Donald Trump unveiled a menu of proposals Tuesday to ease the burden on working parents, calling for six weeks of mandatory paid maternity leave and expanded tax credits to help pay for child care.
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Trump noted that “there are a lot of men involved” in child care and that “under the plan we’re doing they will be helped so much”, yet Trump’s child care plan explicitly excludes fathers from access to parental leave.
“Politics aside, I’m working to raise awareness on issues that are of critical importance to American women and families”, Trump wrote on Twitter.
“Trump’s campaign is trying to attract vital support in pivotal suburban Philadelphia, a key to winning the eastern battleground state”.
Trump also announced that his plan would rewrite the tax code to allow working parents to deduct from their income taxes child-care expenses for up to four children and elderly dependents.
Asked several times to clarify whether the new plan, which offers new mothers six weeks of paid maternity leave after giving birth, would also apply to same-sex couples where both parents were men, the 34-year-old businesswoman all but confirmed it would not.
“As I have traveled around the country with my father, stories about the hardships caused by our existing child care system, one that is too expensive, too outdated, and too inaccessible, come up time and time again”.
Gupta then asked how the GOP nominee planned to pay for his child care proposal. The deduction would be capped depending on which state the family resides and the state’s average cost of care.
Beyond that, his child care reforms include new income tax deductions for child care expense, the creation of a dependent care savings account and tax deductions for employers who provide child care options for employees.
The Clinton campaign said funding would rely on federal spending and a series of low and middle-class tax cuts.
Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin called Mr. Trump’s plan “just another entitlement” that would increase debt and expand government.
Trump’s campaign did not say how much the effort would cost, but did say it would pay it by eliminating fraud in the USA unemployment insurance program. (Clinton hasn’t provided specifics on how this tax relief would work.) Clinton also wants to provide financial aid to the almost 5 million college students who are raising children while attending school.
“My father obviously has a track record of decades of employing women at every level of his company, and supporting women, and supporting them in their professional capacity, and enabling them to thrive outside of the office and within”, she continued.
“When established for a minor, funds from a DCSA can be applied to traditional child care, after-school enrichment programs and school tuition-contributing to school choice”.
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Read Clinton’s full plan here.
