Former President Donald Trump is right: Economic policy should encourage family caregiving. He announced during a rally Sunday that he “will support a tax credit for family caregivers who take care of a parent or a loved one.”
“It’s about time that they were recognized,” he said. “They add so much to our country and are never spoken of ever, ever, ever, but they are going to be spoken of now.”
Though his plan was scant in details, it would be better than Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposal to expand Medicare to pay for home healthcare aides, which would further stretch the nearly insolvent program.
Trump’s proposal would be an important step toward reorienting health to favor families over institutions. It is good when people are cared for by their own family members. Some states recognize this. For example, Colorado has a waiver program that allows family members to get paid to take care of individuals with special needs. This is how my brother-in-law receives home care from my father-in-law.
U.S. workers do have to take time off work, possibly sacrificing income, to take care of a family member, often an aging parent.
“About one-in-four Americans (23%) say there has been a time when they took leave from work to care for a family member with a serious health condition,” Pew Research Center reported in 2017.
Similarly, Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), has taken flak for saying family members can play a role in providing care. When asked about daycare, Vance suggested family members could help take care of children.
“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 [family members] can help out a little more,” Vance said in September, adding this might not work for everyone and overregulation of daycare is a problem.
The former president’s proposal needs more details beyond a few lines at a campaign rally. It is not clear how much the program will cost. The national debt is currently around $35 trillion, so any new initiative should be closely examined for what it will do to our growing problem.
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That being said, there should be a broader shift toward family-oriented policy that can occur in a fiscally restrained way. Trump could push for changes to Social Security and Medicare, currently about half of the annual budget, to favor one parent staying at home to take care of children or parents.
Even if his policy does not come to fruition, Trump should continue to champion families and highlight the needs and benefits of family caregivers.
Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.