jimnyc
09-18-2016, 10:57 AM
Trump's Child Care Plans Should Appeal to Women -- And Many More
The media is billing Trump’s childcare and family leave proposals as an attempt to appeal to swing voters – particularly women. Yet this proposal should also attract another group who has been wary of the untested candidate: economic conservatives.
Trump doesn’t resort to trying to woo women by entering the Left’s bidding war of promising more and more taxpayer funding for a favored cause. Rather Trump is offering an alternative – and a decidedly conservative – approach to an important set of public policy issues.
Rather than Hillary Clinton’s predictable promises to increase federal grants to daycare centers, decree that child care workers all must be paid more, and complicated plan to cap how much families spend out of pocket on daycare expenses, Trump offers what many conservatives have long called for: a major expansion of tax deductions for families with children.
While this proposal is mostly being discussed as a tax break for childcare expenses, importantly, these deductions will also be available to families that do not use paid daycare arrangements. As explained on the campaign fact sheet:
Mr. Trump’s plan will ensure stay-at-home parents will receive the same tax deduction as working parents, offering compensation for the job they’re already doing, and allowing them to choose the child care scenario that’s in their best interest.
That’s an important point and one that conservatives should embrace. The government shouldn’t be in the business of using subsidies to encourage more families to put their kids in paid daycare if they think that family care is best. Lots of families – including those with modest incomes – make big financial sacrifices to keep a parent home when kids are young and they deserve a break too.
He uses the model of savings accounts – which have been a conservative favorite for education, retirement, and health care – for additional care expenses. His Dependent Care Savings Accounts would allow people to set aside money tax-free, which could then be used for expenses not only for caring for children , but also for the elderly. This is a positive, market-based approach, which would encourage continued innovation and the efficient use of resources, and an important contrast to the Progressives’ steady push to simply have government become both the payer and provider of all such services.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carrielukas/2016/09/14/trumps-child-care-plans-should-appeal-to-women-and-many-more/#4f23176d1dc0
The media is billing Trump’s childcare and family leave proposals as an attempt to appeal to swing voters – particularly women. Yet this proposal should also attract another group who has been wary of the untested candidate: economic conservatives.
Trump doesn’t resort to trying to woo women by entering the Left’s bidding war of promising more and more taxpayer funding for a favored cause. Rather Trump is offering an alternative – and a decidedly conservative – approach to an important set of public policy issues.
Rather than Hillary Clinton’s predictable promises to increase federal grants to daycare centers, decree that child care workers all must be paid more, and complicated plan to cap how much families spend out of pocket on daycare expenses, Trump offers what many conservatives have long called for: a major expansion of tax deductions for families with children.
While this proposal is mostly being discussed as a tax break for childcare expenses, importantly, these deductions will also be available to families that do not use paid daycare arrangements. As explained on the campaign fact sheet:
Mr. Trump’s plan will ensure stay-at-home parents will receive the same tax deduction as working parents, offering compensation for the job they’re already doing, and allowing them to choose the child care scenario that’s in their best interest.
That’s an important point and one that conservatives should embrace. The government shouldn’t be in the business of using subsidies to encourage more families to put their kids in paid daycare if they think that family care is best. Lots of families – including those with modest incomes – make big financial sacrifices to keep a parent home when kids are young and they deserve a break too.
He uses the model of savings accounts – which have been a conservative favorite for education, retirement, and health care – for additional care expenses. His Dependent Care Savings Accounts would allow people to set aside money tax-free, which could then be used for expenses not only for caring for children , but also for the elderly. This is a positive, market-based approach, which would encourage continued innovation and the efficient use of resources, and an important contrast to the Progressives’ steady push to simply have government become both the payer and provider of all such services.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carrielukas/2016/09/14/trumps-child-care-plans-should-appeal-to-women-and-many-more/#4f23176d1dc0