Child Care

Good stuff from Gail Collins:

Still, it might have been a great conversation-starter. While it’s becoming virtually impossible to support a middle-class American family on one parent’s salary, we never hear political discussion about the repercussions. In a two-hour debate that focused on job-related issues, the Republican presidential candidates managed to mention the Smoot-Hawley tariff and trade relations with Peru but not a word about child care for America’s working parents. John McCain, who was on the receiving end of Matthews’s question, chose instead to focus on the fact that “50,000 Americans now make their living off eBay,” that the tax code is “eminently unfair” and that Congress wastes too much money studying of the DNA of Montana bears.

Of course, the Republicans' lack of interest in this subject is overdetermined. Child care cuts against their social conservatism, cuts against their allergy to new programs, and cuts against the current crop of candidates' inability to generate any noteworthy ideas on any subject. On the progressive side, though, it's really too bad that health care and climate change seem to have essentially sucked up all the oxygen. It is too bad, however, that even Paul Krugman's otherwise excellent new book doesn't even find space for this issue as part of some airy liberal wish list.

Comments

I had been concerned until today that Collins had set out to be just another Maureen Dowd, snarkiness at the expense of candidates, not an iota of consideration of the policies they might favor. This column marks a welcome change, pointing out that on this issue, mostly overlooked, Dodd, and to a lesser extent, Clinton, are the only ones even to address it.

Posted by David in NY | October 18, 2007 5:44 PM

"a decent private child care program costs $12,000 a year in some parts of the country"

That is a pretty low number. I pay more than that living in the Midwest for a mid-range level of care. What part of the country is she talking about: western Nebraska? Northern Alabama?

Add a second kid before the first one is in kindergarten and our second income becomes a liability.

Posted by Trevor | October 18, 2007 5:58 PM

Well, the problem is that if you start to make a list of all the things that need to be changed around here...you start to sound like some goldurn radical.

Posted by serial catowner | October 18, 2007 6:20 PM

Even though Krugman doesn't mention child care in his book, I'm sure he foams at the mouth at the very thought of the cruel and evil views that conservatives hold on the subject. Not that he's predictable or anything.

Posted by ostap | October 18, 2007 6:24 PM

It's a miracle. The Times has printed substantive columns from both Dowd (sort of) and Collins in one 48-hour period, forcing readers to fall back on the Cohen column about lazy French people to get their daily quota of annoying punditry.

To be snarky for just a bit longer: Pundits like Gail Collins could help put child care on the political radar if they cut down on the klever kritiques of wardrobe choices, offhand remarks, and "body language" and focused on child care and other issues that matter.

But it's true: In today's column, she makes a good point.

Posted by mary | October 18, 2007 6:31 PM

Pundits like Gail Collins could help put child care on the political radar if they cut down on the klever kritiques of wardrobe choices, offhand remarks, and "body language" ...

Not to mention stupid statements like "it’s becoming virtually impossible to support a middle-class American family on one parent’s salary."

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 6:36 PM

I've got two kids in pre-school - so I'm sympathetic to the argument - but I immediately feel she's not telling the whole story. Through an FSA, I get $5,000 that I can spend on childcare tax-free. If I didn't have the FSA, there are tax credits for childcare expenses. Collins' claim that "Middle-class families get zip" seems inaccurate - doesn't it?

Posted by Ryan | October 18, 2007 7:09 PM

Well, its either obviously untrue or a tautology.

If you take the salary of a lawyer or better, its not a problem at all. But if you take, as your one salary, an average salary, then, yeah. You can't live the lifestyle of two average salaries on one averge salary.

Maybe an interesting question would be: after taxes does an average American salary exceed the cost of daycare for two kids? If the answer is no, does that mean we are truly a service economy?

Posted by mpowell | October 18, 2007 7:12 PM

Not good, really.

There is a child care tax credit available to the middle class, so it isn't the case that middle class families don't get help paying for child care. That credit is in addition to the child tax credits passed by Republicans in recent years.

It is oddly indicative of MY's bizarre New-Deal style orientation that he thinks assistance with child care is a problem requiring a "program" as a solution. Presumbably a tax credit doesn't count as a solution--what's needed apparently is some sort of government-run child care program.

I wonder if Collins would support a government solution to this issue if it treated all children and families the same--that is, if all families were to receive a subsidy for child care expenses that they could use to hire someone else or to simply work less or not at all, would Collins still support it? We know the answer to that, sadly, and that's a large part of why there isn't a majority coalition to pass increased support. Instead people like Collins want to subsidize one kind of arrangements and penalize another.

Posted by Thomas | October 18, 2007 7:19 PM

I know you don't have a wife and kids, Matt, or spend much time with people who do, but the reality is that an awful lot of women would rather care for their own children themselves.

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 18, 2007 7:25 PM

Those e-bay traders have a nice pension plan and health benefits, I bet.

Well, they really don't need health insurance because there's always the emergency room.

Posted by magisterludi | October 18, 2007 7:43 PM

The Republican Doctrine On Child Care:

Federal Funds for Chastity Belts.

Mandatory until marriage.

Simple and pure. It is God’s will. Sex is dirty and evil, so when you do it outside of marriage, don’t get caught, particularly if it is homosexual or with children. If you do get caught, deny and/ or apologize, then become crusader against said bestial act. It is ok to rape and sodomize your wife. You own her (or them if you are Romney).

Posted by erict | October 18, 2007 9:57 PM

"the reality is that an awful lot of women would rather care for their own children themselves."

Sure. And (setting aside the bizarre but revealing phrasing, with the built-in implication that only women taking care of their kid full time - both shifts - and nearly exclusively are actually "caring for their children themselves") an awful lot of women would rather perform paid work outside the home and care for their own children themselves/ with spouse/etc. the rest of the day, and an awful lot of women would like a flexible situation that was able to accommodate changing ages and needs and situations. And there is the small but rapidly growing number of stay at home dads, etc.

There's also, as mentioned, the reality - whatever various folks want - that for an awful lot of couples, relying on a single income is a quick ticket out of the middle class. (I'm not even sure why you think Matt in some way opposes/ doesn't know that some women would, if at all reasonably possible, want to take SAH care for their kids full time, but whatever.) Indeed, this economic reality rules out us starting a family at this point: to provide the kind of care we we'd desire would mean dropping down to one income, which would mean - besides loss of health coverage - that quite rapidly we'd lose the house and, well, it's all downhill from there.

Now, I would very happily support an actual full-on family-values system which provided both reasonable access to quality child care (through whatever method), generous (over a year) and meaningful, workable parental leave policies, all combined with far more creative and flexible workplace innovations in terms of the reality of parenting. I also want a pony.* Better funding for childcare is the most politically and economically realistic aspect right now, I think.

(Of course, throughout the history of our species, two (sometimes more) working parents/household (not to mention additional kin) have been almost a universal pattern: the ideal of the supposedly non-"working" mother is an extremely recent and unusual thing.)

* Actually, I want a baby pygmy mammoth, but . . .

Posted by Dan S. | October 18, 2007 10:07 PM

I know you don't have a wife and kids, Matt, or spend much time with people who do, but the reality is that an awful lot of women would rather care for their own children themselves.

Which, even if we were to assume it to be true, is completely irrelevant to the problem that those that wish to work or need to work have to struggle to find adequate and affordable child care.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 18, 2007 10:12 PM

Krugman said it well: the Republicans have been masters at getting middle class white Americans to vote against their own interests for the past 27 years - and race is the button they push to do it.

It's getting harder and harder to raise a family - and there's alot an intelligent, non-corrupt government could do to make it easier.

That's why SCHP is such a big deal. But it still feels like the right wing talkers carry so much credibility. Its not the niggers right now, its the islamofascists and the mexicans... but anything brown will do.

Meanwhile our schools are collapsing, and working mothers rush to pick their kids up at 6 for dinner at McDonald's before bedtime.

Posted by al75 | October 18, 2007 10:15 PM

Dilan,

.... the problem that those that wish to work or need to work have to struggle to find adequate and affordable child care.

Could you provide some, you know, evidence, for this claim. I'm sure that some parents struggle to find adequate and affordable child care, but how big of a problem is this? It's interesting that the U.S. has a significantly higher fertility rate than almost all European countries, including those with supposedly very child-friendly social welfare policies. If raising children in America is such a burden, why do so many more Americans do it than Europeans?

Gail Collins complains about the cost of child care, and then in the next paragraph complains about the low wages and lack of training of child care workers, and the lack of government oversight of child care centers. She wants to make child care less expensive, but higher wages for child care workers and more government regulation are likely to have exactly the opposite effect.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 10:36 PM

I think that Steve Sailer and Thomas nail the issue.

The problem with government making childcare more affordable is that unless they give the tax credit/subsidy, etc. to families where the woman (or man, for that matter) stays home as well as to ones where both parents work (or single-parent home where the parent works), then the government is essentially subsidizing two-income families at the expense of one-income families.

I wonder if Collins would support a government solution to this issue if it treated all children and families the same--that is, if all families were to receive a subsidy for child care expenses that they could use to hire someone else or to simply work less or not at all, would Collins still support it? We know the answer to that, sadly, and that's a large part of why there isn't a majority coalition to pass increased support. Instead people like Collins want to subsidize one kind of arrangements and penalize another.

So the message to families is that the government wants both partners to work outside the home and wants to be in charge of your children during that time.

As Steve Sailer says:

but the reality is that an awful lot of women would rather care for their own children themselves.

So while a lot of women would prefer to work outside the home, many of them would likely not like the government trying to force them to choose that option moreso than the current economy already does.

Of course, Matt has previously expressed a belief that it is morally wrong for women not to work outside the home, so it is obvious that he would like this idea.

Posted by Glaivester | October 18, 2007 10:45 PM

Why should the FSA only apply to childcare out-of-pocket costs but not to the opportunity costs undergone by stay-at-home moms?

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 19, 2007 2:37 AM

Why should the FSA only apply to childcare out-of-pocket costs but not to the opportunity costs undergone by stay-at-home moms?

Because when educated people do the mostly manual labor associated with childcare, it is economically inefficient and reduces productivity?

And also because staying at home and taking care of your kids is bad for women in the workplace, because it increases the likelihood that employers will assume that female workers aren't interested in advancement?

If raising children in America is such a burden, why do so many more Americans do it than Europeans?

Because we have greater cultural presumptions in favor of it?

The problem with government making childcare more affordable is that unless they give the tax credit/subsidy, etc. to families where the woman (or man, for that matter) stays home as well as to ones where both parents work (or single-parent home where the parent works), then the government is essentially subsidizing two-income families at the expense of one-income families.

As well it should.

Gail Collins complains about the cost of child care, and then in the next paragraph complains about the low wages and lack of training of child care workers, and the lack of government oversight of child care centers. She wants to make child care less expensive, but higher wages for child care workers and more government regulation are likely to have exactly the opposite effect.

That's a valid criticism. Me, I just want to make sure that child care is affordable to every parent who wants or needs it.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 19, 2007 2:51 AM

Why should the FSA only apply to childcare out-of-pocket costs but not to the opportunity costs undergone by stay-at-home moms?

Because when educated people do the mostly manual labor associated with childcare, it is economically inefficient and reduces productivity?

And also because staying at home and taking care of your kids is bad for women in the workplace, because it increases the likelihood that employers will assume that female workers aren't interested in advancement?

If raising children in America is such a burden, why do so many more Americans do it than Europeans?

Because we have greater cultural presumptions in favor of it?

The problem with government making childcare more affordable is that unless they give the tax credit/subsidy, etc. to families where the woman (or man, for that matter) stays home as well as to ones where both parents work (or single-parent home where the parent works), then the government is essentially subsidizing two-income families at the expense of one-income families.

As well it should.

Gail Collins complains about the cost of child care, and then in the next paragraph complains about the low wages and lack of training of child care workers, and the lack of government oversight of child care centers. She wants to make child care less expensive, but higher wages for child care workers and more government regulation are likely to have exactly the opposite effect.

That's a valid criticism. Me, I just want to make sure that child care is affordable to every parent who wants or needs it.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 19, 2007 2:53 AM

Re: Of course, throughout the history of our species, two (sometimes more) working parents/household (not to mention additional kin) have been almost a universal pattern: the ideal of the supposedly non-"working" mother is an extremely recent and unusual thing.)

Yep. What made this workable is that there were usually older relatives around who cared for the youngest kids while the parents labored. Sometimes older siblings also. And of course most people worked at or near to where they lived, and frequently their kids worked with them when they were old enough.

Re: If raising children in America is such a burden, why do so many more Americans do it than Europeans

Do you have any stats to back up this assertion? Europeans have smaller families, but they still do have families. I am not sure there's any proof that there are "so many more" completely childless people in Europe (who plan to remain that way throughout life) than there are in America.

Posted by JonF | October 19, 2007 6:32 AM

The easiest way to render the issue of child care MOOT as it relates to your personal finances is NOT TO HAVE KIDS!!! Why are you having children anyway? For what? To perpetuate your bloodline? Carry on your name? Your name and bloodline are that damned important to the grand scheme of the cosmos? A million years from now who is going to give a shit you had kids? You need them to have someone to do things with? What, you don't have friends? Keep your money, have more personal time, own a smaller home and free yourself from the angst every other idiot obssesses over about the local pedophile in your midst. Get a vasectomey. Get your tubes tied. Better still, do both. Then fuck away until the neighbors think a rugby team has taken over your bedroom. You'll have the satisfaction of knowing in the morning you're not making that damned trip to daycare. And you won't give a damn what Rudy or Fred or Mitt plan to do to help you.

Posted by steve duncan | October 19, 2007 8:31 AM

So dilan, you think that the government should have control of our kids for the majority of the time from birth onwards?

Well now we know why there is not more support for making daycare more affodable. Most people are afraid of your kind of government-is-god, anti-family society.

Posted by Glaivester | October 19, 2007 8:41 AM

Dilan, as I see it you are arguing for low-quality day care, so you have a pretty big disagreement with Gail, don't you? I mean, if child care is "mostly manual labor" then why worry about what we pay the drones who do it? Low pay for child care workers is an example of the market working! The only question is why you think the market isn't working on child care more generally, and thus needs goverment correcting. Is it that people tend to over-value children? Run with it! You'll have a majority in no time!

Posted by Thomas | October 19, 2007 9:31 AM

Glaivester, what are you going on about? What folks are talking about need only be our government providing financial assistance - directly, tax credits,whatever - to make childcare more affordable, and also issues of better pay & oversight/regulation (quite possibly at the state level). Thomas' assertion about how Matt thinks that "what's needed apparently is some sort of government-run child care program" - well, I suppose he might, but there's no evidence that this is the case.

From Collins' piece: "a decent private child care program costs $12,000 a year in some parts of the country. [plus the comment above on how that seems low] - jeez, and just combine that with yearly costs of health insurance for your kid/s, and add in mortage & car payments and - well, then curl up in a little ball and start rocking back and forth, but . . .

Posted by Dan S. | October 19, 2007 12:25 PM

Dan, Matt says that child care cuts against the Republican "allergy to new programs." Is he referring to some allergy to new tax credits on the part of Republicans? I'm trying to make sense out of his statement, and your reading doesn't (which isn't to say you're wrong, but only that I'm more charitable--I think Matt's politics are wrong, but I don't think he's an idiot).

Posted by Thomas | October 19, 2007 12:31 PM

Dylan,

Because we have greater cultural presumptions in favor of it?

Why would we have cultural presumptions in favor of it if it's so burdensome? If raising children is so much easier in Europe than in the U.S., why haven't Europeans developed greater cultural presumptions in favor of it? A more plausible explanation is that despite Europe's supposedly child-friendly social welfare policies, it's much harder to raise children in Europe than in the U.S. And one reason it's harder for Europeans to raise a family is that they have substantially lower disposable incomes than Americans, thanks in part to the high taxes they pay for those social welfare policies.

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 1:20 PM

So dilan, you think that the government should have control of our kids for the majority of the time from birth onwards?

Well now we know why there is not more support for making daycare more affodable. Most people are afraid of your kind of government-is-god, anti-family society

Nobody "controls" children. In terms of who supervises them, if parents want to stay at home and do it, that's their choice, but if parents want to go back to work, which is good for society, daycare should be available to them.

That's not "anti-family". The availability of daycare is what often makes the difference between a couple starting a family and not starting one.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 19, 2007 2:20 PM

Dilan, as I see it you are arguing for low-quality day care, so you have a pretty big disagreement with Gail, don't you? I mean, if child care is "mostly manual labor" then why worry about what we pay the drones who do it? Low pay for child care workers is an example of the market working! The only question is why you think the market isn't working on child care more generally, and thus needs goverment correcting. Is it that people tend to over-value children? Run with it! You'll have a majority in no time!

You are knocking down a strawman. I have no problem paying daycare workers more. I just don't think that is nearly as important as making sure everyone who needs daycare can get it.

The point about childcare being "mostly manual labor" is that it is an incredibly inefficient use of resources to have, say, a neurosurgeon or a movie producer performing it.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 19, 2007 2:23 PM

Why would we have cultural presumptions in favor of it if it's so burdensome? If raising children is so much easier in Europe than in the U.S., why haven't Europeans developed greater cultural presumptions in favor of it? A more plausible explanation is that despite Europe's supposedly child-friendly social welfare policies, it's much harder to raise children in Europe than in the U.S. And one reason it's harder for Europeans to raise a family is that they have substantially lower disposable incomes than Americans, thanks in part to the high taxes they pay for those social welfare policies.

That's a strange view. Europeans are far less religious than Americans. They are far more likely to live in cities. They are far more likely to reject idiotic sexual morality that claims that there is something wrong with a sexual relationship that doesn't produce children. They are far less squeamish about birth control and sex education.

Further, the truth is Europeans who do wish to have children are much better off, because they have a huge safety net that protects them economically and subsidizes their activities. The particulars vary from country to country, but in no European country are middle class parents left on their own with just some tax credits as they are here.

So Europeans have all the right economic incentives to have children. They just don't want so many of them. What a concept!

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 19, 2007 2:27 PM

Dylan,

The availability of daycare is what often makes the difference between a couple starting a family and not starting one.

How often? You keep making these factual assertions, but you offer nothing to back them up. You completely ignored my previous request to substantiate your claim that "those that wish to work or need to work have to struggle to find adequate and affordable child care."

What kind of policy regarding child care are you proposing, exactly? How much is it going to cost? Where's the money going to come from to pay for it? What evidence is there that the benefits of greater government support for child care would outweigh the costs?

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 2:29 PM

Yes, Dilan, absolutely. I definitely think you'll get a political majority if you explain--probably slowly, since most parents are morons--that "movie producer" is an intellectually demanding and important job, and that no movie producer should be stuck doing the mostly manual labor involved in full-time parenting.

Talk about Hollywood values. What a joke.

Posted by Thomas | October 19, 2007 2:38 PM

Dylan,

[Europeans] are far more likely to reject idiotic sexual morality that claims that there is something wrong with a sexual relationship that doesn't produce children.

Yet another unsupported claim. Show me your evidence for the above claim. The only significant religious organization in America that even sorta-kinda teaches that "there is something wrong with a sexual relationship that doesn't produce children" is the Catholic Church, and even the vast majority of American Catholics ignore that teaching.

Further, the truth is Europeans who do wish to have children are much better off, because they have a huge safety net that protects them economically and subsidizes their activities.

Again, you offer no evidence whatsoever for this claim (you should begin by defining "better off"), and the claim is inconsistent with the lower fertility rate of Europeans compared to Americans.

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 2:58 PM

How often? You keep making these factual assertions, but you offer nothing to back them up. You completely ignored my previous request to substantiate your claim that "those that wish to work or need to work have to struggle to find adequate and affordable child care."

What kind of policy regarding child care are you proposing, exactly? How much is it going to cost? Where's the money going to come from to pay for it? What evidence is there that the benefits of greater government support for child care would outweigh the costs?

Those are legitimate, practical questions-- but they presuppose the point I was making, which is making day care available to people who need or want it is important.

Look, the truth is that there are a lot of people out there who really think that it was a bad thing when middle class women joined the workforce and contracted out many childcare responsibilities. I think it may be one of the two central advances of American civilization in the 20th Century, in that it emancipated 1/2 the population.

But in order for women to do that-- IF THEY WANT TO-- they need to have affordable daycare. Daycare is costly; Collins' column establishes that. So, it should be subsidized. The data is in Collins' column; I don't need to repeat it.

Yet another unsupported claim. Show me your evidence for the above claim. The only significant religious organization in America that even sorta-kinda teaches that "there is something wrong with a sexual relationship that doesn't produce children" is the Catholic Church, and even the vast majority of American Catholics ignore that teaching.

You should distinguish between official positions of religious institutions and the guilt trips that parents and religious leaders lay on teenage girls. In the latter department, it is quite clear that we are far bigger prudes than Europeans. I don't care to do your research for you-- but you can google this if you are interested.

Again, you offer no evidence whatsoever for this claim (you should begin by defining "better off"), and the claim is inconsistent with the lower fertility rate of Europeans compared to Americans.

Again, stop playing dumb and use google if you want to learn the facts. And no, it isn't inconsistent with a lower fertility rate, because you are ignoring the cultural differences that affect fertility rates.

Yes, Dilan, absolutely. I definitely think you'll get a political majority if you explain--probably slowly, since most parents are morons--that "movie producer" is an intellectually demanding and important job, and that no movie producer should be stuck doing the mostly manual labor involved in full-time parenting.

I never said that I could win an election on that platform-- and I also never said anything about parents being morons. I simply said that a lot of childcare is manual labor-- it is-- and that it is an economically inefficient use of skilled laborers-- which it is as well.

Look, an analogy here is if we went back to subsistence farming. If we all grew our own food, some of us might get a certain amount of joy from it, though many of us would probably hate it. But what is clear is that we would have a massive economic contraction, because knowledge-workers would be spending a heck of a lot of time on menial tasks. Well, subsidizing daycare encourages economic efficiency and gender equality, which are really quite a bit more important than the subjective desires of some men that their wives stay at home.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 19, 2007 7:43 PM

Re: Again, you offer no evidence whatsoever for this claim (you should begin by defining "better off"), and the claim is inconsistent with the lower fertility rate of Europeans compared to Americans.

You know, if you exempt immigrants from the stats, the American fertility rates are very similar to those in France and other northwestern European countries. Things aren't as differnet as you may think

Re: I think it may be one of the two central advances of American civilization in the 20th Century, in that it emancipated 1/2 the population.

Not really. It just sent wives from being house-serfs into being wage-serfs. That's not emancipation. My mother had worked in her younger days and after marrying my father, and being able to stay home, she expressed astonishment that any woman would ever want to go back to work. She preferred housework, childcare and yet also a great deal of freedom she had to socialize during the day and engage in volunteer activities to being at the beck and call of a boss.

Re: I think it may be one of the two central advances of American civilization in the 20th Century, in that it emancipated 1/2 the population.

I think the other poster did have a point. Very few people in America buy into, or preach hypocritically, the line that sex must lead to procreation. You might be on firmer ground if you argued that there are more people in America who think that sex (or at least childbirth) should only occur in marriage. That traditional belief is widespread in this country-- and it leads to a lot of premature marriages that are doomed to failure. Quite frankly, I doubt that the human race, even at its most pious, has ever bought into the notion that sex is only for childbirth.

Posted by Jonf | October 19, 2007 8:40 PM

Dilan, it's clear that you think parenting is menial and unimportant work, and that those who do it are effectively enslaved. I think that the rest of the discussion flows right from those unfortunate and mistaken ideas. (Personal experience makes a difference here; it is possible that parenting you was a particularly unsatisfying thing to do; my children, on the other hand...) Parenting, and child care more generally, are not activities that are free from thought or creativity, and having intelligent people participate in the activities can be of great value both to the child and to the parent (again, your personal experience to the contrary doesn't undermine this). Your efficiency argument is free from any reference to qualitative differences and ignores the preferences of a great many women (while being unable to imagine the preferences of many men), apparently because, in your view, economics requires ignoring preferences you don't like.

Would you support extensive subsidies to fathers who wanted to take care of their children, but not for mothers? How much work is your bad normative argument doing, and how much is your bad economic argument? If they diverge, which one would you choose?

Posted by Thomas | October 19, 2007 10:10 PM

Nobody "controls" children. In terms of who supervises them, if parents want to stay at home and do it, that's their choice, but if parents want to go back to work, which is good for society, daycare should be available to them.

That's not "anti-family". The availability of daycare is what often makes the difference between a couple starting a family and not starting one.

Your statement that "if parents want to stay at home and do it, that's their choice" is belied by the fact that the policy you propose would ultimately cost those who want one parent to stay at home (someone's taxes are going up to pay for the tax credits) because they would not get the subsidy. You admit this in previous post when you argue that the government should subsidize two-income families at the expense of one-income families.

The problem with the policy that you propose is that in addition to liberating people to go into the workforce who want to go, it may push couples into pursuing the two-income model when that is not what they want.

Moreover, would this daycare credit be available to those who use relatives for daycare? Would it be available for church-run daycare, or would that violate church-state separation?

How does the government decide which daycare providers qualify for the credit (i.e. parents can get the credit when sending kids to them)? My fear is that approval will eventually hinge on the daycare center promoting particular principles, and that parents will be pressured by the government to send their kids to the approved daycare centers (as with public v. private schools, if you want to send your kids to non-aproved daycare, you have to pay for both that daycare and for the tax-supported government approved daycare you rejected), so that the government can control how they are brought up.

Will government use daycare for indoctrination? It is already doing so with education.

Posted by Glaivester | October 19, 2007 10:11 PM

Well, I can't quite agree with Dilan's manual labor/inefficient use of resources argument. Not that I think it's particularly factually wrong, per se (although child care is also very much social/emotional labor along with the manual component - two types that are rather downgraded and poorly rewarded in our culture, connected to frivolous emotional women and lower-class men). Rather, I have a different set of priorities - less rational efficiency on the behalf of - the economy? the state?- and more humanistic/individualistic happiness, living a good & fulfilled life, etc. Certainly some men's' desire that their (and other men's) wives stay home and provide them full-time childcare (also, conveniently, greater domestic control and less economic, as well as social, competition) may well be a poor use of human resources, but the biggest problem for me is that it would be confining people to a life they may not otherwise have chosen.

Anyway, as I mentioned above, I'd prefer we as a society sought policies and structures that minimized this sort of efficiency/fulfillment tradeoff (both directions, really) for those who so desired. JonF's (@ 6:32) pointed out the previous arrangements that made this possible, and which are unlikely to be workable today; which is why we need new ones, if possible.
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Glaivester, how do you feel about people without kids/ with kids in private school/ with grown children being forced to subsidize public education on the behalf of people with kids attending - actually, never mind, don't answer that . . . : )

Anyway, since I strongly support progressive methods of taxation, this isn't quite as big an issue for me - well, at least on an ideal level; practically . . . but either way, the burden is lessened by being shared among single and double income families (with ideally, more of it being supported by those wih the strongest incomes). But again, I also think we need arrangements - gov't, business, private - that make it easier for a parent to provide more at-home care, esp. for very little ones, if they wish. In other words, how can we as a society and culture best make raising kids easier for people across a range of situations and choices?

"My fear is that approval will eventually hinge on the daycare center promoting particular principles, "

I don't want to dismiss this general kind of concern as completely unreasonable. I would have to respond that, well, we're a democracy, one which also has strong protections for civil liberties. (The article you cite seems a bit on the hysterical side, I have to say, although it's a real issue. Whether the matter at hand is admitting black students or accepting LGBT students, there's always going to be a lot of anger and fear and alienation, and ultimately even the wisest laws - and I'm not sure the CA examples quite qualify -however, necessary, can only do so much).

But to be honest, what's being talked about here in terms of the childcare issue is basic quality control: what qualifications are required of the caregivers, what's the minimum caregiver:child ratio allowed at different ages, what health and safety standards, are any activities being provided beyond tv, etc. As Collins points out "You need certification in this country to be a butcher, a barber or a manicurist, but only 12 states require any training to take care of children. Only three require comprehensive background checks. In Iowa, there are 591 child care programs to every one inspector. California inspects child care centers once every five years."
This is the sort of situation where (adequately funded, whether local, state or federal) government involvement - in setting and enforcing standards - is going to be far more efficient, effective, and simply better, for two overlapping reasons:
- individuals are rarely going to have the resources to discover, maintain, etc.) such standards on their own, and
- free market mechanisms alone aren't going to fix the problem.

Same reason that we have the FDA and similar agencies, as well as basic gov't standards- people simply don't have anything like the necessary resources to individually police the safety, effectiveness, etc. of the food, medicines, and other products they buy; meanwhile, it's necessary to establish a floor, otherwise you end up with situations where folks are stuck buying unacceptably bad products because they can't afford, say, rental properties that aren't shedding lead paint chips.

For the other issues - well, that's a good argument to decouple regulation and financial aid - ie, you can spend your childcare credit anywhere, but places that are unable to maintain basic standards face the same fate as restaurants unable to pass inspections . . .
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JonF's mother " preferred housework, childcare and yet also a great deal of freedom she had to socialize during the day and engage in volunteer activities to being at the beck and call of a boss."

Sure. And other women prefer/ed paid work to unpaid "housework, childcare, and yet also a great deal of freedom" to socialize and volunteer. People are different, in different situations, with different needs, desires, temperaments, etc. How do we construct a system that maximizes (meaningfully) individual choice and fulfillment in this matter given inequality of resources, etc.?

Posted by Dan S. | October 20, 2007 10:59 AM