Kind of OT, but I heard an interesting thing on a radio program talking about childcare: the US almost got free universal child care in the early 1970s via the

Kind of OT, but I heard an interesting thing on a radio program talking about childcare: the US almost got free universal child care in the early 1970s via the Comprehensive Child Development Act. At first Nixon was for it and there was enough support in Congress to pass it. There was a fair bit of opposition from the rightmost fraction of the Republican party for the expected reasons (too Communist; it would make it too easy for women to get jobs instead of staying home where the belonged; government funded daycare centers would turn into leftist indoctrination centers) but Nixon and others felt that there would be enough political good passing it to outweigh pissing off rightmost members of their own party. The far right back then was a minority within the party. But at the same time Nixon wanted to open trade with China, which also was something the far right end of the party was very much against. Nixon decided that he could not afford politically to anger the far right on two big issues so close together and so had to drop one. Childcare was the one he dropped, and with Nixon's support gone the bill died.