'Why didn’t we think of that?' Columnist brutally mocks JD Vance’s new child care proposal

05 September 2024

2024 Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) has made a name for himself as a staunch natalist and opponent of childless Americans, given past comments he made in interviews that have since gone viral. But when it comes to his actual policies for families, one columnist argues Vance is offering struggling parents very little.

Writing for NJ.com, Kevin Manahan drew attention to a recent comment Vance made to far-right activist Charlie Kirk at a conference in Mesa, Arizona. Kirk prefaced his question to the Ohio senator by noting that "it's very hard for working parents to get by" given the high cost of child care, and asked him what Republicans had in mind to help ease the burden on families paying for daycare.

“I think one of the things that we can do is make it easier for family models to choose, or for families to choose whatever model they want, right?” Vance said. “So one of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is make it so that, you know, maybe, like, Grandma or Grandpa wants to help out a little bit more, or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we’re spending in daycare.”

"Why didn't we think of that?" Manahan sarcastically asked.

"Well, because maybe grandma and grandpa are no longer living, or don’t live nearby, or don’t have the energy or good health to provide childcare, or maybe they’re still working themselves," he wrote. "Or maybe they simply don’t want the job. Maybe they have pickleball on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays."

Manahan noted that Trump's warmth toward potentially cutting Social Security benefits would mean that the seniors Vance is proposing help out with child care would be unable to because they have to work. And he added that nowhere in Vance's comments did he suggest any new monetary assistance for child care.

"Is Vance proposing federal help? Nope. Does he support the Child Tax Credit, which helped lift half of the nation’s kids out of poverty before it expired? Nope, the Ohio Senator wasn’t even around for the vote," Manahan wrote. "Does he support other possible tax help for parents who need childcare? He hasn’t proposed any. Paid paternal leave? Some GOP members do, some don’t. His position isn’t clear."

As the columnist observed, the Hillbilly Elegy author was on the campaign trail when a critical vote to expand the Child Tax Credit came up in the U.S. Senate last month. That bill — sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) — would have raised the credit from $2,000 to $3,600 per child, and included 17 year-olds in the covered group. This expanded credit was temporarily in place during the Covid-19 pandemic, and lifted an estimated 500,000 children out of poverty.

"There’s always a lot of talk among Republicans about supporting families, competing with China, and cracking down on fraud in government programs, but they just rejected a bill that would accomplish all of that in one package," Wyden said after the bill was defeated.

In the meantime, Vice President Kamala Harris has proposed both expanding the current child tax credit, and wants to have an additional $6,000 in tax credits available for parents of newborn children. Bethany Mandel, a self-described conservative mother of six, admitted in a recent Newsweek column that Democrats were the better party when it came to pro-family policies.

Click here to read Manahan's full column in NJ.com.

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