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Column: With a noxious family leave proposal, GOP pretends it’s still pro-women despite antiabortion laws
Having achieved its long-held objective of eviscerating ladies’s reproductive well being rights, the Republican Get together is now onerous at work pretending that it’s about to enter a brand new period of pro-women and pro-family coverage.
A extra transparently mendacious declare is tough to think about.
Arguments are frequent that the Supreme Courtroom’s current ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group, overturning the half-century assure of abortion rights embodied within the 1973 Roe vs. Wade determination, units the stage for a torrent of pro-family GOP insurance policies.
This nation desperately wants paid go away, not only for new infants, however when employees get sick or to take care of relations who get sick. This proposal isn’t that.
— Kathleen Romig, Middle on Funds and Coverage Priorities, on Sen. Marco Rubio’s New Mother and father Act
After the Dobbs ruling was leaked in Could, a fellow on the Koch-funded Ethics and Public Coverage Middle asserted that permitting states to outlaw abortion “compels a better declare on public assets to assist expectant moms going through disaster pregnancies and to hunt to make all mother and father’ lives somewhat simpler.”
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, whose state produced the abortion ban that the Supreme Courtroom endorsed in Dobbs, stated on CNN after the ruling that “the following section of the pro-life motion is specializing in serving to these mothers that possibly have an surprising and undesirable being pregnant.”
Reeves did acknowledge, nonetheless, that “it’s not one thing that now we have spent numerous time targeted on.”
No kidding. Purple states, the epicenters of antiabortion lawmaking, may have carried out pro-family insurance policies each time they happy. For essentially the most half, they’ve accomplished simply the alternative.
For a superb illustration, simply evaluate the maps displaying the states with essentially the most stringent abortion legal guidelines with people who have did not increase Medicaid beneath the Reasonably priced Care Act, a key initiative to assist low-income households.
Of the 12 pink states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, 10 are listed by the Middle for Reproductive Rights as these by which abortion is now unlawful or which might be “hostile” to abortion rights. The exceptions are Kansas, the place abortion rights are protected by the state Structure, and Florida, the place abortion is authorized if it’s carried out throughout the first 15 weeks of being pregnant.
Mississippi, a non-expansion state, has the worst toddler mortality charge within the nation, at twice the U.S. common. Reeves was downplaying his state’s file when he stated it had not “spent numerous time” on serving to moms and households. It hasn’t spent any time on the problem.
The perfect illustration of GOP fakery on the pro-family entrance, nonetheless, comes from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who unveiled the Offering for Life Act, which he known as a “pro-family framework,” on June 24, the very day that Dobbs was handed down.
States with expanded abortion entry are proven in blue, these defending abortion rights in yellow, these not defending abortion rights in orange, these hostile to abortion rights in pink, and people the place abortion is illegitimate in darkish pink.
(Middle for Reproductive Rights)
The centerpiece of this proposal is the so-called New Mother and father Act, which might permit some new mother and father to take as much as three months of paid household go away for every new youngster, however require them to repay the profit by giving up a few of their Social Safety advantages once they retire.
That is only a reintroduction of a measure that Rubio and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), proposed final 12 months, which itself was a rehash of a measure Rubio proposed again in 2018, which itself was an alternate model of a plan proposed by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah).
We’ve been following these proposals in all their permutations from the beginning. All of them share the identical flaw, which is that they’re all disasters dressed up as advantages. Rubio’s plan, which is essentially the most detailed, can also be the worst, cementing his stature as a coverage vacuum swathed in gabardine, as we’ve identified earlier than.
Not one of the promoters has ever defined why household go away needs to be tied to Social Safety, which is mainly a retirement program, within the first place.
The states with essentially the most stringent abortion legal guidelines did not increase Medicaid beneath the Reasonably priced Care Act, a key initiative to assist low-income households.
(Kaiser Household Basis)
Each rich nation has a program of paid household go away, besides the USA, the place these packages are left to states; the one nationwide program offers just for unpaid go away for employees needing time for a brand new or sick youngster or to take care of ailing or growing old relations. And about half of all employees are ineligible even for that.
Opposite to Rubio’s assertion that his New Household Act would function a “pro-family” initiative, actually it will undermine household assets for many years to come back. Rubio hides this actuality behind lies and PR misdirection.
That’s a behavior of Rubio’s, as when he boasted about having “accomplished vital injury to Obamacare” as if that was a boon to sufferers reasonably than an enormous, expensive downside.
“This nation desperately wants paid go away, not only for new infants, however when employees get sick or to take care of relations who get sick,” says Kathleen Romig, an skilled on Social Safety and incapacity coverage on the Middle on Funds and Coverage Priorities. “This proposal isn’t that. It’s simply making households borrow in opposition to themselves. Not solely that, but it surely prices them for the privilege of borrowing their Social Safety advantages with actually substantial curiosity that accrues over many years.”
The New Household Act can also be a stalking horse for the final word destruction of Social Safety as a bulwark in opposition to poverty in previous age. One advocate of the idea of draining Social Safety for household go away has boasted that it may lead Individuals to “embrace” Social Safety reforms tantamount to privatizing this system — one thing that Individuals have resisted strongly previously.
The go away proposal, wrote Carrie Lukas, the advocate, “may even be designed to enhance Social Safety’s monetary circumstances by requiring individuals to surrender retirement advantages of better worth than the parental go away advantages they use.”
She’s proper about that, although it’s clearly a downside, not an enchancment.
Let’s study how Rubio’s plan would work, and determine its hidden prices. The plan would permit households to take as much as three months of paid go away for each new youngster and repay it both by deferring their Social Safety retirement advantages or taking a profit lower by way of as much as the primary 5 years of retirement.
The City Institute calculated that employees must defer their Social Safety advantages by as a lot as two months for each month of household go away.
That could possibly be a selected hardship for employees in bodily demanding or low-income jobs, who typically don’t have the pliability to place off Social Safety retirement a lot previous the minimal claiming age of 62. (Employees who declare retirement sooner than their regular retirement age — 67 for these born in 1960 or later — already need to undergo a lifetime discount in month-to-month advantages.)
The Rubio plan’s advantages would actual a heavy price. The City Institute estimated that oldsters with average incomes of about $50,000 a 12 months would obtain about $5,300 on common in advantages for every three-month go away, however would lose about $15,100 in lifetime retirement advantages in change.
That quantities to greater than 3% of anticipated retirement advantages, which means that oldsters who took three months of household go away for every of three kids can be giving up almost 10% of the retirement earnings.
What’s most cynical in regards to the Rubio plan is that it treats the neediest Individuals the worst.
“The very people who find themselves most definitely to wish paid go away,” says Vicki Shabo, senior fellow for paid household go away coverage and technique on the suppose tank New America, “are the identical individuals working in low-paid jobs with out retirement advantages and the place their main retirement safety in previous age goes to come back by way of their Social Safety funds. For them, working longer is probably not an choice due to the sort of work they’ve accomplished.”
The plan, Shabo provides, would disproportionately hurt “low-paid ladies and employees of coloration, who can be least prone to have entry to paid go away once they have a baby.”
Just a few additional particulars of the Rubio plan make it much more nugatory. Solely mother and father who’ve labored for 2 years or extra can be eligible, which leaves out anybody nonetheless at school or faculty or simply starting a working profession. They’d nonetheless be on their very own.
An obscure provision of the measure would require the Social Safety system to claw again any go away advantages that haven’t been repaid from retirement checks — say as a result of the beneficiary died earlier than reaching retirement or earlier than the complete quantity was repaid.
The proposal doesn’t explicitly say how that restoration can be completed, but it surely defines the unrecovered sums as Social Safety overpayments, and the Social Safety Act requires overpayments to be recovered from a employee’s property. In different phrases, a household already strapped by the lack of an earner can be additional harmed by a invoice from the Social Safety Administration.
A lot for the Republican declare to be looking for ladies and households. Rubio has the gall to claim that his plan represents a dedication to “undertake pro-life insurance policies that assist households, reasonably than destroy them.” He says his Offering for Life framework “would make an actual distinction to American mother and father and youngsters in want.”
He’s proper about that, really. It might make a “actual distinction” by making their lives immeasurably worse.
The federal government sued Southwest Airlines on Wednesday, accusing the airline of harming passengers who flew on two routes that were plagued by consistent delays in 2022.
In a lawsuit, the Transportation Department said it was seeking more than $2.1 million in civil penalties over the flights between airports in Chicago and Oakland, Calif., as well as Baltimore and Cleveland, that were chronically delayed over five months that year.
“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said in a statement. “Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the department is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”
Carriers are barred from operating unrealistic flight schedules, which the Transportation Department considers an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practice. A “chronically delayed” flight is defined as one that operates at least 10 times a month and is late by at least 30 minutes more than half the time.
In a statement, Southwest said it was “disappointed” that the department chose to sue over the flights that took place more than two years ago. The airline said it had operated 20 million flights since the Transportation Department enacted its policy against chronically delayed flights more than a decade ago, with no other violations.
“Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years,” Southwest said.
Last year, Southwest canceled fewer than 1 percent of its flights, but more than 22 percent arrived at least 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines all had fewer such delays.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In it, the government said that a Southwest flight from Chicago to Oakland arrived late 19 out of 25 trips in April 2022, with delays averaging more than an hour. The consistent delays continued through August of that year, averaging an hour or more. On another flight, between Baltimore and Cleveland, average delay times reached as high as 96 minutes per month during the same period. In a statement, the department said that Southwest, rather than poor weather or air traffic control, was responsible for more than 90 percent of the delays.
“Holding out these chronically delayed flights disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers traveling on these Southwest flights by causing disruptions to travel plans or other plans,” the department said in the lawsuit.
The government said Southwest had violated federal rules 58 times in August 2022 after four months of consistent delays. Each violation faces a civil penalty of up to $37,377, or more than $2.1 million in total, according to the lawsuit.
The Transportation Department on Wednesday also said that it had penalized Frontier Airlines for chronically delayed flights, fining the airline $650,000. Half that amount was paid to the Treasury and the rest is slated to be forgiven if the airline has no more chronically delayed flights over the next three years.
This month, the department ordered JetBlue Airways to pay a $2 million fine for failing to address similarly delayed flights over a span of more than a year ending in November 2023, with half the money going to passengers affected by the delays.
California government’s plan to phase out heavy-duty diesel trucks and diesel locomotives has been derailed.
The ambitious plan aimed at reducing local pollution and global greenhouse gases required special waivers from the federal government. The Biden administration hadn’t granted the waivers as of this week, and rather than face almost certain denial by the incoming Trump administration, the state withdrew its waiver request.
That means the far-reaching regulations issued by the California Air Resources Board in 2022 to ban new diesel truck sales by 2036 and force fleet owners to take them off the road by 2042 won’t be enforced. Known as the Advanced Clean Fleets rule, the idea was to replace those trucks with electric and hydrogen-powered versions, which dramatically reduce emissions but are currently two to three times more expensive.
“While we are disappointed that U.S. EPA was unable to act on all the requests in time, the withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said in a prepared statement.
Environmentalists reacted with deep disappointment.
“To meet basic standards for healthy air, California has to shift to zero-emissions trucks and trains in the coming years. Diesel is one of the most dangerous kinds of air pollution for human health,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, said in a prepared statement. “We’ll be working tirelessly in the coming years — and calling on Gov. [Gavin] Newsom, state legislators, and our air quality regulators to join us — to clean up our freight system and fix the mess [U.S.] EPA’s inaction has created.”
The trucking industry is pleased at the result, but hopes to continue working with California on environmental issues.
“This rule was flawed, and was not reflective of reality,” said Matt Schrap, chief executive at the Harbor Trucking Assn. “Ideally this is an opportunity to take a step back and look at a program that would be more sustainable.”
Trucking representatives had filed a lawsuit to block the rules, arguing they would cause irreparable harm to the industry and the wider economy. Train operators said no zero-emission locomotives exist on the commercial market.
Schrap said “the most important thing is the EPA could have issued the waiver and they didn’t.”
The EPA said it acknowledges California’s withdrawal of the waiver requests “and as a result is taking no further action on CARB’s prior requests and considers these matters closed.”
President-elect Donald Trump is a champion of the fossil fuel industry, making it unlikely that his administration would have approved the California waivers. The state could, however, pursue waivers at some point in the future.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to set its own air standards, and other states are allowed to follow California’s lead. But federal government waivers are required. Most of California’s waivers have been granted, including approval in December of a California ban on new sales of gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035.
Bezos, Zuckerberg and Coke at the inauguration
Corporate America had already raced to donate big sums to Donald Trump’s record-breaking inaugural fund. Now some of its leaders appear eager to jockey for prominent positions at the inauguration next week.
It’s a new reminder that for some of the nation’s biggest businesses, forging close ties to a president-elect who is promising hard-hitting policies like tariffs is a priority this time around.
Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are expected to be on the inauguration dais, according to NBC News, alongside Elon Musk and several cabinet picks.
The presence of Musk isn’t a surprise, given the Tesla chief’s significant support of and huge influence over Trump. But the other tech moguls have only more recently been seen as supporters of the administration. (Indeed, Bezos frequently sparred with Trump during his first presidential term.)
It’s the latest effort by Bezos and Zuckerberg to burnish their Trump credentials. At the DealBook Summit in December, Bezos — whose Amazon has faced scrutiny under the Biden administration and whose Blue Origin is hoping to win government rocket contracts — said that he was “very hopeful” about Trump’s efforts to reduce regulation.
And Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to Meta’s content moderation policy, including relaxing restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including L.G.B.T.Q. people that won praise from Trump and other conservatives. On the inauguration front, Zuckerberg is also co-hosting a reception alongside the longtime Trump backers Miriam Adelson, Tilman Fertitta and Todd Ricketts.
Both tech moguls have visited Mar-a-Lago since the election, with Zuckerberg having done so more than once.
Coca-Cola took a different tack. The drinks giant’s C.E.O., James Quincey, gave Trump what an aide called the “first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle.”
More broadly, business leaders want a piece of the inauguration action. The Times previously reported that the Trump inaugural fund had surpassed $170 million, a record, and that even major donors have been wait-listed for events.
Others are throwing unofficial events around Washington, including an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” that will feature Snoop Dogg, with tickets starting at $5,000, The Wall Street Journal reports.
It’s a reminder that C.E.O.s are reading the room, and preparing their companies for a president who has proposed creating an “External Revenue Service” to oversee what he has promised will be wide-ranging tariffs.
David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who’s hosting a pre-inauguration event, told The Journal, “This is the world order, and if we’re going to succeed, we need to get with the world order.”
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In other Trump news: The president-elect is expected to appear via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which starts on Inauguration Day, according to Semafor.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Investors brace for the latest inflation data. The Consumer Price Index report, due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, is expected to show that inflation ticked up last month, most likely because of climbing food and fuel costs. Global bond markets have been rattled as slow progress on slowing inflation has prompted the Fed to slash its forecast for interest rate cuts.
More Trump cabinet picks will appear before the Senate on Wednesday. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the choice for secretary of state, is expected to field questions about his views on the Middle East, Ukraine and China, but is expected to be confirmed. Russell Vought, the pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, will most likely be asked about his advocacy for drastically shrinking the federal government, a key Trump objective. And Sean Duffy, the Fox Business host chosen to lead the Transportation Department, will probably face questions on how he would oversee matters including aviation safety and autonomous vehicles, the latter of which is a priority for Elon Musk.
Meta plans to lay off another 5 percent of its employees. Mark Zuckerberg, the tech giant’s C.E.O., told staff members to prepare for “extensive performance-based cuts” as the company braces for “an intense year.” The social media giant faces intense competition in the race to commercialize artificial intelligence.
A new bill would give TikTok a reprieve from a ban in the United States. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he planned to introduce the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, which would give the video platform 270 additional days to be divested from its Chinese parent, ByteDance before being blacklisted. It’s the latest effort to buy TikTok time, as the app faces a Jan. 19 deadline set by a law; President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the potential ban as well.
A question of succession
JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock, the giant money manager, just reported earnings. (In short: Both handily beat analyst expectations.)
But the Wall Street giants are likely to face questioning on a particular issue on Wednesday: Which top lieutenants are in line to replace their larger-than-life C.E.O.s, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink.
Who’s out:
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Daniel Pinto, who had long been Dimon’s right-hand man, said he would officially drop his responsibilities as JPMorgan’s C.O.O. in June and retire at the end of 2026. Jenn Piepszak, the co-C.E.O. of the company’s core commercial and investment bank, has become C.O.O.
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And Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock’s global client business and a top contender to succeed Fink, is planning to leave, according to news reports.
What Wall Street is gossiping about JPMorgan: Even in taking the C.O.O. role, JPMorgan said that Piepszak wasn’t interested in succeeding Dimon “at this time.” DealBook hears that while she genuinely appears not to want to pursue the top job, the phrasing covers her in case she changes her mind.
For now, that means the most likely candidates for the top spot are Marianne Lake, the company’s head of consumer and community banking; Troy Rohrbaugh, the other co-head of the commercial and investment bank; and Doug Petno, a co-head of global banking.
The buzz around BlackRock: Wiedman reportedly didn’t want to keep waiting to succeed Fink and is expected to seek a C.E.O. position elsewhere. (So sudden was his departure that he’s forfeiting about $8 million worth of stock options and, according to The Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t have another job lined up yet.)
Fink said on CNBC on Wednesday that Wiedman’s departure had been in the works for some time, with the executive having expressed a desire to leave about six months ago.
Other candidates to take over for Fink include Martin Small, BlackRock’s C.F.O.; Rob Goldstein, the firm’s C.O.O.; and Rachel Lord, the head of international.
But Dimon and Fink aren’t going anywhere just yet. Dimon, 68, said only last year that he might not be in the role in five years. And Fink, 72, said in July that he was working on succession planning: “When I do believe the next generation is ready, I’m out.”
The S.E.C. gets in a final shot at Musk
Another battle between Elon Musk and the S.E.C. erupted on Tuesday, with the agency suing the tech mogul over his 2022 purchase of Twitter.
It’s unclear what happens to the lawsuit once President-elect Donald Trump, who counts Musk as a close ally, takes office. But the agency’s reputation as an independent watchdog may be at stake.
A recap: The S.E.C. accused Musk of violating securities laws in his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.
The agency said that Musk had failed to disclose his Twitter ownership stake for a pivotal 11-day stretch before revealing his intentions to purchase the company. That breach allowed him to buy up at least $150 million worth of Twitter shares at a lower price — to the detriment of existing shareholders, the agency argues.
The S.E.C. isn’t just seeking to fine Musk. It wants him to pay back the windfall. “That’s unusual,” Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane Law School, told DealBook.
Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, called the latest action a “sham” and accused the agency of waging a “multiyear campaign of harassment” against him.
The showdown sets up a tough question for the S.E.C. Will Paul Atkins, the president-elect’s widely respected pick to lead the agency, drop the case? Such a move could call the bedrock principle of S.E.C. independence into question.
Jay Clayton, who led the agency during Trump’s first term, earned the respect of the business community for running it in a largely drama-free manner. It was under Clayton that the S.E.C. sued Musk over his statements about taking Tesla private.
Musk, who is set to become Trump’s cost-cutting czar and is expected to have office space in the White House complex, has called for the “comprehensive overhaul” of agencies like the S.E.C. The billionaire said he would also like to see “punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”
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In related news: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of cheating its depositors out of $2 billion in interest payments.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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DAZN, the streaming network backed by the billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik, is closing in on funding from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund as the kingdom continues to expand its sports footprint. (NYT)
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The Justice Department sued KKR, accusing the investment giant of withholding information during government reviews for several of its deals. KKR filed a countersuit. (Bloomberg)
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OpenAI added Adebayo Ogunlesi, the billionaire co-founder of the infrastructure investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners, to its board. (FT)
Politics and policy
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