Denver, CO – Last spring, we witnessed the most horrible legislative session on record here in Colorado. This is the session that included killing the oil and gas industry, taking away constitutional rights, passing National Popular Vote, and other nonsense.
Well, some of that other nonsense didn’t pass, but the Democrats just won’t give up on pushing it. Maybe the sixth time is the charm for them, but based on some of the interviews from their special interest masters, we don’t see a compromise coming anytime soon.
We are talking about the Paid Family Medical Leave Act. In a nutshell, you and your employer would pay into a fund that may or may not be run by government bureaucrats. This fund would pay for other people to take time off of work with taxpayer and employer money. Last year’s version was ripe for abuse, and we expect the same in 2020.
That’s great, more free stuff! We used sarcasm here if you didn’t notice. We covered the disastrous plan back in March 2019.
This issue was covered by two of the local dailies yesterday, Colorado Politics (more on that in a minute) and The Denver Post. Here are some highlights, first the end of the show from the last legislative session:
And so it was with tears in her eyes that Winter stood on the Senate floor in late April as she abandoned the effort to pass a paid family leave program in 2019. Lawmakers instead passed a bill that called for a potential program to be studied by a task force through the summer and fall, and for a nonpartisan actuary to study what it would take for the program to be solvent.
Alex Burness, The Denver Post, November 17, 2019
The legislature did its usual song and dance for when they can’t get something passed, because well…it sucks. Then, they form a study committee or fund a study. Now, this is really just a ploy to drum up support, work over weak opposition, and give the same legislation a go in one or two sessions – maybe after an election. Well, this legislation is so bad that even after taking complete control of Colorado in 2018, they still couldn’t pass it.
But here they are, promising to bring it back. This is probably why. Let’s listen to their special interest masters from the liberal group 9 to 5:
That day, organizer Ashley Panelli with 9 to 5 Colorado, the advocacy group that’s worked with Winter for years on this, said she felt Democrats hadn’t shown enough backbone: “The definition of a problem or a burden is relative. And I think that legislators do compare these things where it’s like, well, is this corporation going to have to pay a little more money or is this mom going to die? These are not the same things.”
Alex Burness, The Denver Post, November 17, 2019
Geesh, the Democrats didn’t have enough backbone last session? How crazy liberal is this Panelli person? The Democrats went crazy liberal off the rails all session – that wasn’t crazy liberal enough? Even we were surprised by this quote. Not to mention the blatant exaggeration of death if this bill doesn’t pass.
Well, small businesses and large businesses hate this from the quotes in the article. Obviously, it will hurt them and their employees. The government shouldn’t force a costly family leave program on employers. If employers want to keep the employee, they can easily negotiate on a case-by-case basis.
Also, why should taxpayers pay for people’s family planning decisions? Why can’t individuals make that choice, and choose to have a family when and if it works? Why shift the responsibility from the individual to the government who takes from the employer and taxpayers? Well, because – government – that’s why.
Colorado Politics ran a less in-depth article on the same topic. It didn’t have the crazy quotes from the liberal groups, but it did have something special – a banner advertisement.
Why was this banner advertisement special, you may ask? Well, it was an ad advocating for the paid family leave bill accompanying the article on the same topic!
We blew up the above picture and highlighted the issue:
So the ad lobbying Governor Jared Polis takes you to the direct government comment webpage for Polis. Click HERE to see what we mean. Clearly, the liberals are smart enough and have the funding to make good ad placements.
The assault on taxpayers and businesses is already beginning with the 2020 legislative session around the corner. Unsurprisingly, an outrageously costly plan leads the pack.
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