GOP Candidate Carly Fiorina Opposes Mandating Paid Maternity Leave

After an acclaimed performance in the debate for lesser-known Republican presidential candidates held on Fox News on Thursday, Carly Fiorina has been doing the press rounds this weekend. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO, who previously lacked the name recognition to make it into the main debate, is now being hailed as a viable opponent to Hillary Clinton. But being another female candidate for president does not align her with the kinds of policies many women have been seeking, namely, federally mandated paid maternity leave. "I don't think it's the role of government to dictate to the private sector how to manage their businesses," she said on CNN's State of the Union Sunday morning. Netflix's newly announced yearlong paid parental leave, she said, is an example of a company making a decision that made sense without outside interference. "It's pretty clear that the private sector, like Netflix, is doing the right thing because they know it helps them attract the right talent." As the Huffington Post points out, 39 percent of American workers don't have any kind of paid sick or parental leave, so it would seem that most of the private sector is not currently doing the "right thing." "For the government to tell others how to do things, when the government hasn't gotten its basic house in order, is not only ineffective, it's hypocritical," Fiorina reiterated on CNN. Fiorina made other claims about the inefficiency of the federal government and pledged to cut jobs from the public sector. Meanwhile, her opponents, including Donald Trump, often point out Fiorina's questionable track record as a business leader. During her tenure, she cut 30,000 jobs from the company, and she was forced to resign from her job in 2005 as HP stock dropped more than 50 percent. She then turned to a political career, including a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in California against Democrat Barbara Boxer in 2010.