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Dear Friend,
New day, same harmful priorities from the Trump administration and Republican majority who are trying their hardest to be THE WORST when it comes to kids and families. They have already threatened health care cuts. Now, they are targeting families and small businesses by slashing child care funding to finance tax cuts for billionaires and corporations.
What’s happening? Donald Trump already issued a federal funding freeze that illegally and recklessly halted federal grants and loans [1], including crucial payments to child care programs like Head Start. Though courts temporarily blocked this illegal action, agencies are still withholding money [2] and child care programs throughout the nation are struggling to get the funds they need to provide care to children. The horrors don’t end there: We are witnessing mass firings of federal employees throughout the government, such as terminations at early childhood offices at The Administration for Children and Families, which includes the Offices of Child Care, Early Childhood Development, and Head Start. [3] These greedy, unnecessary, and harmful actions are not only damaging the basic functioning of early childhood programming across the nation, but also undermining millions of American families and their children who depend on these programs for their child care.
And WHY are Republicans being this horrible? It’s because they want more money for very rich people. Just last week, Republicans in the House of Representatives rolled out a plan to make major cuts to child care, education, health care, and nutrition programs in order to fund trillions of dollars in tax cuts to billionaires and wealthy corporations. [4] These cuts are essentially a high-level heist engineered by Republicans to destroy child care access and affordability for families so their billionaire friends can get a new yacht or finance smart toilets for their fourth summer home. No, thank you, that money comes from our tax dollars and should be building child care and learning opportunities for kids, not funding shopping sprees for the ultra-rich!
After all, our nation needs child care so parents can go to work, kids can thrive, child care workers can stay in their profession, and businesses can prosper. Cutting child care hurts families and our economy.
Child care has long been unaffordable and unattainable for families. New data released from the Women’s Bureau at the Department of Labor shows that U.S. families spend between 8.9% and 16.0% of their median income on full-day care for ONE child, with annual child care prices ranging from $6,552 to $15,600. [5] To put this into perspective, the median cost of a year’s worth of rent was $15,216, [6] which means that child care costs more than rent!
These are precarious times, but we are in this together fighting to protect the needs of families and children over funneling government money to the already rich. As we do our part, our electeds must do theirs to address this pile up of awfulness.
Thank you for taking action and for keeping up the drumbeat of hope with us!
-Nadia, Lauren, Nina, Elyssa, Hanna, Donna, Kristin and the whole MomsRising.org & MamásConPoder Team
[1] Judge temporarily blocks part of Trump administration’s plans to freeze federal aid
[2] The Courts Blocked Trump’s Federal Funding Freeze. Agencies Are Withholding Money Anyway
[3] Mass firings at HHS: Biden admin dept. heads denounce federal health agency firings
[4] House GOP panel passes budget blueprint with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and steep spending reductions
[5][6] NEW DATA: Childcare costs remain an almost prohibitive expense
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