zlacker

>>toomuc+(OP)
This is fantastic! I hope they succeed and there is no abuse or other issues, because it will show how much an economy can grow when women are allowed to work to their full potential. Families who were previously in poverty because the mom would struggle to pay for childcare to work can now have assurance kids are ok while the mom can pursue jobs, start her own small business (huge chunk of businesses are small businesses ran by women) and prosper. If you pose your child’s safety vs another dollar, most parents would vote for their children. But if the children are taken care of, parents can give the economy their best and the taxes paid and GDP gained will pay back for the expense manyfold.

>>dzink+Y6
Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. This policy appears to disincentives children staying with their mother even when it is preferred.

>>mothba+w7
I just don't understand this mentality.

My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We are lucky that we can afford to do this. Most of our kid's friends have both parents working and they pay for child care. If suddenly they were able to have that childcare paid for, that would be wonderful! It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? I don't need to have my own "waiver" payment in order for me to be in favor of my neighbor's burden being lifted.

It's like free school lunch. We pack our kid a lunch every day, but some families rely on the school-provided free lunch. It's never even occurred to me that we should get a $3/day payment because we don't take advantage of free lunch. Having free lunch available is unequivocally a good thing, regardless of whether we personally partake.

>>ryandr+cy
Good government policies generally avoid step functions otherwise you get perverse incentives.

For example, if you lose too many benefits when you get a job, it can easily make getting a job yield negative expected value, this is bad because often it stunts future career potential.

There may be families that cannot quite afford to be a stay-at-home mom even though they want to. Providing the waiver also increases the overall fairness. In rural areas there are generally far fewer childcare options, so this becomes a benefit that accrues to those that live in cities. Not very fair.

>>aetern+yG
My house has never been on fire, should I get a tax rebate for never needing service from the fire department?

Government services exist to help people who need them. The idea that government services need to have the same net effect on every citizen is unusually popular in the US and is part of the reason we have worse government services than our peer nations.

>>slg+2M
Fire protection is generally widely supported because almost everyone shares in the benefit, the protection is a benefit whether or not you need service.

The reason we have worse government services is because there's no attempt to make them fair, the benefits are almost always highly skewed along partisan lines and thus usually not passed.

>>aetern+6T
>Fire protection is generally widely supported because almost everyone shares in the benefit, the protection is a benefit whether or not you need service.

The same is true for things like childcare and education. Improving outcomes for the next generation doesn't only benefit them and their parents, it improves the entire society.

>The reason we have worse government services is because there's no attempt to make them fair, the benefits are almost always highly skewed along partisan lines and thus usually not passed.

You're just debating whether "everyone gets the same" is a better definition of "fair" than "everyone gets what they need". The only way for the government to satisfy the former without UBI (which I would support) is for the government to offer extremely limited services. That's the situation we're in. Because as I have said in another comment, the same argument that applies to stay at home parents applies to childless people so offering any childcare support is unfair according to the "everyone gets the same" definition.

>>slg+h51
Need is ill-defined. People have all kinds of different ideas for what they need.

I think it's worth considering what has significant majority support. For example I believe it's something like 80%+ support some kind of childcare subsidy or tax credit. Some childless probably make up the 20% just as some would prefer not to have a fire brigade.

At that level of support just pass the subsidy / tax credit and let the families figure out how to apply it (paid daycare or homecare).