Since presidential contender Elizabeth Warren recently asserted that she is "a capitalist to my bones," it should come as no surprise that her plan for universal child care in the United States is loosely modeled on the market-based kludge known as Obamacare.
Unlike the government-run systems operating in other social democratic countries, Warren's plan is predicated upon direct government payments to for-profit providers who will "partner" with municipalities and states. What the system giveth, the system can always take away if said providers in any given state don't meet a set of amorphous standards, or can't be found in the first place.
In other words, it's a conservative plan of the type moderate Republicans might have suggested if there were still any moderate Republicans around.
But never say never, because wherever there's a predatory profit motive, there's always a way. Flush with all that excess cash, Wall Street has been getting into the lucrative early child care game with a vengeance in recent years. And they're even flusher with cash this year, thanks to Trump's tax code overhaul. When neoliberals gush that we must "invest" in children as though they were cattle futures, they're not kidding. Bain Capital, for instance, already runs a billion dollar-plus chain of day care centers. With more federal money possibly on the horizon should Warren's plan pass in Congress, look for even more Goldman Sachs and Evercore and BlackRock Little Tots Schools popping up in distressed neighborhoods all over this land. The win-win upshot is that even a Mom slaving at a $10 an hour fast food or retail gig would see her child care woes disappear.
For those parents desirous of in-home care, private equity is transforming this kind of care into a virtual Airbnb opportunity. An outfit called Wondercare purports to train teachers and provides software to help them get "qualified" to care for children. They even help with the rentals of empty homes to turn them into nurseries. All for a hefty cut of the profits, of course, and a big return for investors.
The financial disbursement power under the Warren plan would be granted to the states, many of which have notoriously already turned down federal Medicaid expansion for the sole reason of cruel, right-wing, social Darwinist ideology. So what could possibly go wrong with a universal child care program in a red state like Texas? Cash-strapped locales also have a tendency to "divert" block grant-type funds to other programs.
Granted, Warren's proposal -- even the most well-off of the qualifying parents would be let off the hook for child care expenses above seven percent of their incomes, and poorer families would pay nothing at all -- is certainly better than the big fat nothing-burger of a system we currently have in place in the richest country on earth. My own son and daughter-in-law had their first child last year, and my granddaughter's in-home care by a part-time babysitter amounts to nearly a quarter of their joint annual income, second only to their monthly house payment. (They have adjusted their own full-time work and sleep schedules so that one parent can be home for half the total work week, and they are both chronically exhausted as a result.) Preschool costs can be almost as much as college tuition in some areas. The waiting time for admission to the one decent and well-staffed and comparatively affordable preschool in my own family's area is not weeks or months -- but years.
So yes, I think that they and most other parents would gladly accept a 25 percent or more reduction in their child care costs, no matter how many bureaucratic hoops they had to jump through to get it. And that, of course, is the catch. You have to have the time and the skills to jump through these hoops, and a lot of people do not for any number of reasons... such as, they're too tired after working three part-time jobs.
And those "providers" whom Warren assumes are waiting in the wings in the thousands to jump through all those bureaucratic hoops and to subject themselves to even more government scrutiny to fill non-existent slots in their programs? Don't even ask. But should private equity billionaires lobby Congress to pass her plan, I am sure that all costs of doing business with government bureaucrats will conveniently be passed on to the consumer, as will the "wealth tax" imposed upon them to pay for the care.
But still, everybody will enjoy that all-important freedom of choice so important to capitalistic enterprise. As Warren writes in a Medium blog-post announcing her program, with a handy "petition" at the bottom so that you can get on her campaign fund-raising email list:
Nobody would be required to enroll in this new program. But right now, millions of families can’t take advantage of child care because of its cost — and millions more are draining their paychecks to cover high costs. As a result, under the new program, an independent economic analysis projects that 12 million kids will take advantage of these new high-quality options — nearly double the number that currently receive formal child care outside the home.
The entire cost of this proposal can be covered by my Ultra-Millionaire Tax. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax asks the wealthiest families in America — those with a net worth of more than $50 million — to pay a small annual tax on their wealth. Experts project that the Ultra-Millionaire Tax will generate $2.75 trillion in new government revenue over the next ten years. That’s about four times more than the entire cost of my Universal Child Care and Early Learning plan.New York Times columnist Paul Krugman fulsomely praises the Warren plan just because it sounds so realistically modest. And comparing apples to oranges, he further gushes that
Among other things, unlike purist visions of replacing private health insurance with “Medicare for all,” providing child care wouldn’t require imposing big new taxes on the middle class. The sums of money involved are small enough that new taxes on great wealth and high incomes, which are desirable on other grounds, could easily raise sufficient revenue.What uninsured Purist needs guaranteed health care if she can substitute it with the relief of partially subsidized nursery care? Presumably, reading between the Krugman lines, not even the kids enrolled in the germ factories known as day care centers will ever get sick, and Mom won't ever go bankrupt paying the doctor bills, premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
Anyway, here's my published comment on the Krugman column:
Since there's a serious dearth of child care centers and long waiting lists in many areas of the country, we need a more integrated approach to universal care.
The federal government must be involved in both building new centers and staffing them with qualified workers. Since child care positions are usually underpaid and largely filled by women, these new jobs must pay a living wage, plus benefits.
We can't rely on a private, for-profit marketplace owned and operated by (mostly male) private equity moguls pocketing a huge chunk of government subsidies for themselves while cutting corners on the kids, the moms, and the female workers. A worker-parent cooperative system might be fairer.
Meanwhile, I hope that Elizabeth Warren will introduce her legislation in the Senate as soon as possible. It's a long overdue step in the right direction.
And speaking of family values, we should embrace the philosophy of the Swedish universal caregiver system, whose aim is "to make it possible for both men and women to combine parenthood and gainful employment, a new view of the male role, and a radical change in the organization of working life."
Parents need the free time to combine work, leisure and fun, hobbies, community and political activism, and child-rearing.
Besides radically extending paid child care leave, we should also subsidize voluntary stay-at-home parents and give them Social Security credit parity for their retirement years.
Prioritize kids over capitalism.
