The Trump administration is drafting a proposal that could significantly reshape federal child care policy by allowing some parents to receive government-funded child care assistance for taking care of their own children at home, but not all Republicans are on board with it. Under the draft plan, married couples meeting certain income requirements could qualify for assistance by using funding from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) that was established by President Bill Clinton. Trump has made families a centerpiece of his second term by creating the Trump investment accounts, expanding the child tax credit and the new plan comes as Republicans head into a midterm election cycle with Trump's approval rating underwater.
Polling shows that moms are turning on Trump, and Fox News hosts suspect this could help Republicans in the midterms. But members of the GOP are divided on whether the plan is a solid one, with some equating it to socialism. Dana Loesch, former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, called the program an example of the "new socialist right." Conservative personality Tomi Lahren likened it to the money that was sent out during the COVID-19 pandemic that "destroyed our workforce and supply chain" and raised the possibility that it could create a "giant fraud boondoggle." Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer, said we need "less of this" and questioned why her tax dollars should go to paying a mom to stay home.
"All of the tradbros are missing the obvious point: isn’t that the husband’s job?" Ellis wrote. Angela Morabito, who served as Education Department press secretary during Trump's first term, wrote on X that she's a new mom and she and her husband work. "Taxing working moms to fund someone else's stay-at-home lifestyle is a gut punch," she wrote.
Brittany Hughes, an editor at Media Research Center, a conservative website, criticized the plan because it means that middle-class families that have two parents working have to bear the financial burden of someone else staying home with their kids. "If we're saying we want to support SAHMs [stay-at-home moms], that support must be available to everyone, which we simply cannot afford," Hughes wrote on X. "Otherwise, we're simply demanding some families put their kids in daycare and go to work so that other, poorer families don't have to.
Which is called redistribution of wealth. Which, yes, is socialism." Another account, MOMof DataRepublican, who is followed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, called it "socialism, straight up," in a post on X, and not a function of the government. The grandmother criticized the program for potentially being open to fraud or incentivizing lower-income families to have more kids so they can receive a bigger check.
Not all Republicans are against the plan, though. Megan Basham, a journalist at The Daily Wire, agreed that stay-at-home moms should be able to compete for the same funding as moms who put their kids in daycare. "I can’t think for the life of me why, if I am forced to pay the subsidy [and right now we have no choice] I should prefer to pay a daycare to take care of a child but not a parent," Basham posted on X.
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