Yesterday in response to one of my comments on another blog, one of the commenters responded with three assertions:
- The Clinton Administration’s tax increases in 1993 were responsible for the sharp economic growth later in that decade.
- The Family and Medical Leave Act was a major piece of social legislation.
- The U. S. economy will boom in 2011 and 2012.
How in the world can you respond to such a person? As sure as I’m sitting here I know that he’ll claim that the ARRA (boosting aggregate demand) produced increased economic growth while the Clinton tax increases (reducing aggregate demand) produced increased economic growth. And in my view the Family and Medical Leave Act was essentially a fig leaf for a Clinton Administration that had been unable to get much passed through the Congress. It was only relevant to a very small sliver of American workers: full-time workers who worked for companies with more than 50 employees whose companies didn’t already have a similar policy in place and who could afford to take unpaid leave. This is major social legislation?
That commenter was not me. However, yes, the Family Leave act was a major piece of legislation not just for its direct effects but for its indirect effect in establishing a social norm. Yes, it only covers some workers, but smaller companies hoping to retain their best employees will be pressured to meet the same standards.
FMLA covers workers that can afford to take twelve weeks of unpaid leave — it’s an upper middle class reform. I’d say the more important social reform during the Clinton years was welfare reform, which had the opposite effect of sending more mothers to workplace.
I think the most important domestic measure actually executed by the Clinton Administration in its first two years was “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, implemented by executive order. And said so in my comment.
Welfare reform came later, after the mid-terms.
The Medical Leave act established a new social norm. DADT was a temporary bridge to its own elimination. Welfare reform was big because it eliminated a central element of right-wing talking points, and fascinating because its implementation created so few problems.
20 years from now DADT will be an embarrassing reminder of a by-gone age. FMLA will be seen as an obvious, necessary and humane approach and be fully adopted as the new normal.
By the way, when it comes to rising medical pay, don’t overlook the media as a source of empowerment for doctors. An enormous number of TV shows have focused on doctors and nurses, and the average person knows a little about his own doctor, and a whole lot more about the more interesting, sexier, more noble doctors on TV. The doctors on TV are never rich, let alone too rich. There is no hostility toward doctors to tap into as an emotional impetus for a pushback.
At the expense of lower growth rates and living standards in the future. And keep in mind we really can’t afford to keep reducing economic growth rates with other promises that have been made by the both Federal and State governments.
Invite him to make a small wager on point #3.
Steve V:
I think your assumption is simplistic.
FMLA makes it easier for us to access the female talent pool. It makes it easier for experienced employees to stay in jobs. It means children are likely to be better cared for and better educated, for instance during an extended illness. It means babies are more likely to be able to imprint on parents and mothers are more likely to be able to breast feed. Fathers are more likely to form attachments to their children. Each of these is an aid to long-term productivity and social as well as economic health.
Our most productive competitors in the developed world all have more liberal versions of FMLA.
Ask a new mother which she finds more concerning: being forced to choose between her job and her baby right now, or some theoretical reduction in future economic growth — economic growth that would in any case disproportionately benefit the top 1%.
“Ask a new mother which she finds more concerning: being forced to choose between her job and her baby right now, or some theoretical reduction in future economic growth — economic growth that would in any case disproportionately benefit the top 1%.”
Rephrased for the adults: “Ask a new mother which she finds more concerning: being forced to make hard, reality based and adult decisions involving tradeoffs, or the prospect of free candy at her neighbor’s expense.”
Drew:
That’s an idiotic response, even from you.
You want a rephrasing? Try this: What would the effect be on future growth of removing significant numbers of women from the labor market? What is the effect on growth (and profitability) of losing some of the most experienced employees when they get sick or have a family problem? What is the effect on the economy if a larger percentage of children are deprived of time with their parents?
And as always, Drew and Steve both, the question you two avoid like the plague: Why is it that every developed economy on planet earth can do it and we cannot?
Why can France have universal health care and we can’t? Why can the Netherlands have family leave and we can’t? In the real world your ideology turns to wet papier mache. The only way to buy your line of shortsighted me-me-me ideological bullshit is to never travel outside of the United States.
“At the expense of lower growth rates and living standards in the future.”
Probably, though IIRC, countries which have more liberal versions of these laws have lower divorce rates and their kids go on to learn better with fewer delinquency issues. Hard to separate that out from other social factors, but it may not be as negative as believed. Throw in the demographic issue and I am not sure where you end up.
Steve
Michael,
First, I think you should learn about opportunity cost.
Second, I’m not saying it is necessarily bad, but that like most things in life there are trade offs. Nothing is ever free. If a parent wants to spend 3 months of unpaid leave bonding with their child that’s great, but the cost is 3 months of not having that parents output for the economy. That is a cost. Make it a standard policy and the overall impact is to reduce economic output/growth.
Or to put it another way, if Medicare were not a problem, if state pension plans were not a problem, if health care were not growing at 2x the rate of economic growth, and we weren’t looking at possibly 4-5 years of unemployment well above 5% maybe even 6% then such a program wouldn’t be no issue at all, IMO. We could easily do it. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world and we can’t make living in that world a right.
In other words, we as a country have made inter-generational promises that are seriously in imbalance and thus policies that will have a tendency to reduce economic growth are going to not help that situation. Maybe we should stop?
And my comment about the future is that from the point of FMLA’s passing onward we’d likely see a larger portion of the work force engaged in activities that are not productive in the sense of economic growth. Instead of going to work and adding to the economy that parent is at home spending time with the baby. Not that spending time with a baby per se will make a worker less productive in the future.
We are doing it. The problem is that no matter how much you might think there is a room filled with endless amounts of money/resources we live in a world were resources are limited. Divert a productive member of the economy way from being a productive member of the economy, you end up with less output. Its really that simple. Then add on that we have huge problems with medicare, health care in general, financial markets, and so forth and that meeting various obligations is becoming more and more problematic, such policies might become rather expensive.
Tell us Michael, how are we going to meet Medicare’s $70 trillion dollar shortfall? When you’ve explained that one then I’ll admit you are right. Also, economic growth wont work since we’d need growth rates we haven seen in a very long time (i.e. consistent economic growth double what we’ve seen in the last couple of decades). Come up with a plan that is both political feasible and will address the problem and then you might be right.
Then when you are done with that, come up with a plan for state pension plans.