JDV: We should have a family care model that makes choice possible. Let's say you'd like your church, maybe, to help you out with child care. Maybe you live in a rural area or an urban area, and you'd like to get together with families in your neighborhood to provide childcare in the way that makes the most sense. You don't get access to any of these federal monies. We want to promote choice in how we deliver family care and how we promote childcare because, look, it is unacceptable.
PROMISE BROKEN: (CNN March 6, 2021): Unlike Biden's initial proposal, neither bill would reinstate mandatory paid family and sick leave approved in a previous Covid relief package. But they continue to provide tax credits to employers who voluntarily choose to offer the benefit through October 1.
OnTheIssues ANALYSIS: Paid family and sick leave is mandated in 10 states: CA, CO, CT, DC, MA, NJ, NY, OR, RI, and WA.
SANDERS: To equate what goes on in Venezuela with what I believe is extremely unfair. I'll tell you what I believe in terms of democratic socialism. I agree with goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia, guaranteeing health care to all people as a human right. I believe that the US should not be the only major country on earth not to provide paid family and medical leave. I believe that every worker in this country deserves a living wage & that we expand the trade union movement. I happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism means, is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough--You've got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in Wall Street, the insurance companies and in the media. Maybe, just maybe, what we should be doing is creating an economy that works for all of us, not 1 percent. That's my understanding of democratic socialism.
15 CANDIDATES HAVE SIMILAR VIEWS: Michael Bennet; Cory Booker; Peter Buttigieg; Julian Castro; John Delaney; Tulsi Gabbard; Kirsten Gillibrand; John Hickenlooper; Jay Inslee; Amy Klobuchar; Seth Moulton; Beto O`Rourke; Tim Ryan; Bernard Sanders; Elizabeth Warren.
The congressional plan creates a universal, gender-neutral, national paid family and medical leave program allowing for up to 12 weeks of paid leave.
Women who have paid family leave are more likely to stay in the workforce and off federal programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing.
Families that have paid leave are much less likely to declare bankruptcy. And children have a greater chance of leading healthy and more productive lives if their parents have paid family leave.
We have to make sure that workers in this country have paid sick time. Forty-three million Americans don't have access to paid sick leave today.
SANDERS: When Secretary Clinton says, "I'm not going raise taxes on the middle class," let me tell you what she is saying. She is disagreeing with FDR on Social Security, LBJ on Medicare and with the vast majority of progressive Democrats in the House and the Senate, who today are fighting to end the disgrace of the United States being the only major country on Earth that doesn't provide paid family and medical leave. What the legislation [costs] is $1.61 a week. Now, you can say that's a tax on the middle class. It will provide three months paid family and medical leave for the working families of this country. I think, Secretary Clinton, $1.61 a week is a pretty good investment.
CLINTON: Senator, I have been fighting for paid family leave for a very long time. I have a way to pay for it that actually makes the wealthiest pay for it, not everybody else.
SANDERS: I think if you're looking about guaranteeing paid family and medical leave, which virtually every other major country has, so that when a mom gives birth, she doesn't have to go back to work in two weeks, or there's an illness in a family, dad or mom can stay home with the kids. That will require a small increase in the payroll tax. According to Senator Gillibrand's legislation and we can accomplish that with just a small increase in the payroll tax.
Q: That's going to hit everybody.
SANDERS: Yes, it would. But it would mean that we would join the rest of the industrialized world. We are behind many other countries in protecting the middle class and working families.
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