‘Pro-family’ Republicans will have a hard time running against Biden’s new aid package: columnist

Republicans are going to face a difficult challenge running against the American Families Plan.

President Joe Biden unveiled the $1.8 trillion package aimed at helping parents care for their children, and The Daily Beast's Erin Gloria Ryan said the bill puts Republicans in a tough spot politically.

"How are all the so-called pro-family Republicans going to run against it?" Ryan wrote. "How does a GOP official who ran for office 'as a mom' justify opposing measures that would help mothers who don't have government-funded health care or six-figure salaries? We're about to find out."

The bill would offer 12 weeks of family leave, universal pre-kindergarten, tax cuts and credits for parents, two years of free community college and higher wages for child care providers -- all paid for by requiring wealthier Americans to pay more in taxes.

"I was curious how the GOP would handle all this," Ryan wrote. "After all, 2020 was allegedly the 'year of the Republican woman,' a year where a record number of conservative ladies swept into office. Surely the GOP would have the good sense to have one of the women who last year was at the front and center to explain why they don't believe that the American Families Plan would actually help American families."

"They didn't," she added. "Instead, they had a man do it."

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) didn't offer any direct counter proposals to Biden's plan, and other Republicans suggested the bill was a communist plot.

"Sen. Marsha Blackburn embarrassed herself once again by arguing on Twitter that universal Pre-K was a bad idea because the Soviets had universal Pre-K," Ryan wrote. "The Soviets also loved the color red and space travel, but neither affinity was enough to dissuade Blackburn from being a fan of both."

Biden's bill will help expose the GOP's longstanding claim to families as a sham, Ryan argued.

"The Republican party, which has long held itself out as the pro-family party, has offered no real policy solutions to address the slow squeeze that this country has put on families since the Reagan era," she wrote. "Sarah Palin parading her five children across a rally stage over a decade ago didn't make it easier for a mother to find care for a 6-week-old infant when her six-week unpaid FMLA leave ran out. Members of the Senate Judiciary complimenting Amy Coney Barrett for raising seven children didn't make it less outrageously expensive to have give birth in a hospital. Ivanka Trump plastering her social media with photos of her own children didn't make it possible for a young couple with college debt to qualify for a home loan."

"The only thing the Republican party has done that could possibly be construed as an attempt to promote families is repeatedly attempting to force pregnant women into childbirth by restricting abortion, which, judging by that falling birth rate I mentioned, hasn't been very effective," Ryan added.