Missouri state rep thinks six weeks of parental leave is Marxist

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens announced this week that workers in the executive branch who are primary caregivers will receive six weeks of paid parental leave following a birth or adoption. Secondary caregivers will get three weeks.

Greitens’ order is sensible, if not all that generous. Most high-income countries provide between three months and one year of paid leave.

But state Rep. Mike Moon, a majestically mustachioed Republican who represents a district between Joplin and Springfield, sees communism in Greitens’ modest policy change. He recorded a video in which he says the policy “appears to be in concert with Karl Marx promotion of conflict between classes.”

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It’s not that Moon doesn’t love babies. “We should do all we can to provide for our families,” he says in the video. But by “we,” he means “you, the parent.” Moon goes on to say that state workers can use the sick and vacation time they have accrued to tend to their new arrivals.

Moon closes the video by criticizing the proposal to issue $48 million in state bonds to pay half of the cost of a downtown arts campus for UMKC. As Moon sees it, if UMKC can raise half the money for the campus, it should raise all the money for the campus.

“As much as I like music and the arts, I’m not a proponent of enslaving you in order to use public money to fund a project which can be done with private money,” he says.

Moon represents Lawrence County, which “enslaved” U.S. taxpayers for $48.2 million in agricultural subsidies between 1995 and 2014.