Posted on 09/15/2016 8:36:20 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
WHY subsidise childcare? The most commonly-heard justification is that doing so will encourage work. Child care is hugely expensive, to the point where it is often better for parents—overwhelmingly, mothers—to look after a child themselves rather than work. “Gender is no longer the factor creating the greatest wage discrepancy in this country, motherhood is”, said Ivanka Trump at the Republican convention, announcing that her father, like Hillary Clinton, would propose a child care-subsidy plan. That plan emerged on September 13th.
At first pass, the economic argument for subsidising child care is a bit iffy. If a mothers’ potential wages reflect her productivity, and if the price of child care reflects the costs of providing it, then there is no economic loss when a mother chooses to stay at home. Take a simplified example: suppose a low-skilled worker can either take a minimum-wage job in Walmart while paying another minimum-wage worker to look after her child, or she can stay at home and care for the child herself. If she stays at home, the second minimum-wage worker takes the Walmart job. Whatever she decides, someone looks after the child, and someone works at Walmart. There is no economic gain from switching the workers around. Even if the woman is high-skilled, making work more lucrative than saving on child care costs, the gap between her wages and the price of child care reflects the benefit to the economy of her choosing to work. She is sufficiently incentivized without any government intervention.
Of course, economic reality is more complicated. Mothers may not fully account for the effect a break from work might have on their future wages. And there are other benefits to reducing the costs of having children, not least that kids grow up to work and pay taxes themselves (see article).
Who will win the Bidding War?
Agreed. Watching Dr. Warner’s video on Arabic conquests of Classical Civilization yet another time. I’m sure most conservatives see this idea as another dependency program (I can understand this also) but my thoughts went directly to Demographic warfare and what lies ahead with the hijrah and the fruits of infiltration.
We must encourage a restocking of fighting westerners.
Having children IS personal responsibility. No children, no future: not for you, not for your nation, and not for your culture.
Irresponsible people NOT having children, is what brought Europe to the sad state where they think they need Turks and Syrians to carry on for another generation. And this has been going on for decades. How many “guest workers” has Germany imported since the 1950’s -— “guests” who were supposed to eventually go back to Turkey but never did?
Merkel and ALL her predecessors for three generations have thought they could build a German future without Germans. Oh my how advanced and intelligent they are. Sterile sex for childless idiots. And now the median-age Frau is past menopause. They’re at the end of their demographic rope -— and discovered it ends with a noose.
As the “new” “germans” say: Inshallah.
You sure your post was meant for me? I wasn’t stating anything to the contrary to your position.
A deduction is not the same thing as a credit.
Why do you hate lower taxes?
How about this:
We make abortion illegal. That alone will bring hundreds of thousands into the world every year.
Then nobody has to fiddle with the tax code.
How about we stop using tax policy for social engineering?
That has resulted in giving out “refunds” of money that was never paid in in the first place. Yes I know that financial incentives work, however, I would argue that it is another one of those things that the federal government has no business doing. If it’s needed it is up to the States. Challenge the underlying premise!
I’m 10000% for making abortion uninsurable, illegal and unthinkable, but that will not necessarily lead to hundreds of thousands of new birth. The World Governors, philanthropic foundation powerfreaks and corporate elites want all the females “fixed” on long-acting hormonal birth control-— transdermal, injectable and implantable —— and they will sell it to not as Red China-styke physical totalitarianism, but as our “right”.
All of their cultural interventions -— and very effective the are -— have been about the suppression of procreative sex. Contraception, sterilization, abortion, VR porn, conscription of mothers and would-be mothers wholesale into the paid labor force, buggery, trannyism (emotional and physical castration) and next, robot sex.
Has it not occurred to you that it all has one end in mind?
Simplify the tax code and lower the rates across the board. Making a ridiculously complicated tax code even more convoluted will help nobody, and sounds like typical election year pandering.
Everyone should recognize the benefit of having a parent with their children as much as possible. Nobody should be rewarded or punished by politicians for making this decision.
Americans waste far too much time and money attempting to comply with an ever expanding, and always confusing tax policy. Why make it worse? Let Americans keep more of their money (and time) and they will figure out what is best for their children without any help from DC. Liberty is an awesome thing.
I was agreeing with you, then attempted to explain a bit more about why you were correct. Keep up the good work in using your head for more than a hat rack.
Clinton does not support reducing the replication rate of Muslims though. They overtake every country they enter.
That’s one of the most broad and overgeneralized statements I’ve seen in a while.
I work because I have to. My husband is a hard worker in a the dying coal industry. We have a small mortgage and minimal debt. If we “tighten our belt” any more than we do we’ll be homeless.
Assuming every mother that works is a whore, raising kids to dead beat dads is ridiculous, even for the most old and crotchety Freeper.
The economy doesn’t allow for one parent to stay home anymore.
Couldn’t agree more. It is our responsibility as human beings to populate the earth and pass on our values.
Strange conservatives sometimes subscribe to the “over population” myth.
A very good discussion. If the Walmart employee pays her babysitter thats 2 paychecks. In theory the economy grows more. $2k iras for parents? Does that mean no taxes on $2k of earnings if I become a foster parent for just a month? I like the proposal but I just think it opens another can of worms. Gut the Government and THEN try it. The rats won’t even let us cut anything to fight zika.
I’m philosophically opposed to almost everything in this proposal.
But I do get tired of our society looking at babies as a burden.
The left looks at them like disposable meat sacks and the right looks at them like they are automatically products of irresponsibility.
It’s sad and disgusting that we’ve gotten to this point in our society.
I don’t have a pension plan, and SS is bankrupt, period. Flat tax, no loopholes, no deductions. If someone wants to have kids, God bless ‘em, but those kids aren’t my responsibility.
The Trump plan, from what I can tell, is really an increase in the per-child tax dependent deduction that never kept up with inflation in the first place. It is ingeniously marketed as a “child care credit” which sounds great to the “suburban bimbos from hell” group (h/t blackelk) which is Trump’s weakest group.
Check the growth rate of Muslims in our country, then extrapolate out a few years and see who the majority is. Reality sucks but the whites in this country are not producing enough children even t replace themselves.
If true what percentage would the 93,000,000 who have left the workforce and is no longer looking for employment. 93>73. by 73=47% and 93=4.5% unemployment. Ain't facts fun.
This is the same regurgitated plan liberals have been pushing for decades. Now all of a sudden because Trump pushing it, it is now ok...sign me up!
I can point to NUMEROUS posts within FR where Obama and many liberal democrats have given the same pitch and rightly so we trailed on them.
Is there anything Trump can pitch that you won’t come out against? Have we all been pulled left now and just march right along?
How many more times are we going to just blindly follow not pressing our candidate? How much more do we need to tie ourselves into a pretzel trying to explain away clearly liberal policies? Have we sold our conservative principles for the sake of “getting our guy in?”
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