Hillary, will be the "President of Families and Family Values"

This week Senator Clinton offered up a huge plan, what I like to call "The Family Plan." Think Sprints' "Fair and Flexible" cellular phone plans, except in politics. Her proposals will do some great good for American working families. She has proposed numerous plans to strengthen the American family. While Republicans are trying to tear down the American family, by putting partisan politics over the health of our children and trying to block certain qualified couples from adopting, Hillary Clinton is saving the American family unit.


See the below blog on "MotherTalkers" (www.mothertalkers.com) :

Hillary Proposes Flextime for Parents

By: Elisa

It's as if she had written the Motherhood Manifesto herself. Sen. Hillary Clinton offered a comprehensive family leave and flextime policy to families, including money to let low-income parents stay home with their children, according to details sent to MotherTalkers by the Clinton campaign.

To give all parents more time with their children, Hillary is proposing:

--Having all states give family leave by 2016. By “family leave,” she means time off for workers to care for their parents, children, spouses, or immediate family. To achieve this goal, she is committing $1 billion a year in start-up costs and matching funds for states to implement family leave through disability, unemployment insurance, business tax credits, “At Home Infant Care” and similar programs.

--Expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to give employees at companies with 25 or more workers 12 weeks of job-protected leave. The change from 50 employees (current law) to 25 would benefit 13 million workers at small companies.

--Guaranteeing at least 7 sick days per year -- up from the typical 5 days allotted by most employers.

--Promoting workplaces with flextime and telecommuting policies by providing grants and highlighting businesses that offer such perks. She will also require federal agencies to set specific telecommuting goals for their workers and allot up to $50 million annually in state and local telecommuting initiatives.

--Ensuring higher quality childcare by helping states improve and enforce licensing and safety standards of childcare centers, supporting public and private partnerships to increase the supply of affordable, high-quality childcare to working families and expanding the Child Care Development Block Grant to allow "qualifying low-income" families to stay home with their children. Currently, the block grants can be used only by parents who work outside the home.

--Making it illegal for businesses to discriminate against families for pregnancy or care-taking duties.

The total cost of her work-family initiative is $1.75 billion per year. Clinton plans to finance it by recovering the money from questionable -- or even illegal -- tax shelters.

Of course, the Republican spin will be that she is raising taxes. You can’t win with them no matter what sensible reform you propose to the tax code.

But, I am excited that Hillary has laid out a much-needed, but realistic, goal to come up with flextime for working families. She is a smart campaigner.

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I enjoyed the blog from MotherTalkers and it's good to know mothers are out there listening to what Hillary has to say.

Meanwhile in an e-mail response to Clinton's plan (According to www.aikenstandard.com) , S.C. Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson released a statement that said in part: "South Carolina families should be offended by Hillary Clinton's disingenuous effort to hide her radical record for abortion-on-demand, gay marriage and higher taxes."

What do you know? While Hillary is trying to strengthen the American family, Republicans avoid the conversation and jump to gay marriage and abortion in no time. First of all, what does Clinton's plan have to do with abortion and gay marriage? Nothing at all. That's just it. Republicans, as usual, running from their own nasty record on helping families, jump to attack mode quick. It's sad for them, that they have resorted to such vile attacks on the American families that keep the country going.

Chris McLeod