With daughter Ivanka at his side, Donald Trump on Tuesday night called for a new national family-leave policy that would provide six weeks of paid leave for new moms and tax breaks for child and elderly care.
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Trump said he also plans to propose incentives to employers to provide child-care options at work.
Trump is to lay out the plan in an evening speech in the Philadelphia suburb of Aston, Pennsylvania, his latest attempt to construct a policy framework that he would use for governing if elected over Democrat Hillary Clinton on November 8.
Mr. Trump is to be accompanied by his daughter Ivanka, who helped craft the child-care proposal and who spoke about the issue at the July Republican convention.
“Our campaign is about getting things done for the American people, and we believe we’ve found a solution on paid maternity leave that could get very broad, bipartisan support and be completely self-financing”, a Trump aide said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
He proposed six weeks of paid maternity leave through unemployment benefits to parents whose employers don’t offer it now.
But as with any policy proposal, many ask who’s going to pay for it. Trump says he’d pay for his proposal by fixing fraud and improper payments from the federal unemployment insurance program.
Trump unveils a new tax deduction for families with up to 4 children or providing elderly care.
The deduction would apply only to individuals earning $250,000 or less, or $500,000 or less if filing jointly.
Trump is also offering $1,200 “spending rebate” for low-income families Unlike a tax deduction, which allows tax payers to deduct an expense from the amount of taxable income they declare, a “spending rebate” directly takes an amount off of a tax bill.
During a speech Monday in Baltimore, the Republican presidential nominee said, “You can’t lead this nation if you have such a low opinion for its citizens”.
The campaign said the rest of the proposals would be paid for through the economic benefits of Trump’s overall tax plan. That’s more than a year after his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, released her own plan for expanding access to childcare and early learning. It could be used to pay for child care, after-school programs and school tuition.
Plenty of fathers do want to play a more active role in their children’s lives, and this child care plan’s refusal to make leave transferable is a big old middle finger in their faces (and those of women who would really like their male partners to share the parenting responsibilities). Currently, parents can deduct up to $6,000 for two or more children on their federal income tax. And it is part of the campaign’s hope to swing Pennsylvania, which has voted Democrat in event election since 1992. She has not put an overall price tag on the plan, although independent estimates have placed it at $200 billion, her campaign aides said.
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Clinton, meanwhile, proposes that no family should spend more than 10 percent of its income on child care. Those benefits would be offered on a sliding scale based on need, though Clinton has offered few other details since introducing the plan in May. And Clinton hasn’t spelled out how she could pay for it beyond, again, raising taxes on the wealthy.
