With his daughter Ivanka Trump by his side, presidential candidate Donald Trump released a child care plan he says will reduce the financial burdens on America’s working families.
Advertisement
Trump will unveil the plans in a speech in a politically critical Philadelphia suburb as he tries to build his appeal with more moderate, independent voters – especially women.
“Families with a stay-at-home parent will be able to fully deduct the average cost of child care from their taxes”, he said Tuesday. Individuals earning more than $250,000 and joint filers earning more than $500,000 wouldn’t qualify, the campaign said. He said it would be part of Mr. Trump’s broader tax overhaul and economic policy, which will be expanded in detail in a speech Thursday.
Trump’s campaign said lower-income earners would receive child-care spending rebates through expanding the existing Earned Income Tax Credit. Trump insisted taxes would not need to be raised to fund it.
“As an employer, a mother and a woman who works both inside and outside the home, these are topics I consider of critical importance”. That works out to about $6,600 a year.
Ivanka Trump was incorrect about elder care policy not being on Clinton’s website (it’s here) and also wrong about parental leave being absent (it’s here). He uses the model of savings accounts – which have been a conservative favorite for education, retirement, and health care – for additional care expenses. She also paired it with a proposal to increase pay for childcare providers and early childhood educators as a way to ensure quality and availability.
Clinton, in fact, rolled out her own plans months ago. She also wants to institute a hard cap on families’ child care costs, at 10 percent of their overall income.
Trump also suggested Dependent Care Savings Accounts for tax-free and tax-deductible contributions that would accumulate over the years.
The U.S. has failed to keep up with other industrialized nations on family leave and child care.
The proposal relies on deductions, which are more valuable to higher-income households. Even if half of all families contributed to it, that’s still a big price tag, and the Trump campaign outlines no way to pay for it.
Tuesday night at his speech in Aston, Pa., Trump brought up to the stage several female Republican congresswomen – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) and Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) – to help sell his new policies to American voters. This is a stance that Republicans typically do not take because mandated maternity leave is seen as a job killer.
Then there’s issue of how Trump would pay for his plan. And the campaign believes it would be “deficit-neutral”.
Its reaction to Donald Trump’s childcare plan makes that as obvious as ever.
Trump said this is something his daughter Ivanka, herself a new mother, has been begging him to do for a long time. Ivanka Trump as a mother of three knows very well that child care is the most important thing in the lives of many Americans as well as the most expensive one.
Advertisement
Federal law guarantees only 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act for most employees.
