Sanders: Paid Family Leave Should Be Enshrined into Law Like Social Security

MITCHELL: “She's been on this for a long and she criticizes your plan, but your plan is the Kirsten Gillibrand [indecipherable] plan from the House and Senate Democratic women who are talking for — they are proposing a small payroll tax hit to pay for it. Why do you defend having workers pay for what Clinton argues should be a benefit?”
SANDERS: “First of all, this is the legislation that is moving in the Senate. We have some 20 sponsors there. It’s the legislation moving in the House. We have well over 100 members there. And what I think all of us have concluded that we have got to provide paid family and medical leave for all of our families and the strongest way to do it is the way that Franklin Delano Roosevelt did it with social security and the way that Lyndon Baines Johnson did it for medicare. That is make it solid through a very, very modest payroll tax on employees and employers. $1.61 a week. I think $1.61 a week, and so do all of my colleagues, is a very good investment to guarantee three months of paid family and medical leave. So when a mom has a baby, she’s not forced to be separated from that baby after a week or two, or that moms and dads can take care of their sick kids or their parents. We think this is the strongest and most effective way to go.”