“It may be tempting to simply write this off as “Trump being Trump” and move on. But the Republican presidential nominee’s consistent inattention to the details of policymaking does matter—even if it has no bearing on the election—and the child care issue is a perfect example of why.
This sort of issue is a liability for Trump because he can’t just bluster or pander his way through it. Trump excels when he can turn complex policies into simple, partisan us-vs.-them arguments that allow him to avoid any attention on the specifics. On issues like taxes and immigration, this technique works because one party broadly wants the policy to shift in one direction, so Trump can simply promise to do the opposite—never mind the details.
But no one wants higher child care costs. Both sides want to reduce them. The argument, then, must turn on which side can offer the better plan for accomplishing that goal. As Thursday’s answer makes obvious, Trump has no such plan.”
https://reason.com/2024/09/06/why-trumps-child-care-policy-incoherence-matters/
“San Diego’s law enforcement child care center, funded through both public and private money, is the first of its kind in the country, but plans for several others across the US are already underway. A bipartisan bill in Congress would expand the model further.
Supporters call law enforcement child care a win-win-win — a way to help diversify policing by making it more accessible to women, a recruiting tool at a time when police resignations and retirements are up, and applications are down. And, frankly, they hope that an innovative model for child care will give a PR boost to a profession that has taken severe blows to its reputation over the last decade.
But it also raises a basic question: Why just police? What about subsidizing other professions, including other first responders like firefighters and nurses?”
https://www.vox.com/child-care/353426/innovation-in-child-care-is-coming-from-a-surprising-source-police-departments
https://www.vox.com/22744837/house-senate-democrats-build-back-better-child-care
“Biden is making relief for child care centers part of his larger caregiving plan, which he unveiled on Tuesday in New Castle, Delaware. “As a first step, Biden will immediately provide states, tribal, and local governments with the fiscal relief they need to keep workers employed and keep vital public services running, including direct care and child care services,” states the campaign document outlining the plan. (The campaign did not provide specifics on the among of relief the candidate would make available if elected.)
But the former vice president also promises to go beyond the immediate crisis and invest in child care for the future. His plan would provide free preschool to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the country. And for kids under the age of 3, the plan would create a system of tax credits and subsidies so that families earning less than 1.5 times the median income in their state would pay no more than 7 percent of their income for child care, with “the most-hard pressed working families” paying nothing.
The plan also includes tax credits to encourage employers to construct onsite child care facilities, something companies did during World War II that’s become harder to imagine today, as families (most often mothers) are expected to handle child care on their own.”
“Even as the labor market has gotten steadily healthier in recent years, the American birth rate continues to fall from its recession-era highs.
Women tell pollsters that’s not because the number of kids they’d ideally like to have has fallen. Instead, the No. 1 most-cited reason is the high cost of child care. Child care doesn’t get more affordable just because the unemployment rate is low. If anything, it’s the opposite — child care is extremely labor-intensive, and the prospects for introducing labor-saving technology into the mix look bad. To make child care broadly affordable would require government action; it’s just not going to happen in a free market, which doesn’t magically allocate extra income to people who have young kids.”
…
“America’s sky-high child poverty rate compared with peer countries is entirely attributable to our failure to enact a child allowance policy. A better labor market helps marginally, but it doesn’t address the fundamental issue that a new baby increases financial needs while also making it harder to work long hours.”