As Republican presidential hopefuls, led by Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, come under scrutiny recently over their responses to questions about how they would address the soaring cost of child care in the United States, the far-right Project 2025 manifesto has some suggestions for them.
The plan calls for shifting child care funding to home-based family care, as children who attend child care centres are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and neglect.
Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation list of policies Trump would need to run for a second term if he wins the November election, was compiled by a number of advocates and government officials who have worked for former presidents and calls for defunding child care.
“Prioritize funding for in-home child care rather than universal day care,” the Project 2025 document states, adding, without evidence: “At the same time, children who spend more time in day care have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and neglect, as well as poorer educational and developmental outcomes. Instead of providing universal day care, we should provide funds to parents to offset the costs of staying home with their children or to pay for the costs of in-home family child care.”
Project 2025 also argues that the requirement to provide overtime pay discourages employers from offering benefits such as child care amid a move to roll back overtime pay protections for workers.
Before his reelection in 2020 to Joe Biden, President Trump proposed cutting millions of dollars in federal programs that fund child care costs and making cuts to early childhood education programs.
President Trump was recently asked how he plans to reduce the high cost of child care in the United States, and his response has drawn criticism as he prepares to face Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
Trump gave a rambling response to the question during a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, referencing tariffs on foreign goods and claiming that money raised from the tariffs could cover child care costs.
“When you talk about the kinds of numbers that I’m talking about — child care is child care, there’s nothing you can’t do, there’s something, we need it in this country,” the former president said. “We need it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kinds of numbers that I’m talking about, which is taxing foreign countries at levels that they’re not accustomed to.
“But they’ll get used to it quickly, and it won’t stop them from doing business with us. But when they send products into our country, they’ll be taxed very heavily. These figures are much larger than any figures we’re talking about, so it’s going to be a problem, including for child care.”
The response was dismissed as rhetoric but drew a sharp rebuke from US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who appeared as a guest on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“It’s unclear if he even understood the question,” said the Democrat, who supports Harris.
Senator Vance, Trump’s running mate, was recently asked a similar question about child care, and the Ohio senator responded by arguing that grandparents and other extended family members should do more to help alleviate the costs of child care.
“Parents and grandparents may not be able to help, but they may want to, and federal policy should not mandate a particular family model for these families,” Vance said in an X post in response to criticism of his answer.
In a 2021 X thread, Vance called universal child care “a massive subsidy that prioritizes the lifestyle preferences of the wealthy over those of the middle and working classes.” Vance characterized universal child care as “class warfare against ordinary people.”
He also argued in a 2021 podcast interview that working women are “choosing a path to unhappiness” by prioritizing their careers over having children. And Vance agreed with the podcast host in 2020 that “Postmenopausal Women” exists to help parents raise their children.