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In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

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Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#211
post #6

US actually provided child care to mothers employed during WWII. [0] Richard Nixon vetoed the bill that would have expanded it out to all families. [1] Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole with a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness. AKA The rich keep getting richer. [0] https://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org/blog/the-lanham-act-and-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

> a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. Meanwhile, during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class and beyond. (Immigrants to the US arrived with nothing more than a suitcase.) > Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole Oh the irony!

> The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice.

You clearly didn’t grow up in an immigrant neighborhood in the city

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#212
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should act with empathy and care for each other. The government does not need to be run like a fucking business.

It's because it runs like a business that we're able to enjoy a high standard of living. If the economy stops growing, or worse, degrades, everyone will suffer incredibly. Job loss, investment loss, higher cost of living. There's a wide gulf between childcare for none and childcare for all. I'm an atheist, but some of the cheapest childcare is at churches. Orders of magnitude cheaper than private childcare because th…

I don’t understand the conjunction of “the state should not subsidize childcare with taxes” and “the church should subsidize childcare with underpaid labor and tithes.”

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the "1% of the recipients are fraudulent, therefore the other 99% must spend 10 hours on paperwork and 6 months waiting for the benefits to start, with a 30% chance of rejection" approach.

Unfortunately the US doesn't have a high-trust society anymore, so paperwork is a necessary evil to prevent malicious foreign actors from wiping us clean. (See: the recent Somalian autism claims scams in Minnesota).

Do you have more references about this?

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#214
post #6

US actually provided child care to mothers employed during WWII. [0] Richard Nixon vetoed the bill that would have expanded it out to all families. [1] Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole with a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness. AKA The rich keep getting richer. [0] https://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org/blog/the-lanham-act-and-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

> a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. Meanwhile, during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class and beyond. (Immigrants to the US arrived with nothing more than a suitcase.) > Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole Oh the irony!

I mildly disagree with your take but it's still mindblowing how I can read some random political flame on HN and it's WALTER FUCKING BRIGHT. Your one of my tech heroes, so cool to spot you on here. If this were real life I'd ask for a selfie to prove that this happened but maybe you could, idk, sign a message with your PGP key so I can prove I interacted with you

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the "1% of the recipients are fraudulent, therefore the other 99% must spend 10 hours on paperwork and 6 months waiting for the benefits to start, with a 30% chance of rejection" approach.

Unfortunately the US doesn't have a high-trust society anymore, so paperwork is a necessary evil to prevent malicious foreign actors from wiping us clean. (See: the recent Somalian autism claims scams in Minnesota).

Where does mass trustworthy behavior (ie, "a high trust society") come from?

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are a positive externality so we should actually tax birth control rather than make it free. ;)

I’ll even begin to entertain this argument only once the burden of having and raising children falls on society as a whole, and not individual women. Until then, absolutely not.

[flagged]

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#217
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was done so mothers could work building tanks and airplanes, not out of any concern for the children.

Yeah, it turns out that things like free health care, adequate food, good schools, and all that other socialist mumbo jumbo is actually good for productivity and the economy, too.

America is #3 in the world in per capita public education spending (Luxumberg being #1). Which is the education system I always see Europeans maligned as producing “dumb Americans”.

US also ranks #1 in public healthcare funding both as per capita and as percentage of GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_spending_as_percent_of_...

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. Meanwhile, during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class and beyond. (Immigrants to the US arrived with nothing more than a suitcase.) > Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole Oh the irony!

> The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. You clearly didn’t grow up in an immigrant neighborhood in the city

I disagree with Walter here but the US wasn't founded by urban immigrants. There's a difference between pioneers, like the Mennonites in Mexico, and immigrants, like digital nomads in Mexico. The former are almost always more popular than the latter.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should cover everyone. No body goes to the doctor because they want to. I'll dare say it would be a net positive to even expand this to the undocumented. Many of them have dependents, it's not going to be great if your dad can't afford his insulin and is thus unable to work to provide for you. This includes a large percentage of our farm workers who are literally getting sprayed with pesticides all day. That's ano…

> No body goes to the doctor because they want to. This isn't entirely true, there are entire industries catering to the worried well, eg expensive precautionary full-body MRIs with unclear scientific backing, whatever it is Bryan Johnson is doing and selling these days, etc. And exactly what counts as need flexes and changes depending on circumstance and who is asking. "Do I need a doctor for this" is not a question…

The type of doctors who accept Medicare or a possible single payer system are not giving out precautionary excessive mris.

Such a tiny percentage of people actually want to do stuff like that.

Even without factoring in cost, most people shrug it off until it’s bad.

Practically every other country has figured this out, it’s not impossible

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#220
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It baffles me that it's so hard to argue for care for children. The response is always "but it's the parents' responsibility". Which, okay, fair, BUT if the parent is failing their responsibility (which can happen for many reasons, many of which don't need maliciousness nor incompetence), then what? We let the child die? We let the child starve? That's what I don't get. A child doesn't have autonomy, so it shouldn't…

I agree with you. But to steelman the argument on the other side, their concern is that subsidizing care for children creates a moral hazard by encouraging irresponsible people to have even more children. It's a feedback loop which creates an escalating burden on the rest of society. I don't think that denying care to children is effective or morally justified; I'm just trying to explain what seems to be the underlyi…

I do understand that argument but 1) doesn't seem to be stopping it now 2) that falls under the "we can argue what to do with the parents".

Let's argue about what to do with the parents but not let kids suffer

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