Ask Trump about child care | ZEIT

On September 5, like millions of other parents across America, I got up, got my kids ready for school, and was worried about child care as usual. “Who's going to drop the kids off today?” I asked myself. “Do I have to leave the meeting early to pick them up? How are we going to make this work?”

But unlike those millions of parents, I came home after dropping off my children, put on a suit, and had a rare opportunity: I got to ask former President Donald Trump what he plans to do to solve the problem.

Trump's rambling, verbose answer to my question at the Economic Club of New York set off a firestorm. We learned something about Trump: He has no plan to address the child care crisis. That much is clear. But we also learned something about this election: For the first time, child care is a top economic issue in a national campaign.

To be clear, I didn't ask Trump a trick question. In fact, it was a simple question: “If you win in November, can you support legislation that makes child care affordable? And if so, what specific legislation will you support?”

Name one bill – that's all. He could have said he would increase the child tax credit or reinstate pandemic-era daycare funding that expired last year, to name just one example.

Instead, Trump made a sharp U-turn on his tariff policy before concluding: “Even though there is a lot of talk about child care being expensive, relative to the numbers we are going to collect, it is not very expensive.”

But when child care costs more than rent in all 50 states, when it costs our country $122 billion in lost revenue, productivity and income every year, and when child care prices are rising nearly twice as fast as general inflation – there is no doubt that it is Is expensive and families suffer.

Childcare is an economic issue. Period.

Parents already know this. They're the ones who sit at the kitchen table, plan their budget for the month, and see on paper that the numbers just don't add up. As the founder and CEO of Moms First – a movement for affordable child care, paid family leave, and equal pay – I've heard from countless women who have been pushed out of the workforce because they had no other way to provide for their families. Even worse are the heartbreaking stories of mothers who face impossible choices, like between paying for daycare and feeding their baby.

Read more: Positive economic data still hides the grim reality for families

Mothers are drowning right now, so it should come as no surprise that Trump's comments have sparked outrage – from people on both sides of the aisle.

Trump has never treated child care as a serious economic issue with consequences for working families. At the June debate, he talked more about his golf game than about child care policy. In fact, during his first term, his administration failed to reach a bipartisan agreement that would have doubled funding for child care.

Trump is not alone. Republican leadership has never treated child care as a serious economic problem, either. JD Vance is another obvious culprit—with his delusional suggestion that we'll solve the crisis by asking Grandma to pitch in, or his equally baffling assumption that education requirements are what's keeping people from becoming child care workers—not the fact that we pay them less than dog owners. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has put forward serious policy proposals, and yet every time major, transformative child care policy is on the table, Democratic leadership has traded it away instead of making it the non-negotiable issue that American families deserve.

So Trump hasn’t changed – but maybe we have changed. Maybe The was the last straw after years of disrespect from politicians. Perhaps parents are dead tired and have reached their breaking point. Perhaps we are ready to express our collective anger and disappointment at the ballot box.

As we approach the final stages of the election campaign, one thing is clear: something has changed. Childcare has finally entered the national conversation.

Candidates, pay attention! It's time to treat child care as a major economic issue, because it is. When voters say they can't get to work because gas prices are too high, politicians take them seriously and do something about it. When parents say they can't get to work because child care is too expensive, they deserve the same treatment and consideration.

And parents, what we've seen over the last week is that child care can be a galvanizing issue. The biggest mistake we could make now would be to let the opportunity pass. Voters need to demand clear, concrete plans for child care from their candidates and hold them to their promises at the ballot box. There's been a lot of talk this election cycle about whether being a parent makes you better suited to lead this country. No, you don't have to be a parent to be president – but you do have to listen to them. And right now, we're demanding what we want loud and clear.