Two perspectives on the Gillibrand-Biden tussle

[brooklynite]

Gillibrand unearths 1981 op-ed to bash Biden on support for working mothers

Despite Gillibrand’s claims on Wednesday, Biden never explicitly said that working women, in particular, were leading to the “deterioration of family.” In fact, as HuffPost noted, he took some pains to argue otherwise.

“I do not care whether in a modern marriage you want the man or the woman to take that responsibility,” he said, per an Indianapolis News report in July 1981, referring to the job of staying home with a child. “That has to be resolved by each couple individually.”

But, as HuffPost reported, women disproportionately bear the responsibility for child care. If one parent stays home, statistically speaking it’s much more likely to be the mother. Even if Biden’s argument didn’t explicitly target women, the effects of his policy likely would have.

Regardless, Biden’s arguments did not strike a chord in the Senate. In the end, he was the sole dissenter in a 94-1 vote in favor of the expanded tax credit. Biden’s efforts to add an amendment eliminating the credit for wealthier couples, which would have left an exception for single parents of all incomes, also failed.

Kirsten Gillibrand totally mischaracterized Joe Biden’s op-ed on ’deterioration of family’


Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) went after former vice president Joe Biden for an op-ed he wrote for the Daily Times in Salisbury, Md., in 1981. The headline was “Congress is subsidizing deterioration of family.” To ensure everyone saw it, her campaign tweeted out the column during the debate, adding “He should explain to America: How does a mom working lead to the deterioration of the family?” In 2019 America, the headline provided the perfect opening of attack for the junior senator from the Empire State, who is trying to break through a crowded field of contenders. And, yet, it was a cheap shot.

The Gillibrand campaign disagrees with my assessment. "She was very specific in asking [Biden] to explain the words he wrote,” a senior adviser to the senator told me, “and he never gave an explanation.” Not surprising since the debate format, with its minuscule rebuttal time, favored confrontation over considered conversation.

Once you read the op-ed, you see that Biden’s argument about the deterioration of the family had nothing to do with “allowing more women to work” and everything to do with the rich gaining on the backs of working families. He was bemoaning a child-care tax credit that was being made available to upper-income Americans. Biden wrote about how he tried to make them ineligible and why.

“I do not accept as legitimate is social policy that encourages a couple making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or more a year to evade full responsibility for their children by granting them a tax credit for day-care expenses,” Biden, then a senator from Delaware, wrote. “I do not believe it fair to ask a family of marginal income, choosing to provide the primary car for their children, to subsidize an upper income family’s day care.” Keep in mind that $30,000 in 1981 is estimated to be the equivalent of $84,000 in 2019 dollars, and $50,000 in 1981 would be worth $140,000 now.

[hlthe2b]

1. Gillibrand disingenous? Say it isn't so...

(cough, Franken)

[wysimdnwyg]

2. Thank you for this

It's bad enough that Republicans are going to lie and distort our records. We don't have to do it to each other.

[highplainsdem]

3. Ana Navarro calls Gillibrand's attack a cheap shot and a pretty lame one at that, and

she points out that Biden was saying high-income families should pay for their own child care.

Link to tweet

Biden favored EXPANDING the child care tax credit for families that weren't high-income, and he didn't propose any income limit for the child care tax credit for single parents who had to work to support the family. He just thought that if a couple made enough money that one (either the father or the mother) could stay home with very young children, that would be best.

And if most people didn't believe that having a parent at home can benefit a young child, we wouldn't have any arguments for paid parental leave. Sweden, a country that many progressives seem to think we should model outselves after, has 480 days of paid parental leave.

[BeyondGeography]

4. Gillibrand is inept

She was having a pretty good night until then. Moreover, it was a punch (more of a slow motion drunken haymaker) she telegraphed all week so Biden was ready for it. It was an epic misfire which probably ended what was left of a candidacy that never got off the ground.

[emmaverybo]

5. He was right about it all. Thanks for giving context. I am hoping that Warren will begin to be

likewise selective in which families she gives universal childcare to as the greatest need is for working single parent families in lower wage jobs. I think it a good idea to be, as Biden lobbied for,
judicious in our giveaways. Such should be the case in providing free college, student debt cancellation, and affordable housing with the neediest getting the most benefit and others being provided for on sliding scale basis or some sort of income driven eligibility.