Ensuring Women Can Thrive/The Burnout Epidemic

House Ways and Means, The Burnout Epidemic and What Working Women Need for A Stronger Economy, June 15, 2022

Working men can also experience burnout if they have been the stay at home parent prior to returning to work. I was in that circumstance, doing the bathing and homework and making dinner after a full day of work as a federal contractor working as if I were a federal employee (but without the benefits and protections - but that is the topic for another committee). In general, however, these duties often fall upon mothers. It is safe to say, however, that everyone is burnt out. 

Worries about the state of the economy do not help.  If most people knew why inflation is raging, they would be even more upset. Few realize, including in the policy community, that the quiet deregulation of the Consumer Financial Protection Authority, especially the NYMEX Oil Floor, under Mr. Mulvaney is the real reason for this crisis.

Lower wage workers face particular worries. The increased advance child tax credits under the American Rescue Plan Act have expired, renewing financial pressure on all families - but particularly those with inadequate incomes.

The solution to all of this is to re-regulate NYMEX and to Build Back Better. I will address each item, in turn. These comments are based on items as proposed, rather than as compromised within the Majority.

I have also attached our tax reform proposals, as our recommendations depend on where the money comes from. Note that these proposals have been changed. Taxation of dividends and interest have been shifted to the high income surtax and higher tiers of the subtraction VAT. This is more appropriate because the SVAT is designed to capture both capital and wage income. This change is consistent with that principle.

House Budget: Ensuring Women Can Thrive in a Post-Pandemic Economy, March 16, 2022

Workforce development, for additional years of free education, historic investments in education.

Too often, women in government provided training programs, especially TANF, are pushed into occupational fields for the benefit of society, not the women themselves. Many are victims of inadequate education as they were coming up. We owe it to them, as we leave the pandemic, to take this opportunity to right decades of bad behavior by the educational and public welfare systems.  There should be no such thing as low wage work. The more we can channel people into appropriate training, the more traditionally low wage jobs will have to pay to meet staffing needs.

Most importantly, participation in education, remedial/ESL or training should be paid the statutory minimum wage, which should go up to at least $10/hour immediately. 

Social services agencies would direct educationally underserved women (regardless of immigration status) to the most appropriate training or placement program based on their potential, not the need for people to clean bed pans. Stipends and child tax credit payments would come through the education provider and be included in their invoice to the state government. Signing up for training should require no screening process for eligibility.

Make critical investments in childcare

As stated last year, childcare arrangements should be the responsibility of the employer. Tax incentives should thus be an offset to an employer-paid tax, preferably one on total value added (both labor and capital),  with either neighborhood care or care at or near the workplace financed by the employer. In Smart Growth urban planning, this can be the same thing.

Create paid universal and family leave

The free market cannot provide such benefits universally, so they must be required. To aid marginal firms, these benefits can be paid for as an offset to employer-paid taxes as above.

Extend key tax benefits to lower and middle income workers and their families. Deliver Nutrition Security….

All families should receive these benefits, which should also come from an employer-paid tax. Self-employed workers with children and only one client should be considered employees of their client. If wealthier households benefit too much from such tax benefits, they need to pay more in tax so that offsets are a necessity. 

The Child Tax Credit should support the income of each dependent child at median wage levels and be fully refundable. If a family participates in education and training, as mentioned in point one above, their child tax credit should be paid with a training stipend set to the minimum wage. Including these benefits with pay reduces the need for a $15 minimum wage. Paid training, an adequate child tax credit and a higher minimum wage allows for an end to SNAP and TANF for most women and their families. 

These reforms MUST be scored as pro-life legislation and be funded more broadly than the President has promised. We are all for raising taxes on the wealthy, but these funds should be targeted to national defense, net interest payments  and debt reduction (starting with the Social Security Trust Fund). An asset value added tax (which is described below with our employer-paid subtraction VAT) should be the primary way the wealthy are taxed - along with surtaxes on middle ($85,000 - $200,000) and upper income salaries ($200,000+). Make tax benefits adequate and the 1099 economy will go be replaced with higher statutory employment.

Having served on the staff of a major abortion rights organization in the past, I can assure you that no such organization WOULD EVER OPPOSE HIGHER LIVING STANDARDS FOR WOMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES!

The chief obstacle for funding families is not the feminist movement. It is the so-called right to live movement who would rather women be penalized for having abortions than subsidized so that they are not necessary. Over the course of many decades, I have had conversations with conservative members of the pro-life community. When push comes to shove, they oppose the measures above because their objections to abortion are more about sexuality than the welfare of children.

In the pro-choice movement, many jump to the defend women’s bodies argument before first addressing the need for adequate family income. Doing so now will shame the leadership of the pro-life movement into supporting these provisions to Build Back Better.

Many in the pro-life movement already do. Catholic Charities USA, NETWORK and the Catholic Health Association all stand with working and poor women. They must be very publicly leveraged to get the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops behind them as well - and to have the bishops insist that these measures be considered must-pass legislation for the computation of pro-life voting records. 

Catholic members of Congress and the President should also lead on this effort. It is time to stop grandstanding on this issue. These measures must pass - and on a larger scale than provided for in Build Back Better. On this International Day of the Woman (when the comments were drafted), how can we not do so?

Attachment: Fiscal Year 2022 Budget

Attachment: Tax Reform (videos included in link)

Video: https://youtu.be/r21OMEgWOHY