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Agreed.  It's also shameful that they refused to have Sen. Rosenbaum on the show in support of this bill as she's the one that authored it.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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FredPDX,

People have a tendency to vilify "those people" that are manipulating the system or having way too many kids.  I'd turn that around and ask you to look at your neighbors and ask you how you would feel if one of them had a sick parent, a child, or a terminally ill spouse.  Would you begrudge contributing $42 a year so that they could take leave to care for their loved one?  What about your friends?  Are they all a bunch of freeloaders?  If you don't support this bill because you assume there's a bunch of opportunists in the next town over, support it because the people close to you might be helped by it.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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LTF-

I should have been more clear in my question - it was directed at the business lobbyist that was claiming that nobody would use the leave as nobody uses FMLA (something like 80-90% he said of people wouldn't use leave).  He kept throwing stuff out there without any research backup.  And the contrast is that the paid leave proponents have actually done their research and can show that the program is solvent.  I should probably take time to compose my thoughts rather than just stream of conscious throw them out there.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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One thing that I think is holding our country back from a policy perspective is this insistence that we cannot have a program that someone might possibly in some way abuse.  What this results in is a situation where we all suffer because of a small minority of people.  Insurance companies deal with this all the time in the private sectors.  It means there's a slight overhead in the cost of providing a service if you account for some level of abuse but not that you stop providing the service.  Obviously you try everything you can to prevent and stop the abuse but by refusing to provide a program based on it just makes us all suffer. 

We really need to get past this hangup as a society.  The world is not black and white and it is to our own detriment if we pretend that it is.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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How do you know people will not actually take the family leave?  Do you have any research to back that up or is it merely a fear tactic/straw man argument?  Please give a reference so that the public can also read your research and make sure it actually says what you claim.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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