Making Child Care More Affordable
President Obama wants to help pay your day-care bill, said Julie Hirschfeld Davis in The New York Times. The White House unveiled a new tax plan this month that would triple the existing tax credit for child-care expenses to $3,000 per child. Obama also wants to expand existing federal programs to help middle- and low-income households, increasing access to free pre-K and ensuring “high quality” child care for all. “It is time we stop treating child care as a side issue, or a ‘women’s issue,’” the president said at the University of Kansas last month. “This is a national economic priority for all of us.”
Don’t be fooled, said Ramesh Ponnuru in BloombergView.com. Obama’s plan is little more than a “war on homemakers.” Along with expanding the child-care credit, the White House also wants to introduce a new tax credit for second earners. But these proposals do nothing for families where one parent stays at home. These programs are really just a way of “shifting the tax burden” to lower-earning, single-income households. Plus, Americans aren’t even all that concerned with child care. “Surveys suggest that most parents prefer that small children be primarily cared for by a parent,” and data from the Census ureau show that less than a quarter of preschoolers are in organized care facilities. If Obama really wants to help middle-class families, he should “enlarge the child tax credit—not the child-care credit—and let parents use it as they see fit.”
Just because parents might “prefer” to stay at home doesn’t mean they can afford to, said Petula Dvorak in The Washington Post. The current state of child care is this country is “a mess,” with working parents forced to choose between pricey day-care centers, sketchy in-home operations, “and insanely expensive nannies.” Any measures that make child care more affordable aren’t just welcome, they are a necessity—especially “for the country’s more than 10 million single moms, who don’t have the option of staying home.”
Plus, “stay-at-home parents already get a tax preference,” said Josh Barro in NYTimes.com. It’s true that such families wouldn’t benefit under Obama’s plan, but last I checked, “stay-at-home parenting” isn’t taxed. “I realize that sounds like a bizarre thing to say,” but the fact is, cleaning a house, mowing a lawn, or raising a well-behaved child all have economic value. That’s why “when we hire people to come into our homes to do these things,” the labor is subject to tax. Yes, Obama’s tax credit is skewed toward working parents, but is the benefit “so large that it more than offsets the value of the tax preference stay-at-home parents already enjoy?” I doubt it.
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