When President Donald Trump was elected to a second term on November 5, he did it on the back of a big-tent coalition. The 2024 election put the finishing touches on a shift we’ve seen building for some time: The Republican Party is now, without a doubt, the party of parents, families, and hardworking Americans of all stripes.
With our majorities in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and President Trump back in the White House, we now have an opportunity to work on behalf of that coalition — and addressing our country’s child care crisis is the perfect place to start.
Like so many Americans, I’ve experienced the problem first-hand. As a law student in Tuscaloosa, wait lists were so long that I struggled to find one place that could take both my kids. Once our family moved to Birmingham, my husband and I paid astronomical amounts of money to send our two babies to a child care center. It felt more like we were writing checks for college tuition.
The problem has only gotten worse since care costs have increased 36 percent over the past ten years, outpacing inflation. It’s gotten to the point that American parents are, on average, spending 22 percent of their income on child care. Median annual child care expenses in this country range up to $15,600 per child.
That cost is crushing for so many parents, and it’s also prohibitive. It is impossible not to wonder how many parents choose not to bring more children into the world because of the financial burden — and the child care crisis just adds to that. As the pro-family party, Republicans must incentivize parents to start and grow families, not deter them from doing so. We have the opportunity to make it easier for Americans to have kids and create a comprehensive culture of life in this country, and we must take advantage of this chance.
But families are not the only ones affected by the current state of child care in this country. It hurts American small businesses and industry, too.
The American economy loses a staggering $122 billion every year because of child care challenges. On top of that, 74 percent of mothers and 66 percent of fathers say they have left work early, arrived late, or been absent because their child care plans fell through at the last minute. Fifty-nine percent of part-time and non-working parents say they’d go back to work full-time if they had access to quality child care at a reasonable cost.
This situation is bad for our nation’s economy and for our country’s workers. President Trump has committed to making America a place that builds things once again. He has stated his intention to unleash a golden age for Made-in-America excellence, where the skill, hard work, and ingenuity of the American people can achieve the impossible and change the world.
If we want to accomplish that — and I absolutely do — we must tackle the child care affordability crisis, which is ultimately a crisis of the workforce. Simply put, we can’t be a country that builds, makes, and invents things without people to do the building, manufacturing, and inventing.
That is where my two-pronged child care plan comes in: the Child Care Workforce Act and the Child Care Availability and Affordability Act. The plan consists of a targeted investment in families and small businesses, modernizing existing tax credits so our policy reflects our current economic reality.
We’re not creating or growing any entitlement but instead letting Americans keep more of their hard earned money in a way that fuels economic growth. We’re also offering job creators an incentive to invest directly into their employees with child care-related benefits. We’ll help moms and dads who want to have children or grow their families, help parents re-enter the workforce after having kids, and help job creators — especially small businesses — recruit and retain workers. This is a chance to enact lasting pro-family, pro-Main Street, and pro-growth policy.
Republicans have an opportunity we should not let slip away. With majorities in both chambers of Congress and President Trump in the Oval Office, we can prove we’re the party of parents, families, and hardworking Americans.
We must extend provisions of President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act this year, and we have the power to build on an immensely successful bill. When it comes time to craft the legislation, I will fight to include measures to make child care more affordable and accessible. It’s time to address the crisis and remove roadblocks in front of American families and workers, and Republicans are the ones who can do it.