Darrell Issa is Completely Insane

by Lucas O'Connor [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed Paid Parental Leave for Federal Employees. Women's Policy Inc. explains that "the bill would allow federal employees to be paid for four of the twelve weeks of parental leave to which they are entitled under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (P.L. 103-3). The legislation also would permit federal employees to use up to eight weeks of accrued sick leave for parental leave."

It seems like a pretty good piece of legislation, and even if you have some reservations about the particular legislation, the principle of supporting new parents is certainly tough to argue with. Unless of course you're Rep. Darrell Issa, in which case you're completely insane and terrified of the coming scourge of out-of-control foster parenting:

"[L]et's look at this from a practical standpoint. You are running a federal department. You have somebody who you need, and every single year, as often happens, they take on a new foster child that they keep for three to five years and they have, let's say, three foster children. That means that individual will be gone on paid leave over and above their vacation, over and above their 13 days of sick leave a year, they are going to be gone four weeks every year, conceivably for a full 20 years.

A relatively brief perusal of foster care statistics reveals that only 46% of foster care placement is to a non-relative foster family home in the first place. It's hard to believe that those nearly 237,000 foster children, when distributed throughout the entire national network of foster families drawn from 300 million Americans, is a terrible danger to the 7 million non-contractor federal employees from the same year as the foster care statistics.

But apparently our federal bureaucracy is overrun by lurking foster parents poised to strike now that they can spend their entire federal careers taking in foster children in order to get out of work. I'm the son of federal bureaucrats of varying level and description, and I find it hard to believe that going into work is so awful that you'd plot some nefarious foster parent plan for your entire adult life expressly to game the government.

Of course, Darrell Issa is the guy who thinks that 9/11 victims are just trying to bilk the government for a quick buck. And if Halliburton wants another Iraq contract ($15 billion in reported profits last year) or someone suggests eliminating tax breaks for oil companies, Issa's happy to shell out the bucks. Or if it's earmarks for pork that'll help him get re-elected, he'll throw down more than $100 million in federal dollars.

But the foster parent menace! It threatens us all. Sorry Darrell, but not everyone hates government as much as you do.