Hillary Clinton has picked a fight with Bernie Sanders over paid family leave. She is trying to frame Bernie’s position as an unfair tax hike on middle class families. Not only is she attacking Sanders, but she’s attacking the entire movement for paid leave under the Family Act, which has great progressive support. The Family Act establishes a system like Social Security where everyone pays into the program. The Family Act would add a small payroll tax of about a $ 1.50 a week for working families. Clinton has attacked Bernie and the Family Act for raising taxes on families that are already struggling. Her plan? She hasn’t released a comprehensive plan with specifics as of yet. However, she’s taken a seemingly more “progressive” talking point on how to pay for paid leave by increasing taxes on the wealthy.

Not only is Clinton’s proposal extremely vague, a tax hike on the rich is way too unstable for something as important as paid family leave. Sanders, alongside with the progressive supporters of the Family Act, understand that we need to create a strong and long lasting family leave program where everyone pays into it. Clinton’s line of attack is similar to her opposition of a single payer Medicare for all system. Her positions on paid leave and single payer are far from progressive. Her positions don’t provide enough security for working families like that of more progressive proposals.

How can Clinton say she supports working families and then oppose medicare for all? Her position on paid leave is completely backwards and is in opposition to the current fight in congress for the Family Act. Her proposals don’t have enough strength and security for middle class and lower class families. Like Bernie Sanders often asserts, we are the only country without these guaranteed programs. This is unacceptable. Clinton attacks Bernie’s proposals because they raise taxes, but what she doesn’t understand is that these families won’t be paying for healthcare anymore under single payer and they will also be able to send their kids to state colleges for free, which is another proposal Clinton is against.

Clinton doesn’t provide strong, secure, and long lasting programs that will effectively provide middle class families with enough security. She attacks progressive movements like Medicare for all and paid leave with Republican talking points that simply misinform the electorate. If Clinton is going to continue to attack these proposals with misinformation she can no longer claim that she is a progressive.