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New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

governor.state.nm.us

441–450 of 695 posts

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, society will have to bear the cost of the infrastructure to maintain itself rather than reap the benefits of a population without putting back into. How terrible.

It doesn't work that way. The US Welfare programs have created multi generational families that have never worked and do not have any parents or grandparents that have ever worked a real job because if anyone did they would risk losing $100k's worth of free benefits to work a minimum wage job that would only pay them $30k. It has created a permanant underclass of people with no job skills that are wholly dependant on…

I think you are using a whataboutism argument. In this case the childcare benefit will be universal, as in it is NOT means tested like your example.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#442
post #31
post #12

This is fantastic! I hope they succeed and there is no abuse or other issues, because it will show how much an economy can grow when women are allowed to work to their full potential. Families who were previously in poverty because the mom would struggle to pay for childcare to work can now have assurance kids are ok while the mom can pursue jobs, start her own small business (huge chunk of businesses are small busin…

This would solve a lot of Republican’s problems as well. Israel has the kibbutz system and they have the highest birth rate of developed economies. They also have amazing tech and women participation and excellent contributions even in the military. If you raise the country’s children well, you get more GDP and less prisons and less need for policing, and less need for welfare programs. Plus you get quality workers f…

Israel's current birthrate has more to do with the ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities and nothing to do with the kibbutz system. The ultra-Orthodox communities are also exempt from those "excellent contributions even in the military". While female ultra-Orthodox participation in the workforce is around 80%, that's largely due to males not participating (50%).[0]

0. https://www.timesofisrael.com/haredi-mens-employment-growth-...

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t want just kids, you want well raised kids. Badly raised kids are easily a net negative, so just paying people to be parents isn’t going to work. The only thing that might incentivize people to think about the long term is getting rid of all old age benefits (including continuous bail outs of broad market assets by the federal government by sacrificing the purchasing power of the currency). Right now, we tak…

I beg to disagree. In Switzerland, a lot of emphasis is put on assimilation to a Swiss identity via pre-school and school. Now this eventually raises the bar for parents to raise their kids, but it also acts to Swissify immigrant kids quickly as well (and 25% of the residents in Switzerland are not born as swiss, many of those are refugees from African countries that America has problems dealing with). America's DIY…

Switzerland has not achieved a replacement rate TFR since 1970.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/che/swi...

Any sustainable policy would obviously result in a TFR of at least the replacement rate.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#444
post #12

This is fantastic! I hope they succeed and there is no abuse or other issues, because it will show how much an economy can grow when women are allowed to work to their full potential. Families who were previously in poverty because the mom would struggle to pay for childcare to work can now have assurance kids are ok while the mom can pursue jobs, start her own small business (huge chunk of businesses are small busin…

Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. This policy appears to disincentives children staying with their mother even when it is preferred.

This makes sense. If something objectively good happens, it is not actually that good if a completely different good thing did not happen.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#445
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make it a progressive tax then? The point was many people can afford to help others to make society better for all. But you only want to pay taxes for what you're personally interested in? If you think stay at home needs to be prioritized in some way, as another comment mentioned, that's a separate argument. You are also relying on scenarios that don't even sound plausible. If someone can barely afford stay at home a…

I'm not talking about "prioritizing" stay at homes, I'm talking about just giving them the same thing the company/entity that would be taking care of their kid would get paid for doing it. I'm speaking of removing the prioritization for commercial childcare.

Semantic games. At the end of the day if x is prioritized more than y and you want x and y to be equal you do want a relative boost in the priority of y. So fine. As I said I'm not sure they are equivalent or how this specific objection can't be applied to any other tax in a way that feels implausible. Should I get a voucher if I pack my kids lunch? Why are we "prioritizing" commerical food preparation?

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#447

I'm going to take the reverse position. I don't like this policy. I think it would be much better to provide a one year paid stipend so that a parent can be home with the children during their tender years. This entire structure is set up to keep the boss happy while a stranger raises your child during their most formative and vulnerable years.

As a parent I’m going to disagree with your disagreement. I was lucky enough to get months of parental leave initially. I am glad I got it but at the same time I don't buy the tender, formative, vulnerable stuff too deeply. They're poop and vomit machines that nap and have very, very little interaction with the world around them. The primary benefit was for me to not have to work while deeply sleep deprived. As my fi…

You're an idiot.

I have a toddler.

They are absorbing everything and gaining a personality from day one.

You are not the one doing it.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand this mentality. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We are lucky that we can afford to do this. Most of our kid's friends have both parents working and they pay for child care. If suddenly they were able to have that childcare paid for, that would be wonderful! It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? I don't need to have my own "waiver" payment in order for me to be in favor…

Good government policies generally avoid step functions otherwise you get perverse incentives. For example, if you lose too many benefits when you get a job, it can easily make getting a job yield negative expected value, this is bad because often it stunts future career potential. There may be families that cannot quite afford to be a stay-at-home mom even though they want to. Providing the waiver also increases the…

My house has never been on fire, should I get a tax rebate for never needing service from the fire department?

Government services exist to help people who need them. The idea that government services need to have the same net effect on every citizen is unusually popular in the US and is part of the reason we have worse government services than our peer nations.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Childcare doesn't end at 1 year though. If you look at public schools as child care, most don't start until kindergarten (about 5 years old). What do you do for the remaining 4 years? And during summer break? And after-school care? This program covers all of those. Forcing parents back into the workforce early is unfortunate and does need to be addressed. However, this program seems to be addressing a different and s…

6 years paid stipend would fix this problem.

Would 6 years paid stipend also help for the rest of the woman's life as she has to restart her career?

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my neighbor already gets a $5000 tax credit remodeling his bathroom or installing a new/greener boiler. Should I get $5000 for not remodeling?

You have demonstrated the point of the policy. What is it that is being incentivized here? Leaving your children and working all day.

No.

Are men "leaving their children and working all day"? Should we not pay them to stay home?

This view is either fully gendered or assumes that all families are made up of two people and one person's wages should support a family. Neither are the conversation on this table.

The conversation on this table is: Our current economy, in nearly every state and for every metro requires more than minimum wage to rent not own, an apt and live, not save for the future. Childcare has gone up 30% in the last few years alone and wages, as you have likely experienced, have not.

We cannot continue to expect people with choices to have children given this economic situation.

Trust me. You want people to continue having children, and you'd prefer them to be positive additions to society, for your own well-being in old age.

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