zlacker

>>toomuc+(OP)
Apparently until now they've been providing this only to families below 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. FPL is $32,150 for a 4-person family, so $128,600 combined family income (2 people working for $64,300 each -- and that's before fed and state taxes are deducted). Since that is far from being wealthy enough to "just" spring for expensive care, I'm glad to see this.

My only question is who the heck is going to be working in these childcare centers?? Right now (granted, I don't live in NM so this is in California) most places that are decent have waiting lists - indicating that they could expand but are unable to, instead they're already leaving money on the table. I don't think there are enough people willing to work a very grueling job for a wage that the current costs are enough to support. So, if this is a new entitlement program the state may find its costs doubling soon as they try to force the market to provide, or are forced to directly provide, care.

>>xp84+Wj
Providing such benefits to those below poverty level doesn’t make sense to me. People are that level of economic value need to improve their situation before taking on the burden of children. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing the poorest to have large families they can’t take care of. The opposite should be happening - we should subsidize households with demonstrated capability to be successful (which in our society does mean economically) to have more children.

>>Silver+5z
That might sound attractive at first[1], but when we consider that there isn't a practical way to stop those poor people from having children anyway, what such a policy amounts to is that we punish such kids[2] for their parents' "sins" -- which is a great way to breed a generation of sociopathic miscreants bent on destroying your society.

[1] (if you can avoid thinking of the class-based eugenics that such a policy would amount to, if it were actually obeyed)

[2] punish by impoverishing them further, or by making it more likely they'll be neglected by those parents that you already suspect aren't responsible