If you care about the high cost of childcare , then the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump provided little hope for your worries.
The two candidates spent more time talking about golf than they did childcare, with Trump using his time on the question to say Biden is the worst president in American history. Trump is right that Biden is a lousy president, but voters have reason to worry about high childcare costs. The average childcare cost exceeds $10,000 per year per child for working families in the United States.
The next time someone asks Trump about childcare, he should have some legitimate answers ready.
For example, overregulating childcare in ways that have nothing to do with the quality of care drives up costs. A Mercatus Center study found that by eliminating regulations unrelated to quality of care, childcare costs could fall by between $850 and $1,890 per child annually. Some of these regulations include requiring highly specific art supplies and toys, according to the Heritage Foundation .
Trump and the GOP could promise to work with the appropriate entities to reduce these excessive regulatory burdens while also going after liberals for creating costly regulations.
Washington, D.C., for example, requires childcare workers to have a college degree, driving up costs.
Massachusetts requires people to pay au pairs a $15 hourly minimum wage, vastly driving up costs for workers who typically cost families $1,800 per month when accounting for all expenses. It significantly reduced the demand for au pairs in Massachusetts. Yet, the Biden administration also wants to base au pair pay , in part, on state minimum wages. Doing so would make one childcare option less affordable for middle- and upper-middle-class people while increasing demand for traditional day care.
Trump and the Republican Party should oppose Democratic efforts to subsidize day care directly or to expand the childcare tax credit, as these policies are unfair to families with a stay-at-home parent or those who use informal childcare . Childcare subsidies can also reduce childcare access , hurting families.
Instead, why not offer increased child benefits without favoring one form of childcare over another?
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) had a proposal in 2021 to create a child allowance of $250 to $350 per month, depending on the child's age, mostly paid for by eliminating inefficient tax breaks. The proposal would cut "deep" child poverty in half while providing parents with extra cash to help pay for day care or have a parent stay home with the children.
If Trump and the GOP oppose the Romney proposal, they should at least support increasing the child tax credit and indexing it to inflation . Doing so would reduce working families' tax burdens by several hundred dollars annually. Had the child tax credit increase from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act kept pace with inflation, it would now be worth over $2,400 per year rather than $2,000. That could make childcare, at least, a little more affordable for the average family.
Trump also supports a baby bonus scheme , which could give families more money for infant care in the first year of a child's life. Perhaps Republicans could find a way to incorporate this into a child allowance or child tax credit expansion.
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Additionally, Trump and the Republican Party could express support for remote work. Though not a solution for every worker, it can enable some parents to watch their children while they work at home, reducing costs. Instead of forcing federal employees back into the office , Republicans should support remote work for those who do their jobs well while working remotely. If someone does their job competently, why should the physical location from which they work matter?
Families care more about mitigating high childcare costs than which candidate can hit a golf ball farther. Since Democrats have pursued policies that have punished stay-at-home parents and raised costs, Trump and the GOP must offer people a viable alternative. It may win them votes from parents who might otherwise stay home on Election Day.
Tom Joyce ( @TomJoyceSports ) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.
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