GMA Plumps for More Paid Leave

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On this morning's GMA, a classic bit of MSM advocacy for more government regulation of business that will drive up costs and drive out jobs. The occasion is the hearings today before the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), on a proposal to expand family and medical leave and impose mandatory sick leave.

Introducing the segment, ABC's David Wright lamented that "it's something that every parent struggles with: how to balance work and family. And the U.S. lags far behind other countries in helping parents to cope. Here on Capitol Hill today, Congress will take the first baby steps to try to address that situation."

So for Wright and ABC, even the measures being proposed by Congress are mere "baby steps." Just how much more government regulation does ABC want?

Then it was time for a sympathetic anecdote, a mother from Wisconsin who quit her Wal-Mart job because of the cost of gas and day care. She'll be testifying before Congress today.

Wright then carped that "the U.S. doesn't make it easy" for parents to cope, citing a recent Harvard-McGill study of 170 countries that found that the U.S. is only one of four countries that doesn't require paid leave for new mothers. As a screen graphic informed us, the other uncaring countries are . . . Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland. A regular Third World country, the USA!

Roll a clip of a Columbia professor, Janet Currie, who said "it's very important to keep attention focused" on achieving these reforms.

Wright didn't bother to compare unemployment rates in the U.S. and in other countries that offer these "helpful" programs, as in Europe. Here, unemployment is 5.1%. So low that people claim we need more immigrant workers to do jobs Americans aren't filling. Contrast with Spain: 9.9%, Germany, 9.6% and France, 10.2%.

But of course GMA never told viewers that there's a price to be paid for such regulations. The MSM never met an onerous business mandate it didn't like. Why confuse people with both sides of the story?

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net