(Madrid, IA) Republican presidential candidate Dan Quayle on Saturday said he wants to bring about both “an environment” in America and changes in the federal tax code which will bolster families in which a woman, or man, chooses to stay home to care for kids.
Quayle plans to deliver the specifics in a speech in Washington, D.C., on Monday, but the former Vice President hinted at the cornerstone policy change he’ll seek while talking with a handful of reporters in this small, central Iowa town.
Quayle gained notoriety, and some criticism, during his tenure as Vice President for his attack on what he considered the ‘positive’ light in which single motherhood was depicted on the now-ended television show, “Murphy Brown.” The show’s main character, a television journalist, raised a baby on her own in a major storyline for the series.
“I’m going to be making a speech in Washington on Monday on this because part of it is attitudinal,” Quayle said Saturday. “The radical feminist movement has really, basically, told the women, ‘Don’t stay at home. Just work.’ …People I talk to, especially women, given the choice, they’d rather spend more time with their children.”
Quayle said cutting federal taxes and making the child tax credit “universal” will help some parents make the decision to leave the world-world and stay at home with the kids.
“The average American family is exhausted,” Quayle said. “They’re stressed. They’re working overtime. You’ve got the 24-hour, seven-days-a-week economy, and now they’re talking about putting microwaves in cars. That means less time at home.”
Quayle said with the average income in America at $26,000, a $13,000 swing would be enough to make a parent decide to stay at home to raise their children.
“I think it’s time that women who choose to stay at home to raise their children, or a man in this day and age — sometimes men make that choice and the woman may work full time and the man may choose to stay home. That’s fine, but I think most households, it’d probably be the woman,” Quayle
said.
But Quayle was quick to say tax policy alone won’t return America to a one-parent-stays-at-home society.
“It really does come down to attitudes,” Quayle said.Quayle visited this tiny town of Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid in Iowa rather than muh-DRID, as it’s pronounced in Spain) to tour the “Family Tyme Theatre.” The facility is under-renovation. This winter, the seating area had been under snow. This summer, there’s a roof, cement block walls and a stage where a singer struck up “O, Danny Boy” as the former Vice President made his way to the front.
“This is really the way it can be. To have folks in a community like Madrid who have a place where families can come together, family-time, family movies,” Quayle said.