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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

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.

mothballed 1y ago
Why wouldn't you want your friends to better be able to afford what you have, by getting an equal value stipend to stay at home if you're for universal childcare? There are many families that might be only one or two tuitions away from being able to stay at home with their child like they had wished, and assigning the waiver/voucher to the child instead of to the daycare can make that happen. And no it's not a free lunch. If stay-at-home in a family isn't reimbursed, they are actually worse off, because now they have an additional tax they are paying that they did not have before. So now even more people like you who wanted a parent to stay at home are driven out of it because their family budget comes upon this tax.
- stickfigure 1y ago
  Let it go. Everyone gets some tax benefits that others don't. Childless people get many fewer social benefits than people with children. We don't need to quibble over microgrievances.
  - hellojesus 1y ago
    We shouldn't provide any welfare services. Then we will all be equal. For as much as you Elsa folks quible about people being against giveaways, what is so harmful about not giving thigs away involuntarily?
- ryandrake 1y ago
  I'm not sure I follow, but I'm open to being wrong. The point of this subsidy is not to encourage people to move from paid-childcare to stay-at-home. That's a totally separate economic decision. The point of it is to ease/eliminate the burden of those who require paid-childcare. If we think there is a societal advantage to financially incentivize parents to stay-at-home with a subsidy, I'd be open to looking at the cost/benefit, but it's a different issue. And I am not significantly worse off if my neighbor's childcare burden is lifted. Not every tax dollar I spend needs to come back to me in the form of a benefit.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    > And I am not significantly worse off if my neighbor's childcare burden is lifted. This seems like an unrelated consideration though. You may be significantly worse off. Maybe the government that provides this raises taxes considerably to make this work. Or maybe they take on crippling debt. Maybe their credit rating goes down.
- pear01 1y ago
  So if I pack my kids lunch but other kids get a "free" lunch I'm worse off? Yes there is no "free lunch" I'm paying a tax for something I don't need. The comment you are replying to already anticipates this. How is it not the same argument? Your budget comment also puzzles me. What if my existing family budget is put under stress by the "free lunch tax" so now I'm even further away from being able to pack my own lunch? How is it different? Because it's a "new" tax? You can make the same argument for any tax then. At the end of the day are your children better or worse off if their future fellow citizens are growing up under roofs that can't afford childcare or healthcare or food? For someone that seems to know enough about costs and incentives and tradeoffs you seem to have quite a constrained view. Also, I'm curious about your waivers claim re costs because I would think given the scenario you laid out that would make the program more expensive. Your taxed for things other people use more than you. That's what society is. The point of the comment you are replying to is that people obsess over this as if they are being personally violated when really it is often just greed in the face of the common good.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    It's very convenient that it is greed when the stay at home mom wants an equal voucher, but not greed when a mom joins a capitalist for-profit enterprise for whatever wage she can avail herself of with the childcare bill footed by everyone else. Which is precisely what we are discussing.
    - pear01 1y ago
      Make it a progressive tax then? The point was many people can afford to help others to make society better for all. But you only want to pay taxes for what you're personally interested in? If you think stay at home needs to be prioritized in some way, as another comment mentioned, that's a separate argument. You are also relying on scenarios that don't even sound plausible. If someone can barely afford stay at home and this tax makes it that painful for them, then make it more progressive. Then again I'm not sure they are equivalent. At the end of the day a majority deciding something like this is in the common interest and you having a problem because you won't personally take advantage of it sounds like greed to me. No one should be going broke because of this tax. If you think capitalist mommy is making too much while you foot the bill then wouldn't the remedy be to tax her more? Are you worried about people who can't afford the tax or do you just resent some people for getting societal benefits while also making more than you?
notahacker 1y ago
Also, stay at home mums often like to sometimes be able to use child care facilities. I doubt they feel cheated that they don't use it on the majority of days they prefer to spend with their kids...
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  But why not let them go to child care on those days, get those reimbursed, but also use the funds for other things (like supplies for raising kids at home, or to pay for other activities you take them to that aren’t just daycare)?
  - notahacker 1y ago
    Because the point of subsidising care is to remove cost barriers to parents getting back into work or dealing with other stuff or socialising kids in a day care environment, not to turn parenting into a profit centre
    - SilverElfin 1y ago
      Why would providing vouchers turn parenting into a profit center? That’s a cynical way to portray one side of this when you probably don’t take the same harsh view of the other side. The point of subsidizing care isn’t to get parents “back into work”. It’s to help people raise children. That’s it. You’re gatekeeping what this is for as a way to justify unnecessary centralization and a lack of choice where choice is possible.
      - notahacker 1y ago
        Providing vouchers to pay for daycare doesn't turn parenting into a profit centre. Providing parents with $12k per child per annum which they can either spend on daycare or anything else they want if they don't need daycare does (and has the opposite effect of the current policy: it keeps the opportunity cost of daycare the same and lowers the relative value of going back to work)
harikb 1y ago
+1 This whole mentality of voucher system is selfish. Even if we consider it as an "efficiency" problem, it is far cheaper for a person to be paid to take care of N children (where N is not too large), rather than have the have the mom, who is probably qualified in some other field, take care of just their children.
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  It’s not any more selfish than wanting subsidy for childcare. A voucher system is about choice. Parents get to have some financial assistance to make it possible for them to stay at home and be with their kids, or to provide their children with experiences that aren’t just sitting in the daycare center’s room. If they want to do things differently, why shouldn’t they be able to? Why does providing assistance have to mean centralized control of what assistance looks like? > the mom, who is probably qualified in some other field Parents are plenty qualified to take care of their kids. And their qualifications in some other field doesn’t mean that working that field is better for them or their kids or the country. Having strong family structures and time together is pretty valuable.
  - michaelmior 1y ago
    > Why does providing assistance have to mean centralized control of what assistance looks like? I generally agree with you, but often the reason that these programs work economically is that those who don't choose to use them still contribute. There are (at least) three different categories: (1) caregivers who will care for their child themselves regardless of whether or not free care is available elsewhere, (2) caregivers who will find care elsewhere regardless of the cost, and (3) caregivers who will make use of free care if available, or otherwise, care for their child themselves. I think the group (1) has a tendency to be higher income. It's certainly not true of everyone in that group, but I would wager that a significant number of people in that group do not need the financial assistance. Those people not using the free resource, but still contributing to funding it is what makes it economically viable.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    If I as a taxpayer am going to subsidize someone else's activity, then why shouldn't I get a say in how they perform that activity? If it costs $100/child at a daycare facility, but $200/child for someone to be a stay-at-home parent, and you're asking me, a random taxpayer, to pay for one of those for someone else, from a financial perspective I will likely prefer to pay for the former. Now, I personally don't get to decide where tax dollars go, but I could easily imagine there are enough people with this preference that it could influence public policy. Having said that, if it's actually significantly better for a child to have a SAH parent, I might change my tune. (My mother was a SAHM, and I think that was great for us growing up.)
SilverElfin 1y ago
Of course it affects your situation. It’s paid for from taxes so it takes away from other things you as a taxpayer could have, right? But also if the goal is to incentivize raising children, someone who wants to raise their child in a family centric way rather than outsourcing it should have help too right? But leaving those arguments aside, I also think that only subsidizing daycare is too one size fits all, just like with public schools. If people want to raise their kids differently, they should be able to get assistance. Like if I want to not have a single daycare provider but want to instead take my kids to a few different activities during the day (like to a museum and then a swim class and then baseball or whatever), why shouldn’t tax funds be made available to offset the costs of those things?
- ryandrake 1y ago
  > It’s paid for from taxes so it takes away from other things you as a taxpayer could have, right? I don't expect every tax dollar I spend to come back to me in the form of a direct benefit. > Like if I want to not have a single daycare provider but want to instead take my kids to a few different activities during the day (like to a museum and then a swim class and then baseball or whatever), why shouldn’t tax funds be made available to offset the costs of those things? I would be 100% open to this sort of taxpayer-funded educational enrichment for families who can't afford it themselves, depending on the usual criteria, like how well-run/efficient it is and so on.
erikgaas 1y ago
Right. I agree, but I think you are appealing to generosity when it works just as well if you appeal to greed and selfishness. If I'm a parent who does not intend to take advantage of the program and therefore not to get any benefit directly, and I assume the program is done well and not rushed, I could reasonably expect: - More parents able to be in the work force (immediately) - Better metrics for the young children entering. Especially for at risk. - Savings from less crime in the future. - Higher attainment of students when they enter the work force later. - Higher birth rate??? (probably not but this one is interesting regardless) My understanding so far is that this leads to spending savings in addition to QOL of life improvements. And that's just for me. I want to live with less crime and less tax liability. Asking for additional waivers imo just increases the cost in areas that will not as directly achieve the benefits of the program as stated. The only reason to ask for it is as a negotiation tactic. I think the most important thing is to focus on the quality of the program and make sure the resources are there. And to make sure opportunities persist to prevent "fade out". I think that might have been the difference between Oklahoma's success in pre-k vs a program in Tennessee.
- Izikiel43 1y ago
  > Higher birth rate??? (probably not but this one is interesting regardless) Why probably not? Childcare before primary school is a huge expense in the US, I think the largest for a healthy kid, around 24k$ per year where I live, so basically every other child is another 24k$ to the budget, or one parent not working. With this approach, having 2 or 3 children is more feasible, and the money saved from universal childcare could be in part invested for college or the child's future.
  - hellojesus 1y ago
    Let's go with this (I pay a little more than $24k/yr/kid for care now). Does the influx of gov mandated childcare centers reduce the annual expense for parents? If so, it does so at the cost to the current workers by reducing their salaries. If not, now you've put every taxpayer on the hook for 24k+admin_expenses per child per year. That is an immediate blow to everyone except those benefiting more than their increased tax burden. The benefit is lower wages for those competing against the new laborers and likely higher government tax inflows?
prepend 1y ago
> It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it It affects you like if your neighbor got a $5000 tax credit and you didn’t. It’s community money paying for it so it impacts you because it is your tax dollars being spent.
- KittenInABox 1y ago
  If my neighbor already gets a $5000 tax credit remodeling his bathroom or installing a new/greener boiler. Should I get $5000 for not remodeling?
  - jtbayly 1y ago
    You have demonstrated the point of the policy. What is it that is being incentivized here? Leaving your children and working all day.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      Exactly. If the incentive was to take care of children, the money would go with the child whether they are taken care of by a stay at home or someone the state can tax income from.
      - SilverElfin 1y ago
        100%. This is also why it makes sense to have money move with the child regardless of whether they’re in public schools or home schooled or at a private school.
    - KittenInABox 1y ago
      If I'm already benefiting from a new boiler, I don't need another new boiler just to get the $5000 tax credit. This is silly. There are benefits to being a working parent vs a stay at home parent and if you have access to stay at home care you simply don't need it. This is like getting mad that my workplace offers pet insurance when I have no pets so I demand the money anyway. Or demanding a trophy for not participating in a competitive sport.
vlovich123 1y ago
There's two things I think you've overlooked. One thing is that politically it's easier for benefits to remain sticky if everyone benefits from it vs a subpopulation. That's why universal income has stronger support than welfare benefits. Additionally, when you don't have means testing, the bureaucracy is a lot more straightforward and politicians can't mess with it by effectively cutting the program by increasing the administrative burden. > We are lucky that we can afford to do this. This is the second piece. What about people who are on the margin who aren't wealthy enough to do this and the subsidy would hep them achieve this? The subsidy could help the mom stay home and maybe do part-time work from home even. The thing that's easiest to miss when you're well on one side of a boundary is only looking at the other side of the boundary instead of also looking at where that boundary is drawn.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  I addressed your second point in another comment. If voters thought there was a societal advantage to financially encourage stay-at-home parenthood with a subsidy, I'd be open to listen to the pros and cons of that, too, but that's kind of a separate issue. This one is about easing the burden for those who already pay for professional childcare, including those on the margin. The first point is just unfortunate humanity crab bucket mentality. "Others shouldn't benefit if I don't." I don't think there's anything we can do about that :(
  - ndriscoll 1y ago
    It's not a crab bucket mentality. Subsidizing one group that competes in the same markets (e.g. only dual income families, who compete with single income families for housing in desirable areas to raise kids) actually increases costs for the unsubsidized group. It doesn't just make them relatively worse off, but absolutely worse off. It shifts the margin of who can afford a single family lifestyle, all else equal. Since it's subsidizing specific behavior and not merely being poor or whatever, people will naturally look at whether they think that behavior ought to be incentivized, or whether the government should stay neutral. My wife is also a stay at home mom, and I've argued before that an increase in the child tax credit with a phase out for high income (so we might not qualify) makes more sense than a childcare credit/deduction for this reason. Then you're just subsidizing having kids, which seems fine to me (assuming we're subsidizing anything) since that's sort of necessary to sustain society.
aeternum 1y ago
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.
- slg 1y ago
  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.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    This is more like saying you'll get a tax rebate if you move from your family home you built with your bare hands into a megacorp built condo complex of equal value and fire risk.
  - aeternum 1y ago
    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.
    - slg 1y ago
      >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.
throawayonthe 1y ago
because your wife (and in turn your household yes) deserves to be compensated for the socially valuable labour first of all?
jrflowers 1y ago
> I just don't understand this mentality. It is bad faith reasoning. If you imagine a person that does not want women to participate in the workforce but wants to express that in a way that doesn’t sound repugnant, it is pretty easy to see how someone would come up with that. The way you can tell that it’s bad faith is by looking at the context that “pay women to stay out of the workforce” gets brought up. In this case it is framed as an alternative to providing childcare, but those two ideas have nothing to do with each other. As a society we could do both. The “pay women to stay out of the workforce” or “pay for childcare” dichotomy is completely made up, and folks that engage in that particular type of make-believe are either profoundly intellectually lazy or being intentionally disingenuous.
czhu12 1y ago
Isn’t the idea that many families want to have a stay at home mom, but can’t afford to and are forced to work. Therefore a waiver would help with this?
chlodwig 1y ago
I dislike the perversity of taxing people than only giving the money back to them if they arrange their life in a way that policy-makers prefer (two income family). I especially dislike it when the subsidized choice of institutional childcare is more inefficient (paying for a lot of overhead), worse for the environment (extra people commuting), and worse for the kids (kids in groups that are classes that are too large for their age, taken care of by a rotating cast of minimum wage workers instead of by their own parent). And yes, I think parents who successfully home-school their children should be given the money that government schools would have cost them.
- libraryatnight 1y ago
  This strikes me as part of the disease of thinking like a tax payer and not a citizen. It's about the service/resource availability, not the money. And your system seems to create more perversion than what you're reacting to - a bunch of people keeping score to make sure they get theirs.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    In AZ we offer ESA to homeschoolers, vouchers to charter or private school kids, and then normal tuition free public schools. That way the service/resource is available to all children regardless of who the parent picks to provide it, according to what the family sees as their best option. It's not about who gets the money, just that the resources are available. I think very rarely does the state or society have a better view in aggregate of what is best for each family, particularly when you consider the asymmetry of millions of families having time and information to contemplate their circumstance vs voters or bureaucrats having complete inability to put any real thought on the child on a per-child basis.
somenameforme 1y ago
In most of those other households, it's highly probable that they wish they could have a stay-at-home-parent but can't afford it. A small payment can help nudge people over the line where it suddenly becomes financially viable. A voucher type solution would also work great for families that would also prefer to e.g. hire a private nanny instead of sending their child to daycare.
tempfile 1y ago
> We are lucky that we can afford to do this. > It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? This is rather noble of you, but the reason is obvious. If the playing field were "levelled" then you wouldn't have to be lucky. It is all well and good that you are lucky, but there is a certain population who want to emulate your choice but are unable to, because they are missing precisely the marginal amount that the childcare provision costs. It is a political choice to say that those people should not be able to pursue home-care of the children in order that we can avoid giving out a rebate.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  I never said I opposed a subsidy to encourage stay-at-home parenting. By all means, we should propose it and study its pros and cons. But the lack of that subsidy should not cause someone to oppose a paid-childcare subsidy.
  - tempfile 1y ago
    >> Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. > I just don't understand this mentality. I don't understand. Wasn't your original comment opposing an equal value waiver?
deleted 1y ago
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mothballed 1y ago

Why wouldn't you want your friends to better be able to afford what you have, by getting an equal value stipend to stay at home if you're for universal childcare? There are many families that might be only one or two tuitions away from being able to stay at home with their child like they had wished, and assigning the waiver/voucher to the child instead of to the daycare can make that happen. And no it's not a free lunch. If stay-at-home in a family isn't reimbursed, they are actually worse off, because now they have an additional tax they are paying that they did not have before. So now even more people like you who wanted a parent to stay at home are driven out of it because their family budget comes upon this tax.

stickfigure 1y ago
Let it go. Everyone gets some tax benefits that others don't. Childless people get many fewer social benefits than people with children. We don't need to quibble over microgrievances.
- hellojesus 1y ago
  We shouldn't provide any welfare services. Then we will all be equal. For as much as you Elsa folks quible about people being against giveaways, what is so harmful about not giving thigs away involuntarily?
ryandrake 1y ago
I'm not sure I follow, but I'm open to being wrong. The point of this subsidy is not to encourage people to move from paid-childcare to stay-at-home. That's a totally separate economic decision. The point of it is to ease/eliminate the burden of those who require paid-childcare. If we think there is a societal advantage to financially incentivize parents to stay-at-home with a subsidy, I'd be open to looking at the cost/benefit, but it's a different issue. And I am not significantly worse off if my neighbor's childcare burden is lifted. Not every tax dollar I spend needs to come back to me in the form of a benefit.
- deleted 1y ago
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- SilverElfin 1y ago
  > And I am not significantly worse off if my neighbor's childcare burden is lifted. This seems like an unrelated consideration though. You may be significantly worse off. Maybe the government that provides this raises taxes considerably to make this work. Or maybe they take on crippling debt. Maybe their credit rating goes down.
pear01 1y ago
So if I pack my kids lunch but other kids get a "free" lunch I'm worse off? Yes there is no "free lunch" I'm paying a tax for something I don't need. The comment you are replying to already anticipates this. How is it not the same argument? Your budget comment also puzzles me. What if my existing family budget is put under stress by the "free lunch tax" so now I'm even further away from being able to pack my own lunch? How is it different? Because it's a "new" tax? You can make the same argument for any tax then. At the end of the day are your children better or worse off if their future fellow citizens are growing up under roofs that can't afford childcare or healthcare or food? For someone that seems to know enough about costs and incentives and tradeoffs you seem to have quite a constrained view. Also, I'm curious about your waivers claim re costs because I would think given the scenario you laid out that would make the program more expensive. Your taxed for things other people use more than you. That's what society is. The point of the comment you are replying to is that people obsess over this as if they are being personally violated when really it is often just greed in the face of the common good.
- mothballed 1y ago
  It's very convenient that it is greed when the stay at home mom wants an equal voucher, but not greed when a mom joins a capitalist for-profit enterprise for whatever wage she can avail herself of with the childcare bill footed by everyone else. Which is precisely what we are discussing.
  - pear01 1y ago
    Make it a progressive tax then? The point was many people can afford to help others to make society better for all. But you only want to pay taxes for what you're personally interested in? If you think stay at home needs to be prioritized in some way, as another comment mentioned, that's a separate argument. You are also relying on scenarios that don't even sound plausible. If someone can barely afford stay at home and this tax makes it that painful for them, then make it more progressive. Then again I'm not sure they are equivalent. At the end of the day a majority deciding something like this is in the common interest and you having a problem because you won't personally take advantage of it sounds like greed to me. No one should be going broke because of this tax. If you think capitalist mommy is making too much while you foot the bill then wouldn't the remedy be to tax her more? Are you worried about people who can't afford the tax or do you just resent some people for getting societal benefits while also making more than you?

notahacker 1y ago

Also, stay at home mums often like to sometimes be able to use child care facilities. I doubt they feel cheated that they don't use it on the majority of days they prefer to spend with their kids...

SilverElfin 1y ago
But why not let them go to child care on those days, get those reimbursed, but also use the funds for other things (like supplies for raising kids at home, or to pay for other activities you take them to that aren’t just daycare)?
- notahacker 1y ago
  Because the point of subsidising care is to remove cost barriers to parents getting back into work or dealing with other stuff or socialising kids in a day care environment, not to turn parenting into a profit centre
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    Why would providing vouchers turn parenting into a profit center? That’s a cynical way to portray one side of this when you probably don’t take the same harsh view of the other side. The point of subsidizing care isn’t to get parents “back into work”. It’s to help people raise children. That’s it. You’re gatekeeping what this is for as a way to justify unnecessary centralization and a lack of choice where choice is possible.
    - notahacker 1y ago
      Providing vouchers to pay for daycare doesn't turn parenting into a profit centre. Providing parents with $12k per child per annum which they can either spend on daycare or anything else they want if they don't need daycare does (and has the opposite effect of the current policy: it keeps the opportunity cost of daycare the same and lowers the relative value of going back to work)

harikb 1y ago

+1 This whole mentality of voucher system is selfish. Even if we consider it as an "efficiency" problem, it is far cheaper for a person to be paid to take care of N children (where N is not too large), rather than have the have the mom, who is probably qualified in some other field, take care of just their children.

SilverElfin 1y ago
It’s not any more selfish than wanting subsidy for childcare. A voucher system is about choice. Parents get to have some financial assistance to make it possible for them to stay at home and be with their kids, or to provide their children with experiences that aren’t just sitting in the daycare center’s room. If they want to do things differently, why shouldn’t they be able to? Why does providing assistance have to mean centralized control of what assistance looks like? > the mom, who is probably qualified in some other field Parents are plenty qualified to take care of their kids. And their qualifications in some other field doesn’t mean that working that field is better for them or their kids or the country. Having strong family structures and time together is pretty valuable.
- michaelmior 1y ago
  > Why does providing assistance have to mean centralized control of what assistance looks like? I generally agree with you, but often the reason that these programs work economically is that those who don't choose to use them still contribute. There are (at least) three different categories: (1) caregivers who will care for their child themselves regardless of whether or not free care is available elsewhere, (2) caregivers who will find care elsewhere regardless of the cost, and (3) caregivers who will make use of free care if available, or otherwise, care for their child themselves. I think the group (1) has a tendency to be higher income. It's certainly not true of everyone in that group, but I would wager that a significant number of people in that group do not need the financial assistance. Those people not using the free resource, but still contributing to funding it is what makes it economically viable.
- kelnos 1y ago
  If I as a taxpayer am going to subsidize someone else's activity, then why shouldn't I get a say in how they perform that activity? If it costs $100/child at a daycare facility, but $200/child for someone to be a stay-at-home parent, and you're asking me, a random taxpayer, to pay for one of those for someone else, from a financial perspective I will likely prefer to pay for the former. Now, I personally don't get to decide where tax dollars go, but I could easily imagine there are enough people with this preference that it could influence public policy. Having said that, if it's actually significantly better for a child to have a SAH parent, I might change my tune. (My mother was a SAHM, and I think that was great for us growing up.)

SilverElfin 1y ago

Of course it affects your situation. It’s paid for from taxes so it takes away from other things you as a taxpayer could have, right? But also if the goal is to incentivize raising children, someone who wants to raise their child in a family centric way rather than outsourcing it should have help too right? But leaving those arguments aside, I also think that only subsidizing daycare is too one size fits all, just like with public schools. If people want to raise their kids differently, they should be able to get assistance. Like if I want to not have a single daycare provider but want to instead take my kids to a few different activities during the day (like to a museum and then a swim class and then baseball or whatever), why shouldn’t tax funds be made available to offset the costs of those things?

ryandrake 1y ago
> It’s paid for from taxes so it takes away from other things you as a taxpayer could have, right? I don't expect every tax dollar I spend to come back to me in the form of a direct benefit. > Like if I want to not have a single daycare provider but want to instead take my kids to a few different activities during the day (like to a museum and then a swim class and then baseball or whatever), why shouldn’t tax funds be made available to offset the costs of those things? I would be 100% open to this sort of taxpayer-funded educational enrichment for families who can't afford it themselves, depending on the usual criteria, like how well-run/efficient it is and so on.

erikgaas 1y ago

Right. I agree, but I think you are appealing to generosity when it works just as well if you appeal to greed and selfishness. If I'm a parent who does not intend to take advantage of the program and therefore not to get any benefit directly, and I assume the program is done well and not rushed, I could reasonably expect: - More parents able to be in the work force (immediately) - Better metrics for the young children entering. Especially for at risk. - Savings from less crime in the future. - Higher attainment of students when they enter the work force later. - Higher birth rate??? (probably not but this one is interesting regardless) My understanding so far is that this leads to spending savings in addition to QOL of life improvements. And that's just for me. I want to live with less crime and less tax liability. Asking for additional waivers imo just increases the cost in areas that will not as directly achieve the benefits of the program as stated. The only reason to ask for it is as a negotiation tactic. I think the most important thing is to focus on the quality of the program and make sure the resources are there. And to make sure opportunities persist to prevent "fade out". I think that might have been the difference between Oklahoma's success in pre-k vs a program in Tennessee.

Izikiel43 1y ago
> Higher birth rate??? (probably not but this one is interesting regardless) Why probably not? Childcare before primary school is a huge expense in the US, I think the largest for a healthy kid, around 24k$ per year where I live, so basically every other child is another 24k$ to the budget, or one parent not working. With this approach, having 2 or 3 children is more feasible, and the money saved from universal childcare could be in part invested for college or the child's future.
- hellojesus 1y ago
  Let's go with this (I pay a little more than $24k/yr/kid for care now). Does the influx of gov mandated childcare centers reduce the annual expense for parents? If so, it does so at the cost to the current workers by reducing their salaries. If not, now you've put every taxpayer on the hook for 24k+admin_expenses per child per year. That is an immediate blow to everyone except those benefiting more than their increased tax burden. The benefit is lower wages for those competing against the new laborers and likely higher government tax inflows?

prepend 1y ago

> It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it It affects you like if your neighbor got a $5000 tax credit and you didn’t. It’s community money paying for it so it impacts you because it is your tax dollars being spent.

KittenInABox 1y ago
If my neighbor already gets a $5000 tax credit remodeling his bathroom or installing a new/greener boiler. Should I get $5000 for not remodeling?
- jtbayly 1y ago
  You have demonstrated the point of the policy. What is it that is being incentivized here? Leaving your children and working all day.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Exactly. If the incentive was to take care of children, the money would go with the child whether they are taken care of by a stay at home or someone the state can tax income from.
    - SilverElfin 1y ago
      100%. This is also why it makes sense to have money move with the child regardless of whether they’re in public schools or home schooled or at a private school.
  - KittenInABox 1y ago
    If I'm already benefiting from a new boiler, I don't need another new boiler just to get the $5000 tax credit. This is silly. There are benefits to being a working parent vs a stay at home parent and if you have access to stay at home care you simply don't need it. This is like getting mad that my workplace offers pet insurance when I have no pets so I demand the money anyway. Or demanding a trophy for not participating in a competitive sport.

vlovich123 1y ago

There's two things I think you've overlooked. One thing is that politically it's easier for benefits to remain sticky if everyone benefits from it vs a subpopulation. That's why universal income has stronger support than welfare benefits. Additionally, when you don't have means testing, the bureaucracy is a lot more straightforward and politicians can't mess with it by effectively cutting the program by increasing the administrative burden. > We are lucky that we can afford to do this. This is the second piece. What about people who are on the margin who aren't wealthy enough to do this and the subsidy would hep them achieve this? The subsidy could help the mom stay home and maybe do part-time work from home even. The thing that's easiest to miss when you're well on one side of a boundary is only looking at the other side of the boundary instead of also looking at where that boundary is drawn.

ryandrake 1y ago
I addressed your second point in another comment. If voters thought there was a societal advantage to financially encourage stay-at-home parenthood with a subsidy, I'd be open to listen to the pros and cons of that, too, but that's kind of a separate issue. This one is about easing the burden for those who already pay for professional childcare, including those on the margin. The first point is just unfortunate humanity crab bucket mentality. "Others shouldn't benefit if I don't." I don't think there's anything we can do about that :(
- ndriscoll 1y ago
  It's not a crab bucket mentality. Subsidizing one group that competes in the same markets (e.g. only dual income families, who compete with single income families for housing in desirable areas to raise kids) actually increases costs for the unsubsidized group. It doesn't just make them relatively worse off, but absolutely worse off. It shifts the margin of who can afford a single family lifestyle, all else equal. Since it's subsidizing specific behavior and not merely being poor or whatever, people will naturally look at whether they think that behavior ought to be incentivized, or whether the government should stay neutral. My wife is also a stay at home mom, and I've argued before that an increase in the child tax credit with a phase out for high income (so we might not qualify) makes more sense than a childcare credit/deduction for this reason. Then you're just subsidizing having kids, which seems fine to me (assuming we're subsidizing anything) since that's sort of necessary to sustain society.

aeternum 1y ago

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.

slg 1y ago
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.
- mothballed 1y ago
  This is more like saying you'll get a tax rebate if you move from your family home you built with your bare hands into a megacorp built condo complex of equal value and fire risk.
- aeternum 1y ago
  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.
  - slg 1y ago
    >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.

throawayonthe 1y ago

because your wife (and in turn your household yes) deserves to be compensated for the socially valuable labour first of all?

jrflowers 1y ago

> I just don't understand this mentality. It is bad faith reasoning. If you imagine a person that does not want women to participate in the workforce but wants to express that in a way that doesn’t sound repugnant, it is pretty easy to see how someone would come up with that. The way you can tell that it’s bad faith is by looking at the context that “pay women to stay out of the workforce” gets brought up. In this case it is framed as an alternative to providing childcare, but those two ideas have nothing to do with each other. As a society we could do both. The “pay women to stay out of the workforce” or “pay for childcare” dichotomy is completely made up, and folks that engage in that particular type of make-believe are either profoundly intellectually lazy or being intentionally disingenuous.

czhu12 1y ago

Isn’t the idea that many families want to have a stay at home mom, but can’t afford to and are forced to work. Therefore a waiver would help with this?

chlodwig 1y ago

I dislike the perversity of taxing people than only giving the money back to them if they arrange their life in a way that policy-makers prefer (two income family). I especially dislike it when the subsidized choice of institutional childcare is more inefficient (paying for a lot of overhead), worse for the environment (extra people commuting), and worse for the kids (kids in groups that are classes that are too large for their age, taken care of by a rotating cast of minimum wage workers instead of by their own parent). And yes, I think parents who successfully home-school their children should be given the money that government schools would have cost them.

libraryatnight 1y ago
This strikes me as part of the disease of thinking like a tax payer and not a citizen. It's about the service/resource availability, not the money. And your system seems to create more perversion than what you're reacting to - a bunch of people keeping score to make sure they get theirs.
- mothballed 1y ago
  In AZ we offer ESA to homeschoolers, vouchers to charter or private school kids, and then normal tuition free public schools. That way the service/resource is available to all children regardless of who the parent picks to provide it, according to what the family sees as their best option. It's not about who gets the money, just that the resources are available. I think very rarely does the state or society have a better view in aggregate of what is best for each family, particularly when you consider the asymmetry of millions of families having time and information to contemplate their circumstance vs voters or bureaucrats having complete inability to put any real thought on the child on a per-child basis.

somenameforme 1y ago

In most of those other households, it's highly probable that they wish they could have a stay-at-home-parent but can't afford it. A small payment can help nudge people over the line where it suddenly becomes financially viable. A voucher type solution would also work great for families that would also prefer to e.g. hire a private nanny instead of sending their child to daycare.

tempfile 1y ago

> We are lucky that we can afford to do this. > It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? This is rather noble of you, but the reason is obvious. If the playing field were "levelled" then you wouldn't have to be lucky. It is all well and good that you are lucky, but there is a certain population who want to emulate your choice but are unable to, because they are missing precisely the marginal amount that the childcare provision costs. It is a political choice to say that those people should not be able to pursue home-care of the children in order that we can avoid giving out a rebate.

ryandrake 1y ago
I never said I opposed a subsidy to encourage stay-at-home parenting. By all means, we should propose it and study its pros and cons. But the lack of that subsidy should not cause someone to oppose a paid-childcare subsidy.
- tempfile 1y ago
  >> Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. > I just don't understand this mentality. I don't understand. Wasn't your original comment opposing an equal value waiver?

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