"Clinton to Seek Ban on Job Bias Against Parents." Job bias against parents? Contrary to my first response of disbelief, this April 17 front-page headline in the Washington Post turned out not to be a hoax or spoof but the latest and most absurd effort by the Clinton Administration to intervene in the private sector.

The President has teamed up with Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) to craft an initiative that would classify parents "as a protected class with respect to employment discrimination." The law would prevent employers from "taking a mother or father off a career-advancing path out of a belief that parents cannot meet requirements of these jobs."

Who would decide what is a career-advancing path and if parents are up to the challenges? Federal bureaucrats and federal judges. Driving this intrusion is the President’s belief that the government is responsible for raising America’s children.

"The most important thing is getting [the balance] right between work and society," said Clinton on April 25. "I think we would all admit that the most important job of any society is raising children as well as possible."

In other words, the President shares Hillary’s view that it takes a village, and both believe that the village is the government. But raising children is too important to be left to the government. It is a job for mothers and fathers, who consider it so vital that they decide to limit their hours at the office. While individuals who devote themselves solely to work tend to be promoted faster and to earn higher salaries, it does not follow that a person who chooses to work less is a victim of discrimination.

To justify their policy the White House is creating a crisis, which amounts to a handful of anecdotes in a nation of 260 million people. Their favorite case is the Minnesota mother who was passed over for a teaching and coaching job in favor of a woman with less experience in both areas. Meanwhile, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission faces a backlog of 80,000 cases and federal judges are staring at 25,000 employment-based civil-rights cases. But politics, rather than genuine grievances, backdrops this latest initiative.

Clinton’s enthusiasm for protecting parents is driven by his need to placate his most loyal defenders—feminists and labor unions—and energize them for the Gore 2000 campaign. If it was really about tweaking government policy to give parents more ability to make flexible arrangements in the workplace, he would endorse legislation that would allow employees to take time off, in lieu of overtime pay. That would expand freedom and make labor markets more flexible. Or, he could work to eliminate tax policies that penalize couples for getting married in the first place.

We could look to France for the ultimate solution in leveling the work-place playing field. The French government has made it illegal for anyone, including executives, to work more than 39 hours a week. Why not pass a similar law here? It would force workaholics to live a more balanced life and allow parents to spend plenty of time with their children. It might also give us an economy like France’s, where unemployment hovers at more than 11 percent.

Clinton said in his 1999 State of the Union speech that, "the era of big government is over." However, it is clear that the era of "Incremental Government" is here to stay.

—Sally C. Pipes

President & CEO