Has she ever tried to meet a payroll?
....and not just be on the receiving end (and as being a high profile network news anchor, I fairly sure that her weekly / bi-weekly / monthly pay check as a few more 0's in it than mine does).
As someone who has been both an employee and an employer, I have first hand knowledge of managing my own business (albeit, a small one) of what it is like at the beginning of the week and start to worry about meeting payroll obligations - not just to the employees, but also to the state and the Feds. Owning your own business is no small task ESPECIALLY when it is a REAL small business - and I'm talking 10 or fewer employees. If one is a good owner, you DO worry about making sure your obligation to your employees are met.
Thus, when I saw this story over at NewsBusters, I could only shake my head (emphasis by NewsBusters):
GMA to America: Be More Socialist With Paid Time Off
On Friday’s "Good Morning America," reporter Elizabeth Vargas openly lobbied for the passage of legislation that would require employers to offer six weeks of paid time off to workers for maternity, illness, or the care of a loved one.
[snip]
Elizabeth Vargas: "Everybody has that reaction, Robin. 26 million mothers in this country work. The vast majority say to make ends meet, they must. With that many moms in the work force, you'd think the U.S. would lead the way in flexible, family-friendly policies. Think again. For millions of working moms, those first weeks after giving birth are a time to take off, recover, and bond with your new baby. But increasingly, the question is who pays?"
Ah, the question! Ms. Vargas had the question pointed in such the automaticl answer would be "of COURSE! The families!"
Got news for Ms. Vargus - it will be the employers that will pay...and of course, who really pays is the consuming public - those that pay for the goods.
Now, if you work for a large organization, it is easier for the company to pass on those regulation based costs. However, small companies will find it very hard to:
- Pay that worker's pay without any productivity
- Put the crunch on the other workers to "take up the slack"
- Have to pay overtime as needed to those workers
- Pay for a fill in worker
Or some combination of all of them. Now, depending on type type of business, one could burn out the remaining workers, have a couple quit, and then because of not meeting customer demand (or running afoul of other state / federal regulations), go out of business.
Sorry, but I have nothing but a stone faced stare when someone like Ms. Vargus casually seems to believe that it is an employer's obligation to provide such a social service. Once again, I see a Liberal trying to impute to employers such obligations that should not be.
Case in point? Let's continue (again, emphasis from NewsBusters):
Vargas: "Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut says that only 12 percent of U.S. companies offer paid maternity leave, even though 71 percent of all mothers work. Late yesterday, he proposed expanding the Family Medical Leave Act to allow all employees in this country at least six weeks of paid leave, to care for a baby or any sick family member. Senator Dodd says studies show it is good business for employers to offer paid maternity or medical leave. But when we spoke to Karen Czarnecki from the Department of Labor, she disagreed.
I'd love to know what those studies are - frankly, the network news should have done it's homework to provide them!
Karen Czarnecki: "We'd end up losing jobs. I think the economic consequences would be dire."
Vargas: "Czarnecki says it would cripple many businesses if they had to pay an employee to take time off to care for a newborn or a sick parent. She says it's up to each employee to plan for those life events."
Czarnecki: "We need to do more to encourage Americans to save more for the times they do need to be out of the workforce."
Vargas: [Incredulous] "It's up to a person to save enough money before they have a baby to be able to stay home for a few weeks and recover and spend some time with that new baby?"
Czarnecki: "Yeah. I think people have to take responsibility for themselves and they shouldn't always look to government to have an answer for them."
Full Disclosure: I have used the Federal Family Medical Leave Act (and no, I'm not going into details). I NEVER thought that my employer at the time should be compelled to pay me for that time off. Emergency? Yes. Could it have been planned for, as Ms. Vargas is asking? No. Did I make it through that time? Yes.
Vargas: [Incredulous] "It's up to a person to save enough money before they have a baby to be able to stay home for a few weeks and recover and spend some time with that new baby?"
No, it's not silly! Adults are never supposed to be responsible for their own lives or for those lives for which they are responsible (like kids). We don't have to plan for anything, right? Nothing is ever the result of a person's actions, right?
What nonsense! If you choose to have a baby (or at least choose to participate in such activity that could lead to creating a new life), you have chosen an action. And yes, now you need to be responsible for that action.
What the heck is Ms. Vargus thinking? Before the time of Big Government, before the time that people began to believe that Big Government was the Big Nanny, that's what people did.
They were responsible.
Czarnecki: "Yeah. I think people have to take responsibility for themselves and they shouldn't always look to government to have an answer for them."
And this is the debate that is being fought in all kinds of areas - do we turn over our lives to the State, believing that it can take care of all of the wrongs and bumps in the road of life, that we are entitled to nothing but good outcomes?
Or believing in ourselves instead, that government exists to provide only certain services and is mainly there to "not get in our way"?
Frankly, the sad show of the lack of basic economic theory shown by Ms. Vargas in this story shows how bad things can get when they are not properly educated (or care to educate themselves).
