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Friday, September 16, 2016

Clinton's year old plan trumps Trump's insulting Child Care handout to the Wealthy.

Hey, we're getting a momentary break from another Trump word salad disaster that would have killed any other campaign instantly. Childcare: 

Donald Trump is scrambling to win over women voters with a child care plan.
Funny thing about Trumps plan; Republicans have always hated the idea, and won’t touch it, while Democrats have been trying to solve this “newly discovered” problem for decades, literally.
Hillary Clinton released her plan – which has been publicly available for a year prioritizes improving childcare quality with a plan to address chronically low wages and training for childcare providers.
Trump's same old “trickle down” idea

Trump has put a new coat of paint on the same tired policies that prioritize wealthy people like himself at the expense of working families. Trump’s plan is mainly a tax deduction, which would allow parents to deduct the average price of child care from their taxes.
That sucks. But a tax credit deducts the child care costs right off your income, dollar for dollar, a UUUGh savings. It appears the Trump's missed the '70's and '80's:
As many have pointed out, the value of a tax deduction is directly linked to the tax rate you pay. Under Trump’s plan, wealthy families making $500,000 would get a child care tax break of about $40 for every $100 they pay for child care. Meanwhile, families making $60,000 would only get $15 for every $100 spent on child care.

Many low-income families don’t owe anything because they make too little and don’t qualify for credits that reduce or erase their burdens. 

“We had a tax deduction until the late 70s,” Helen Blank, director of childcare and early learning at the National Women’s Law Center Blank said. “The deduction was made into a credit because a credit is more equitable. A low-income family can take advantage of a credit, especially if it’s refundable, which allows it to get money back at tax time even if it doesn’t have a tax liability” … wages and training for childcare providers. 
In the United States, the average cost of center-based child care for the typical working family with an infant and preschooler is about $18,000, a steep price for families to cover. If a family cannot afford child care, a tax deduction is irrelevant – a family can’t deduct something that they can’t pay for to begin with. The same flaw applies to the $1,200 rebate … A credit of $1,200 would be perfect if the goal was to help families afford childcare for a month, not a year.

Hillary Clinton zeros in on the issue of affordability. Clinton’s plan aims to ease the financial strain of childcare for all families by capping costs at 10% of household income, while also increasing wages for childcare providers.  
And we haven't even gotten into the family leave debate, which isn't a big Republican favorite either.

1 comment:

  1. The poor and middle class Trump supporters love the crumbs that he throws them and think that it is wonderful. Unfortunately they also seem to think that it is the right thing to do to give so much more money to the people who already have more than enough money to pay their own way, people that don't need government assistance should receive the most government assistance.

    WTF.

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