Transparency Concerns at the Export-Import Bank and the Costs of Paid Parental Leave
Social Security Can’t Afford Paid Family Leave
A number of plans to fund paid parental leave have been circulated in Washington over the past year. One allegedly “deficit neutral” plan would allow parents to take six weeks of family leave on Social Security’s dime, in exchange for receiving their retirement benefits six weeks later. Veronique de Rugy and Justin Leventhal released the following chart to visualize this plan’s potential cost:
Even if only half of all eligible parents took advantage of paid family leave, the program would spend $418 billion dollars in its first 30 years—the point at which a significant number of parents would begin to retire, and thus repay their paid leave through a delayed collection of benefits. But that number doesn’t account for interest on the debt, which would bring the cost to $557 billion. Even then, the half-a-trillion-dollar price tag doesn’t cover administrative costs, increases in payments, or increases in participation. It also doesn’t account for the unfortunate reality that some parents would not live long enough to defer retirement.
To read the entire publication, click here.
The Export-Import Bank Lacks Transparency
The Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank financially backs a number of transactions in the name of supporting US exports. But rather than inform taxpayers about how their money is used, the Bank has increasingly relied on vague descriptions that obscure the nature of their transactions. For example, the Ex-Im Bank categorizes a large percentage of its borrowers as “multiple borrowers” rather than naming any particular firms. Similarly, the Bank merely labels its borrowers’ countries of origin as “multiple countries.” Veronique de Rugy and Justin Leventhal demonstrate this phenomenon in their second set of charts for the week:
To learn more about the Bank’s transparency gap, click here.