Erick Erickson is a smart, honest conservative who has successfully navigated the Trump era with his integrity intact. I find myself agreeing with him 90%-95% of the time. Which is why I found his reaction to the recent draft childcare regulations so discouraging:
Before I explain why this sentiment is so disappointing, let’s review what the new White House childcare regulations would and wouldn’t do.
First, it does not create a new program. The program in question, the Child Care and Development Fund, grew out of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990. In other words, this program has existed for more than 35 years.
Second, it is not an entitlement program. Families that currently meet the program’s eligibility requirements do not automatically receive subsidies from the program. This program is funded through annual appropriations voted on by Congress; the current amount is about $12 billion. States are given a capped fund to administer the program. States then ration spots in the program through waiting lists or lotteries.
Third, the program already allows family members to receive payment for caring for eligible children. While most beneficiaries of the program do enroll their children in regulated childcare facilities, the program already allows family members, including siblings and grandparents, to receive payment for providing care. The new regulation would simply allow one married parent of the child to be added to this list.
Fourth, the income limits remain unchanged. To the extent that this reform “traps families in poverty” because of income limits, the existing program does, too.
Fifth, the reform actually tightens work requirements for parents. Under existing rules, states are given wide flexibility as to what counts as “work” for parents. The proposed rule tightens that requirement to more than 35 hours of actual paid employment per week. As long as they stay under the income limit, both married parents would still be allowed to work; the only change would be that at least one of them would have to prove they work more than 35 hours a week. The other parent would then be free to work part-time or not at all. Their combined income would still need to stay under the eligibility cap.
So imagine a working mother who is dating a man and wants to marry him. This program would allow her to marry him, he could then work full-time, and she could work part-time or not at all while providing care for her child, instead of being forced to work full-time while paying a stranger to care for her child.
Does that make such a woman a welfare queen?
Maybe.
But consider that roughly 30% of working-age adults benefit from at least one means-tested federal program, including the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, the earned income tax credit, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Should the conservative message to these working Americans really be, “Don’t get married and start a family until you receive no government assistance”?
Because if so, I think you are going to get a continuation of what we already have today: a world where fewer and fewer Americans are married.
Throughout American history, about 70% of all women of childbearing age were married. After the Supreme Court held in 1968 that states were not allowed to disqualify mothers who were having relationships with men outside of marriage from welfare programs, that number began to fall rapidly. By 1980, just 60% of women between the ages of 18 and 44 were married. By 2007, it was 50%. Today it is just 40%.
The conservative response to this is often, “Let’s just repeal all these safety net programs, and marriage will fix itself.”
But that is not a serious position. There is no sustainable political coalition for that. Republicans couldn’t even repeal the Affordable Care Act when they had the chance.
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So the question is, given the programs we have, how can we make them more marriage-friendly?
That is what this regulatory change is trying to accomplish. And those opposing it need to ask themselves if forcing mothers to work full-time while putting their children in daycare is more important than giving Americans the opportunity to form the married families and work-life balance they prefer.