Trump in August had proposed reducing child care costs by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child care from their taxes.
Advertisement
It would be available for individuals earning less than $250,000 a year or under $500,000 for couples filing jointly.
Trump is to be introduced at the event by his daughter, Ivanka, who has championed the issue of childcare as an influential voice in his campaign. It could be used to pay for child care, after-school programs and school tuition.
The group’s voter turnout effort targets voters in battleground states in North Carolina through a volunteer network it believes will complement get-out-the-vote efforts by the Republican National Committee and Trump campaign.
“Child care is the single largest expense for households – even over housing – for half the country”, Ivanka said at the roundtable.
The average cost of daycare in the U.S.is $11,666 according to the National Association of Child Resource and Referral Agencies, though the cost varies widely by state.
Trump would also seek “regulatory reform to promote new family-based and community-based solutions, and also add incentives for employers to provide child care at the workplace”, his campaign said.
Last, but certainly not least, the plan will provide six weeks of maternity leave under the federal unemployment insurance program for any working mother that is not now covered under an employer-provided plan.
The campaign said the rest of the proposals would be paid for through the economic benefits of Trump’s overall tax plan.
“After all the terrible scandals that Hillary Clinton’s been involved in”, another man said, “and then she has the gall to call us deplorable, it’s unbelievable”. “I’m very passionate about this”.
The leave program would not apply to working fathers.
Trump’s not the first presidential candidate to bring up child care and family leave on the campaign trail. Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, has called for 12 weeks parental leave for both mothers and fathers paid for by taxes on the wealthy. Clinton has indicated that she would pay for the plan by raising taxes of top earners, meaning her plan would “impose no additional costs on businesses, including small businesses”.
Clinton, though, has questioned the possibility to achieving paid family leave in the current political climate.
Advertisement
Ivanka said her father would “change the labor laws that were put into place at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce” and “focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all”, she said at the Cleveland convention.
