea but I expect Republican lawmakers would not be receptive to it. Historically they aren’t interested in protecting families. They love money though, so if we converted at home parents to tax paying employees that’s a win for the country.

My idea may not be good either, it’s just an alternative to consider.

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Oh my God,
Can you imagine the impact of describing this initiative as the motherhood campaign where the role of mother in a family is recognized for its essential role in society to raise strong, healthy and intelligent children to lead us into the future (insert soaring eagle carrying an apple pie wearing an apron :joy::joy_cat::rofl::+1:)

How could the Republican party rally against motherhood as a recognized profession :pleading_face:

:grin::joy::rofl::joy::grinning:
It’s politically bulletproof and utterly diabolical in its simplicity
Even mitch McConnell had a mother :revolving_hearts::hugs::revolving_hearts:

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$350,000 to raise a child to age 17 in Canada :flushed:
Canada has universal healthcare
Oh good lord, how much is being spent by US citizens :tired_face:

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hyp3rfr3sh - So both parents are going to stay home & raise their kids full time? Nobody will be responsible for bringing any income into that household? And this will apply for same-sex parents too, right? I have questions.

  • How long will this parental UBI last?

  • What’s to stop chicks who don’t ever want to have a job (& yes, they exist, I have known at least 3 of them) from popping out a kid every other year so they can stay at home on the govt’s dime (which is our tax dollars) until menopause? Esp. the Christian fundamentalist types who expect their wives to do that anyway.

  • Any parent, even the White Supremacists, will want to home-school their kid because shaping their child’s beliefs & values will be their top priority, right? Seriously, it’s bad enough that most states don’t even require people to have a h.s. diploma in order to home-school their kids!

  • Are you planning on having social services make home visits every 3 mos or so to make sure these kids aren’t being starved or beaten or abused or rented out to p@dos? And out in the 'burbs & rural areas, how will anyone know that the parents aren’t smoking/drinking/shooting up their parental UBI $$ & neglecting their kids? Parental UBI could enable all kinds of abuses when nearly every child is being home-schooled.

I’d rather invest my time & energy fighting for programs that will benefit EVERYONE, like Medicare For All. Medicare is already up & running, so it wouldn’t be a program that has to be built from scratch. We’d need some gov’t statistics experts & a policy wonk or 2 to figure out the formula for lowering the enrollment age over time until we have everyone covered. The savings from phasing out private health insurance & nationalizing the drug companies & hospitals would more that cover the costs.

Barring that, the other single thing I’d like to see a major IRS overhaul to boost taxes on the rich – on ALL their assets – to 75% of every dollar above $100 million. No loopholes, no exceptions. And for the billionaires, a 95% tax on all assets above $500 million. Dodging taxes is how they became billionaires – now let’s tax the billionaires out of existence!
Greedy pricks like Muskmelon & Beelzebos have amassed far too much power simply because their billions allow them to pay for anyone & anything they want. It’s time to end them.
But anyone making less than $125k per year would pay no federal income taxes – that’s barely a middle-class salary in any big city now. I suspect most folks here are making less than $125k. Imagine what your life would be like if you no longer had to pay taxes starting in 2025. From $125k - $500k, the tax rate would be 10%. From $200k to 1 million, 15%. After that first million in assets, a flat rate of 25% until they hit $100 mil.

If we’re here to figure out how to build the kind of support it takes to create a movement, our 1st big battle needs to be for something that will benefit nearly everyone in the country, not just parents.

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Only if there is some metric on being a good parent. Would love to hear how other countries handle this!! Why does nobody talk about how young parents in other democracies are treated/make it in other countries!?!

In this country, at least where I am, it’s a lot of irresponsible people who are having the kids and they do not have that attitude you listed. I know some people who look at having kids as a break (so stupid!!!) because they will then qualify for social programs like food stamps because the life they are living working part-time (cuz places like walmart don’t want to give out that full time status) and getting paid slightly above minimum wage just doesn’t cut it and makes life feel hopeless.

So, there needs to be more education in schools on the costs of living and about raising a kid (it’s more than just not breaking it). There needs to be limits and expectations so that having kids just to have them isn’t the type of parent we’re getting for our future generations. The day-after pill needs to be readily and cheaply available since we are living in a society where sex is not something that should only happen with committed partners. There should be maternity leave for 2 years of the child’s life or at least assistance like foodstamps and housing vouchers at the 400 or even 500% poverty level. A paternity or family leave for 3 weeks to support the mom and new baby. And 1/2 day prek at the age of 3. And for the states that want to argue that you can’t have an abortion because the life starts at x. y or z, they should have to support that child beginning at that time and the social security office should have to provide that protected citizen with a social security number at that time.

I personally think that MOTHERS should be at home for the first 2 years so that they can breastfeed on demand. I did that with my last and did not have nearly the problems I did with my other children. In other countries, it sounds like the standard is to breastfeed into toddler years. It is so beneficial and nobody here even talks about it. But it is a HUGE financial setback for most people, and for some not even doable. When people want to talk about the obesity in this country which is a huge problem which impacts the quality of our workforce and drains our social programs and would impact potential medicare for all, breastfeeding is never mentioned. For me, this why a 12 week Family Leave for the primary caregiver is not enough.

(would add more but was too many characters)
Would like to see progressives have a long-term plan (like the federalist society) and build, instead of just bandaide legislation that has drawbacks that the Right then points to in order to discredit all progressive legislation.

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So both parents are going to stay home & raise their kids full time?
Yes.

How long will this parental UBI last?
As long as they remain in the role.

Any parent, even the White Supremacists, will want to home-school their kid
Let them, they already are. The problem with a broken ideology is that it crumbles under logical analysis. Flat-Earthers constantly disprove themselves without any assistance from an informed source. White supremacy or any other belief in superiority of any type of genetics is an absurdity on its face. Providing free access to the abundance of information available in our collective records is enough to provide evidence for anyone seeking knowledge to inform themselves and drop the primitive ideologies. The trick is to incentivize people to seek knowledge rather than incentivizing the hoarding of wealth.

Are you planning on having social services make home visits
How about daily? Think about this for a moment. If your job is to be a parent and you are government employee, there would hopefully be some type of assistance from the management of this program that checks in with the parents daily to make sure all of their children’s needs are met, to discuss any special action plans necessary, what options each child may have in regards to education, nutrition, socialization, skill development, etc. A person in a position of substance addiction and self abuse should not be put in a position to be a parent, but rather afforded help from their government to either get well or use in a safe environment that doesn’t put others’ safety at risk as well. This is an entirely separate issue, but one that requires urgent attention as well.

I’d rather invest my time & energy fighting for programs that will benefit EVERYONE
Trust me, I’m with you here. Just a general living wage UBI would completely negate the need for this “professional parent” role entirely. However I think that this may be a MUCH tougher fight as it would require an enormous amount of pressure on corporate profits to be funneled to social programs. Capitalists seem to hate sharing resources with those who don’t share their worldviews.

ALL their assets – to 75% of every dollar above $100 million. No loopholes, no exceptions
I think that’s far too generous, honestly. Here’s my proposal:
-Tax 100% of revenue collected.
-Taxes collected are equally distributed to all citizens as UBI.
-UBI affords citizens to pay for the goods and services they choose.
-Repeat from the top.
This approach creates an open ended marketplace for all people to find pleasure in life however they chose regardless of what activities are deemed profitable.

I do think we’re on the same page here in a lot of respects. I was more just trying to come at the larger issue from the angle of those seeking to promote paid family leave.

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They must be not denied access to be a parent if they want to be one. If they still want to be there and that doesn’t pose any threat to the child. We should make access to there children a priority. We must preserve this relationship.

Daily wellness checks could be a form of mental abuse for some. Forcing an interaction isn’t great, what you want to do is reorient them with society. This process should done with care and on a case by case basis.

I think both ideas as far as a UBI for parents and that tax code outline. The problem with both is critical path to implementation. Meaning UBI for instance would be great but if you went with it right now you have to change it to likely to get enough political support to pass. This means you get less, and may not be a bad thing. The other part is you have the push back from it going in to effect. This is all the people that will exploit this. Meaning you just gave away to make money by having children. The political fallout will be obvious. This will likely spur a massive boom in population as well. This is true if you don’t also offer a UBI to single folks at the same time.

UBI only works for some folks is what the studies seem to show. There is a critical band of poor that a UBI greatly helps. The super impoverished and mental ill need more.

Your are both correct in context. The problem is we are all conditioned to start a conflict to get attention for the good of something. When this is over used there is to much noise for the conflict to convey meaning.

This is why we need a triage system a HUD / Dashboard. We need more tools that aggregate information in a friendly UI/UX for the purpose of consensus building.

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Absolutely love your points. I agree there should be a UBI implemented for all citizens, not just for parents. The goal in mind, truly, is to create a government or system that is configured to support everyone equally and allow each of us to individually hold sovereignty over ourselves while also benefitting from the collective productivity of our species’ civilization. Imagine if everyone were afforded an equal share of everything for simply existing. This can be achieved through our collective cooperation, but is just as easily thwarted by the notion that any of us deserves more than another based on how we conduct ourselves or spend our time. The only way forward is bringing an end to this notion. Pay everyone first, then ask them to work for purpose.

There could be some benefit in an initiative to appropriate government funds to building a comprehensive national database. The first step in organizing society would certainly be accounting for everyone. A singular federal portal for all interactions with the government that could be built up more and more as programs are created. Cast ballots, update records, request services, etc. I understand that there could be privacy concerns with something like this too, but that’s just a symptom of our current iteration of government being used to not only provide but also suppress. Something that definitely deserves attention in its own right.

As for the topic of parenthood and substance abuse, I hear you entirely. There should never be any reason to deny a parent their child for any reason. However, in extreme circumstances, help should be afforded to all parties in need. This circumstance in particular makes the case for a professional parent role a bit more complex to implement into our society as is. To which I would argue that it is just another reason to add to the list for an end to capitalism entirely. Until then, the only thing that truly matters is profits.

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So, I have a point to add. You seem to be saying that the funds for UBI would be paid by corporate profits. However, following my understanding of MMT, funding a jobs guarantee (which could include the job of being a parent), or funding a UBI (for that matter) would in fact not be funded in the way you are implying. To summarize MMT: taxes do not fund spending. If we have questions about macro economics, feel free to inquire further.

Aside from that narrow point, I would also add that this topic thread is a bit specific about expanding a stated policy, which would of course be a result of a political strategy, (among other policy results). However, I think the operation hope is more about finding ideas for such a strategy, rather than about the ideas for the policy results we’d expect of said strategy. If anyone is interested in an example of the strategic thinking to which I am referring, I would appreciate if you would check out my topic, running progressive republican.

Thanks! and take care, <3

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You seem to be saying that the funds for UBI would be paid by corporate profits.
Not exactly. UBI should be paid for by corporate revenue, meaning that businesses send 100% of their collected money back to the government. Government essentially becomes the market and prices go to 0. This is an ideological shift that is impossible to overcome without full participation, so I understand how it may seem daunting. MMT needs to be completely abandoned and replaced by a simple solution that gives ALL of the money to the individual citizens equally and stop treating corporations and nations as anything other than a means to structure.
Capitalism is the problem we need to fix. Until then nothing else is solvable because greed will likely always persist if we allow one person to gain more wealth than another. Pay people to exist, then ask them to work for free. If they refuse, that’s their prerogative. Send them their money and let them live in peace.

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Oh, well I think I misunderstood you then. Yeah, I think you make some interesting points. I greatly appreciate:

It reminds me of some of my own economic perspectives, (if I may expound…). People are indeed entitled (leaning into the word) to basic goods (housing, food, income, water, cellphone, healthcare, public transport, leisure, etc). And, people should accept that one should freely manage one’s own labor, especially free from the social delusions that one’s labor ought be manage by another. And this laborer could then freely agree or not to work with others, (without needing minimum wage laws since UBI covers minimum, nor many other currently wasteful social rituals, including many regulations). Then businesses would compete for labor along axis’ other than just wages, (like work environment conditions, equitable organizational structures, etc.); i.e. an actually fair-market for labor. Further, the labor which society must have in order to secure the aforementioned entitlements would first be drawn from the pools of that fair-market labor; in the cases where this first pool is insufficient to secure said entitlements, a market mechanism (now freer than any in history) would price sufficient wage incentives. As a result, the most needed (harshest / difficult) requisite labor would produce the wealthiest members of society. Imagine that, nurses being among the top 10% wealthiest members of society, and self organizing according to free and fair market dynamics.

I think my economic vision may be far less revolutionary than yours (I’m not removing revenue, though I would still say things about taxes). That said, if we were to get to your visions, then I suspect we might go through something like mine on that way there, considering where we are currently.

Anyway, I’m especially in agreement with your position on one’s right to one’s labor. And, I guess the reason I went into detail with my vision is to say that: some people puzzle with trying to square the right to not labor, with the entitlements which requires someone’s labor, but somehow not coerced. In other words, if people have the right to UBI and other human rights, including the right to not labor, then some human rights will be insecure and unfulfilled because not enough people will want to freely provide the requisite labor. I hope my explanation of my economic perspective does a fair job at squaring that paradox.

I suppose I’m interested to hear what you think about my vision, especially regarding how it still enables laborers to earn equitable inequality.

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Poll for: why-stop-at-paid-family-leave

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Topic: Social/Economic Justice & Security
Subcategory: Paid Family Leave
Is Legislation: Yes
Is Federal: Yes
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What? Why?
Once you have a child, that becomes your full time job. You are paid by the government as a government worker to love, raise, educate, and assist your child/children in understanding our reality and how to maintain a benevolent and sustainable existence on our planet. Paid family leave helps a little, but capitalism is still crushing us. We need to let parents focus all of their time and energy on the future generations.

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