Why did Democrats win so decisively last Tuesday? I think voters had had their fill of one-party government that could always find time for culture wars while letting the everyday concerns of Americans pile up. Families were trying to pay the bills, keep their jobs and put something away for the future. Donald Trump’s Washington had other priorities, almost all at odds with basic American concerns.
Voters delivered a historic rebuke, handing Democrats control of both houses of Congress in one of the biggest midterm reversals in half a century. Enough said.
The new Congress has a rare chance to turn a political wave into something that makes life better. Reestablish accountability? Absolutely. But if Democrats spend the next two years only settling scores, families will still be sitting at their kitchen tables with the same bills and the same outrage. The surest way to show that Washington has changed its priorities is to start with the families raising our next generation.
Make the first bill universal child care. Few policies touch as many American problems at once.
Take an American couple earning $125,000 between them. One makes $75,000. The other makes $50,000. In Los Angeles, two kids under five in full-time care can run $45,000 a year, even more in Seattle or San Francisco. After taxes, that $50,000 paycheck brings home well under $40,000. The smaller paycheck disappears into child care, with money still owed.
So one parent quits. The family makes the mortgage or rent on one income and hopes they’ll catch up when the kids are in school. Say that takes 10 years. By then, the parent going back to work has missed a decade of raises, promotions, savings and retirement contributions. The oldest child is already halfway to college, and the money they meant to put aside for tuition went to keeping the household afloat. That’s a decade of catching up from a decision largely made the day the babies were born.
Now imagine that same couple sitting at the same kitchen table a year earlier, deciding whether they can afford another child. They want one. They also want to stay in their house, keep their jobs and someday retire. Postponing kids, or skipping them entirely, may look like the responsible choice, perhaps the only one.
Congress has a reason to care about that decision. The Congressional Budget Office projects that deaths will begin outnumbering births in 2030. From then on, net immigration accounts for all projected population growth. As the country ages, fewer workers will be supporting more retirees.
That should interest conservatives who want America to rely less on immigration for population growth. It ought to interest Democrats who want to bring down the cost of living for working folks. And it should interest the man who still has to sign the bill. Democrats run Congress now, but the president holds the pen. This White House has said it wants Americans to have more children. A bill that helps families afford them is a hard one to veto. It also helps the struggling family that already has three kids and needs to get to work on Monday.
Here’s what I’d put in the bill. Guarantee access to reliable child care for working families from birth until kindergarten, with a sliding fee capped at 7% of household income, the federal government’s own benchmark for affordable care. For our family making $125,000, the most they’d pay would be $8,750 a year, down from $45,000. That’s roughly $36,000 back in their budget, and a second paycheck that’s worth earning again. Pay caregivers decently and fund enough places; a guarantee means nothing without a place to take your child on Monday morning.
Yale’s Budget Lab estimates that a similar plan would cost the federal government about $80 billion in 2030, after counting the added taxes paid by parents who go back to work. It projects that employment among mothers of young children would rise by about six percentage points. Meeting the increased demand would also mean hiring hundreds of thousands of additional child care workers. At a moment when people wonder what work will be left as artificial intelligence advances, here’s a job no machine will take: helping a 4-year-old learn to read and get along with others.
Eighty billion dollars is real money. So are the wages a family gives up when a parent quits and the savings they never get to put away. Congress has found money for wars Americans never wanted. A conservative family in Bakersfield and a liberal family in Los Angeles can disagree about practically everything that happened last Tuesday and still agree that keeping one parent’s $50,000-a-year job will help their budget.
A family that can afford another child gains something immeasurable. The country gains another generation to carry it forward. And the mother who can afford to keep working contributes to the economy today. The new Congress can do something for our present and our future with one thoughtful bill.
Make child care the first bill, and it could restore both a family’s financial security and its faith that government still works for working Americans. And when the president signs it, both parties get the win.
Gary Horton is chairman of the College of the Canyons Foundation board. His “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
