Issa vs. Parents

Yesterday, the House passed legislation allowing federal employees four weeks of paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child — a luxury they don’t currently have, instead forced “to cobble together accrued sick days and vacation time,” according to a statement from bill sponsor Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).

Among the most vociferous opponents of the measure was Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who offered a failed amendment that would have gutted the new benefit by forcing new parents to “exhaust all annual and sick leave” before the paid parental leave would kick in.

“[T]here is no way Congress can justify granting a costly benefit government workers [sic] at the expense of a nation that is struggling to survive the affects of a deep recession resulting in the loss of more than two million new jobs since January,” Issa, the senior Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement Thursday. “There is no way for Congress to tell nearly 14 million unemployed Americans that 2.7 million gainfully employed federal workers will receive additional benefits at a projected cost close to $1 billion.”

The cost claim is disingenuous, of course. The federal budget already includes full federal salaries, so paying for parental leave wouldn’t cost the government a dime more than it already intends to spend.

But, as Washington Post columnist Joe Davidson points out today, Issa didn’t let that little fact mitigate the ferocity of his opposition, which included release of a YouTube video suggesting that Maloney’s aim to join “other progressive family-friendly-oriented countries” would thrust the the United States into a category of nation’s including North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

Davidson wryly counters:

Perhaps Issa would feel more comfortable keeping the United States in the company of Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea, the only nations that do not guarantee some form of paid parental leave, according to a report by researchers at McGill and Harvard universities.

Or perhaps Issa, who’s wealth is estimated to be between $160 and $526 million, simply knows he’d never need the help.