c/Independent_Media · by Wren@lemmy.today · 22d

America’s Child Care Crisis Was a Political Choice

https://www.damemagazine.com/2026/08/19/fix-child-care-crisis-america/

America’s parents today live under the shadow of two days in 1971. On December 9 of that year, President Richard Nixon vetoed a piece of legislation known as the Comprehensive Child Development Act. The bill, passed through Congress with bipartisan support, would have begun funding a locally run network of high-quality child care programs. Writing with language that could likely be penned today, the Washington Post editorial board opined that, “As every working mother knows, unless she is lucky enough to have a trusted relative down the street, it is almost impossible to find a good child care setup in most communities at any price,” and the legislation “just might provide a vehicle for a new national effort to make childhood livable.”

65 points · 14 comments · view on lemmy.world

14 Comments

jtrek@startrek.website · 6 pts · 22d

The majority of our society's problems are because conservatives are assholes. It's always been this way. We'd be working 12 hour days for company scrip if they had their way.

Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 22d (10 replies)

Nixon, however, ended up acceding to the advice of his conservative advisor Pat Buchanan, who would later tell journalist Brigid Schulte that “we wanted to not only kill the bill, we wanted to drive a stake right through its heart.” Nixon’s veto statement, written by Buchanan, said that pursuing this (voluntary) path would be a “long leap into the dark for the United States government and the American people” and “commit the vast moral authority of the national government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing over [and] against the family-centered approach.”

Yet Nixon and his aides couldn’t ignore the fact that thanks to a changing global economy and improved rights for women, mothers of young children were flocking into the labor force; by 1970, nearly one-third of married mothers with children below the age of six were working for pay, and their numbers were rising rapidly. So the very next day, on December 10, Nixon signed into law a tax package that included an expansion of child care-related deductions which would reach into the middle class. Universal child care was out, and what author Maxine Eichner has called the “free-market family” was in. The child care system still hasn’t recovered, philosophically, practically, or politically

So the very next day, on December 10, Nixon signed into law a tax package that included an expansion of child care-related deductions which would reach into the middle class. Universal child care was out, and what author Maxine Eichner has called the “free-market family” was in. The child care system still hasn’t recovered, philosophically, practically, or politically.

Fucking cunts.

I am glad to see change is finally happening now.

Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de · -2 pts · 22d (9 replies)

I am glad to see change is finally happening now.

Did you forget the /s?

velma@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 22d (8 replies)

The post-COVID years, however, have brought signs that the country is ready to move out from the legacy of the Nixon veto. Over the past few years, New Mexico became the first state to offer free child care to all households, regardless of income, where all parents are working or in school; Vermont passed a small payroll tax with the support of business leaders that has powered a major child care expansion; and New York City launched their own pathway to universal free child care. Other states, including red states like Texas and Montana, have also made historic investments in their child care systems. If these solutions prove sustainable and scalable, the U.S. may finally make good on a long-delayed promise to “make childhood livable.”

Despite headwinds at the federal level, many experts and advocates are hopeful about child care’s future. “The game is momentum,” says Stebbins of the Alliance for Early Success, who notes that state victories bubbling up to national laws has been the path followed in other arenas like health care. Already, Democrats across the country, from both moderate and progressive wings of the party, have taken up the mantle of universal child care, while younger Republican leaders like Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama are regularly putting forth bipartisan child care legislation. The gains in many states also owe to the presence of sophisticated, sustained grassroots organizing and advocacy campaigns that have activated unusual messengers from business leaders to police chiefs.

Did you forget to read the article?

Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 22d

WalleyeWarrior@midwest.social · 2 pts · 22d (1 reply)

I'll believe it when I see it start to happen. Here in Ohio they are trying to abolish all property tax and funnel all education money into vouchers for private schools.

velma@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 22d

And here in Washington State, we have paid family leave and subsidized child care. It really varies depending on where you're located.

Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 22d (4 replies)

I read the article, and it's great what some states are able to do but I have absolutely no faith that the federal government will ever change in this regard.

It's very easy for politicians to create bipartisan legislation that they know is going to go nowhere. This is one of those things that will not go beyond campaign promises and half-assed attempts at getting a vote.

velma@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 22d (3 replies)

The pressure from states enacting their own childcare and parental protections will help push the federal government into action. Look at how they're dealing with marijuana now.

Yes it's easy for politicians to lie about these things on the campaign trail. That's why we need to keep talking about it, keep pressing them on holding their promises, keep voting for our interests, keep working in our local communities to support one another.

Even if the federal government never enacts protections, tackling it at the state level can still bring relief to families.

Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 22d (2 replies)

The majority of states have legalized cannabis and that hasn't been enough to pressure the federal government, and every 4 years both parties say they will make it happen.

velma@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 22d (1 reply)

You haven’t seen that they’re actively working on rescheduling cannabis at the federal level?

It was enough pressure for both Biden and Trump to make noise about it even if it was only to appease people temporarily. That’s more than any president before.

Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 21d

And yet the low dose THC that had been inadvertently legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill has been banned in the budget bill that was passed last November that ended the government shutdown. The ban takes effect on November 12 of this year.

So while they slow walk towards rescheduling, which is not going to legalize anything, they are banning the little bit that we already had access to. If they were serious about legalization it could be done immediately.

Child care, health care, cannabis, housing reform, clean energy.... Basically anything that's good for the citizens will not be passed by our government and every action that they make that looks like they are trying to make progress is just theater.

The only law passed in the past 25 years that has actually been good for the American people is the Affordable Care act... and even that falls WAAY short of what it should have been.

Hell, even marriage equality came from the supreme court, not anyone we elected.

HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 22d (1 reply)

I say fuck what the government wants and don't have kids.

I'm nearly 50 and don't have kids and never wanted to have kids: No regrets child free baby!

EDIT: But I do agree that it is good that improvements are being made for people who already have kids.

velma@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 22d

People should choose for themselves independent of “sticking it to the man”. It’s ok to want children.