The wrangling over the so-called “ambitious” social and economic spending plans proposed by the Biden administration prove once again that the Democrats will not and cannot do even the most essential things for working people.
Initially, this proposal offered 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. Then that number was whittled down to only four weeks. Then, in the past few days, after complaints from even more conservative members of their Party, they nixed the paid leave provision from the plan entirely.
This is not to say that Republican members of Congress are innocent bystanders while the Democrats fight among themselves. Republicans in Congress solidly oppose addressing the health, education, and other essential needs of working people and all poor people. They do not want to raise taxes on the wealthy One Percent to pay for the majority’s needs
This all happens while most nations provide some sort of paid family and medical leave to their residents. In fact, the U.S. is one of only 6 nations on Earth – many of them far poorer than the United States – to offer no national system of paid maternity and paternity leave at all.
This demonstrates yet again that the Democrats, despite controlling the Presidency and both houses of Congress, are unable to help working people in even the most basic of ways—and that the two-party system leaves almost all of us out in the cold.
