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Praise for Sununu

By Hank Golec - Pelham | Oct 14, 2018

You’ve no doubt heard a lot of criticism surrounding Gov. Chris Sununu’s opposition to a paid family and medical leave bill that was proposed earlier this year. It’s the subject of Molly Kelly’s latest attack TV advertisement. But what you’re not hearing is that no one could certify that the proposed program would be solvent, and Sununu couldn’t, in good conscience, sign off on a program that would fail.

The bill proposed a state-run program that would effectively create an income tax for employees, with an estimated $14.5 million in start-up cost. The bill also called for an onerous opt-out mechanism, requiring automatically enrolled private sector employees to send in a notarized letter opting out every year.

These issues aside, the main problem with the bill was the inability of the Department of Employment Security or the Department of Insurance to certify the program as sustainable long-term. All talk to trying to approve the program as written should have ended there.

Gov. Sununu supports paid family leave, but it has to be the right plan for New Hampshire, a program that can last. There is great danger in hastily and recklessly implementing a paid leave program without regard to long-term solvency. People who would come to rely on it might suddenly find that it is no longer available in their time of need, putting Granite Staters in an even worse situation.

Join me in thanking our governor, and urge your legislators to write a bill with a program we can all support and rely on.

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