Aren’t they all suggesting starting at age 3 or 4? That isn’t really going to solve the issue.
Democrats love to quote stuff like, “surveys say most people support free college for everyone.” That’s about as useful as, “most people support free luxury cars for everyone.” Who isn’t going to support getting free stuff? There’s a reason they either never talk about how to pay for it or say they’ll make the rich pay for it (which is mathematically impossible).
To actually have a useful conversation, the question should be: Would you be willing to go from a 7% effective income tax rate to 40% to fund universal healthcare, college tuition for all, and preschool? That way people are actually evaluating the trade-off rather than being promised free stuff that’s mathematically impossible to fund.
Everyone loves to compare to countries where their middle class are paying 40% effective rates and say the problem is the rich aren’t paying enough.
We are paying ~70k in child care expenses this year for our young family (3 kids not yet in elementary school). Apart from taxes it’s our biggest expense. Without family in the area to help, I don’t know how people with less resources do it.
There are already subsidized public preschool options available in the area but I believe there are income requirements…also not sure they’re full time. You need at minimum a 8am – 6pm preschool if both parents work.
In general I’m not a fan of big government but this is one area where something needs to change – education is a driver of economic competitiveness and an investment in the country’s future. If we don’t do something, I worry the US (or at least the coasts) will end up facing the same problems as Japan due to a declining birth rate.
The only way the government can help is to deregulate. The more regulations the government have, the more taxes the government bills you, the worse the outcome is for everyone.
If I can make a new law, we can mandate all mothers to stay home or work full time in daycare facility their kids go to. Also mandate all mothers of young kids socialize with other mothers of similar ages kids and help each other on taking care of kids. If a mother refuses to socialize with other mothers, fine her for $250 per day. Fine will be collected by the dad, not the government.
To make it more gender neutral, we can require a dad to take care of kids for 20 hours per week, fine him $250 each day for violation and the fine will be collected by the mother, not the government.
To avoid over-regulation, my proposal should be a moral standard and not a law. No lawsuit is allowed and only moral guilt can be executed.
Where are the most kids? Look at Muslim countries. One family can have 10 kids easily and there is no daycare crisis. With the coming of cheap robots, we have to stop working or work less, at least for people who need to raise kids.
If they go to public school, it should cost nothing. You can ask for a tax credit or school voucher for private school.
Btw, with the same tax dollars, why are public school not getting better when more kids go to private schools without tax subsidy? When less kids in public school, per pupil spending should go up so the quality of public education should improve
Won’t be like Japan because many foreigners migrate + midWesterners move to the coasts, but hardly any1 migrate to Japan.
Sound like double income, should be ok. I decided to be SAHD. Early morning, make breakfast and sandwiches for your spouse’s lunch, have 1 car and drive everybody around
It’s already been debunked that more spending means better outcome for students. It keeps getting worse because the number of kids born out of wedlock keeps increasing. Those kids are at a significant disadvantage for the 90% of development from age 0-3.
Not true anymore. Japan has taken in lots of foreigners in the last 10 years. But it only gives them long term residency but no citizenship. Japan is still an extremely racist country.
There’s an overhead to running the district, so lower enrollment means higher per student overhead.
Redwood City is closing four schools this year because of this–trying to make sure every open school has a minimum of 400 students. The pension costs also keep going up and apparently the state shifted the burden to the school districts.
So where exactly are my tax dollars going??? We pay enough state taxes (don’t even count sales tax) to cover 3 kids in our district and only two are in public…
That’s the magic question. Where do the tax dollars go? It’s scary if you look at budget breakdowns. This is awesome, since it compares what people think is the biggest expense to what actually is. I’m sure everyone thinks they are informed.
