Elizabeth Warren just introduced her child care plan in Congress

[crazytown]

Vox, June 18, 2019
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/18/18683527/elizabeth-warren-universal-child-care-bill-congress

Elizabeth Warren just introduced her child care plan in Congress

Her new legislation aims to make affordable, universal child care a reality

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) universal child care plan was one of her earliest and most ambitious policy proposals as a 2020 presidential candidate. Now she’s bringing it to Congress.

On Tuesday, Warren introduced the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act, which reduces child care costs to families while improving both quality and caregiver pay. Rep. Debra Haaland (D-NM) and several co-sponsors introduced companion legislation in the House.

The bill would create a network of federally funded but locally run child care centers around the country and ensure that no family spends more than 7 percent of its annual income on child care. It would also set quality standards for the facilities based on existing federal programs like Head Start, and require that child care workers be paid on par with public school teachers.

“Access to affordable and high-quality child care and early education should be a right for all families rather than a privilege for only the rich,” Warren said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our legislation would give all parents the opportunity to choose the right child care and early learning opportunities for their kids.”

The bill is similar to legislation introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) earlier this year that would expand federal subsidies for child care. Both Warren’s plan and Murray and Scott’s bill have been praised by child care experts. Both will also likely have a difficult road in the Republican-controlled Senate. But they’re a reminder that universal child care, barely on the radar even a few years ago, is rapidly becoming a major part of the policy conversation in the run-up to 2020.

[sandensea]

1. I can just hear the Republican church ladies telling each other:

"Well! She wants to use my hard-earned tax dollars to pay for some black woman's child care!"

[crazytown]

2. Taxing ultra millionaires

My heart bleeds

[sandensea]

3. Ultra-millionaires figured out how to trick much of the middle class into carrying water for them:

Encourage self-righteousness. It works.

"Well! I worked for what I have - why should the poor get handouts!"

"Billionaires get billions in state handouts too, you know. Some owe their very status to them."

"Well! But they're job creators!"

"Where? In China?"

"Well! Why don't you just move to Cuba already!"

[ecstatic]

7. Welp. Forced births will require more child care.

Or do they not think that far ahead?

[sandensea]

9. "Well, just as long as I don't have to pay for it."

"My tax dollars should go to the right people - like the Trumps!"

[Blue_true]

10. Their motto is love the fetus, hate the child if his or her parents aren't up righteous members

of the community that the rightwing evangelicals define.

If Jesus came back today, he would pass out from the work of hurling lightening bolts up the asses of those hypocrits.

[Recursion]

4. Child care as it stands is simultaneously

bankrupting parents and impoverishing providers. If childcare providers are to have a living wage, there's simply not a way for the parents to pay it unless they are making several multiples of a living wage.

In previous generations, we just didn't pay child care providers (women). Those days are thankfully over. But there has to be a social provisioning of child care. It's mathematically the only way.

[crazytown]

5. And Senator Sanders child care plan is?

Warren has a broader vision.

[ecstatic]

6. This alone could win her the election.

Child care costs $150+/week.

[Blue_true]

11. $150 per week is bargin childcare. Maybe in some places, but in most I think it was north of

$200 per week per child several years back. Basically, each parent is grossing around $850 per week, one parent of a couple that have two kids in daycare might just as well stay home and care for the kids once other things like taxes, gas, lunch and parking are taken into account.

[betsuni]

8. K&R