Donald Trump's insightful word salad on child care

In the United States, most parents of young children work, most of them need help caring for their children, and most cannot rely on family members to help them.

Don't you think that providing affordable, high-quality child care to American families is a no-brainer? We've done it once. Why can't we do it again?

Allow me a short history lesson:

Eighty years ago, when American GIs were fighting fascism overseas, women were recruited in droves to work in shipyards and factories, taking on all sorts of jobs traditionally done by men. More than 6 million women worked as welders, operated heavy machinery and performed other factory work, building tanks, ships and airplanes. Three million women volunteered for the Red Cross. More than 200,000 served in the military.

And who cared for their babies and toddlers? For the first and only time in American history, Congress spent tens of millions of dollars to fund universal child care, allowing state governments and private businesses to create hundreds of “wartime kindergartens” in workplaces. An estimated 550,000 infants were placed there so their mothers could become full citizens.

On the West Coast, industrialist and health visionary Henry J. Kaiser hired child development experts to set up model day care centers at his shipyards. The experts tested theories that helped expand the field of early childhood education.

When the war ended, however, government funding dried up. All of these Rosie the Riveters were banished back to their kitchens, although the majority wanted to keep their jobs.

The culture then invented the fairy tale that a woman's true fulfillment lay in motherhood and housekeeping, a notion that reached its peak in the 1950s and early '60s. The publication of Betty Friedan's The Woman Delusion in 1963 helped break this myth and propel the country into the second wave of American feminism.

In 1971, as more women began to re-enter the workforce, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act. It's almost shocking to think about it today: The law authorized a multibillion-dollar national child care system designed, among other things, to help working single parents reduce their dependence on welfare.

The landmark law soon fell victim to Cold War fears: Critics said it would “Sovietize” American children and allow the government to control families. (Considering how Republicans have rolled back reproductive rights, this is downright ridiculous.) President Nixon vetoed the bill.

And here we are today, stuck in a patchwork of childcare systems that are sometimes affordable or high quality, but almost never both.

And that brings us to the presidential election campaign.

Last week, former President Trump was asked what specific bill he would propose to make child care affordable, and his confused, incoherent response was so bizarre and inappropriate that it went viral.

When his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, was asked a similar question, the answer was more cogent but almost as odd. After urging grandparents and other relatives to help more, Vance falsely claimed that child care centers were over-regulated and required “a six-year college degree.” (In fact, most child care centers are women who do not have college degrees and are woefully underpaid.) Vance called universal child care “class warfare against normal people.”

Trump's platform does not specifically address child care. Instead, he promises to promote a culture “that values ​​the sanctity of marriage, the blessings of childhood, and the fundamental role of the family.” In addition, he promises to “end policies that punish families.”

While Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's plan for a second Trump term, is silent on high-quality, affordable child care, it does call for the abolition of the Department of Education and preschool programs like Head Start, a cornerstone of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.

Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has called for an increase in the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 per child, which Republicans oppose. She has also proposed a new $6,000 tax credit for parents of newborns. Her program calls for access to high-quality, affordable child care provided by workers who earn a living wage.

During a Senate subcommittee hearing last year on the expiration of billions of dollars in child care funding during the pandemic, Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy said opposition to affordable child care was “like opposition to golden retrievers.” But he asked labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards, an expert on the child care crisis, “How on earth are we going to pay for this?”

She summed it up: “The majority of federal revenue comes from taxes, so if you need more money, you have to raise taxes. Let me remind you, sir, that we've had two massive, trillion-dollar tax cuts in the last 20 years, and they did nothing to make child care more affordable. … They were not invested in children.”

That's the reality of child care in America. We all want it, but those who control the finances refuse to pay for it.

@robinkabcarian