President Biden campaigned on a promise to “build back better” and his COVID-19 vaccination distribution and economic stimulus package are in fact rebuilding the economy. Recently, he proposed The American Jobs Plan to rebuild America’s aging infrastructure.
The infrastructure we need to be competitive with other advanced nations encompasses more than just some concrete for roads and bridges. It should include public transportation, broadband, adjusting to climate change, transitioning to electric vehicles, capital spending on schools, job training, and research and development.
We also need to invest in the government’s own infrastructure to make it more responsive and efficient. The Reagan tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts, and the Trump tax cuts have succeeded in mainly exploding our national debt while making the rich richer and the poor poorer. We are left with bargain basement-government that doesn’t work well, like an understaffed and technologically obsolete IRS that leaves trillions on the table uncollected, or the U.S. Postal Service that is demoralized, underfunded, and underperforming.
The latest Biden program is the American Families Plan about child care, education, and paid family and medical leave. It includes two years of preschool available for every 3- and 4-year-old child and two years of free community college for every admitted student. We have had the K-12 system for over 100 years but the knowledge needed in today’s more complex world demands a pre-K-14 system. Every tax dollar spent on community college returns $6.80 to the economy. 70% of Americans favor federal spending to expand pre-K enrollment.
This pandemic has been brutal. The kids are not all right. One in every six children lives below the poverty level, 30% for Black children and 24% for Latino children, according to the Children’s Defense Fund. Making the expanded child tax credit permanent which is payable monthly will dramatically cut child poverty. Not only is it the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. Moody’s Analytics estimates Biden’s Jobs and Families plans are likely to pay for themselves in 15 years and raise real GDP by nearly $1 trillion in 15 years.
There are big returns to helping children and their parents, even more than the return on physical infrastructure. Study after study has concluded programs like food stamps, earned income credit and Medicaid have made better educated, healthier, longer, and more productive lives which makes our economy stronger. We know diet, medical care, and intellectual stimulation at the beginning are crucial to physical, emotional and cognitive development. Children enrolled in early education programs are more likely to go to college, earn more money, have better health, and not receive public assistance.
Currently, Early Head Start serves only 11% of eligible children and Head Start serves only 36% of eligible children. 60% of parents say preschool and day care expenses are a financial drain. Child care eats up 14% of the income of middle-class families and 35% for lower income families. Public spending on children in the U.S. is well below average of other countries with advanced economies. While the U.S. spends approximately $2,500 a year on child care and early education per child, the average in Europe is $4,700 and over $10,000 in Norway and Sweden.
I do not understand the logic of those who argue providing child care is bad because it is a liberal plot to force mothers to leave home and take jobs, but giving families aid is also bad because it allows mothers to stay at home and not work. If we really support family values we can and should reduce child poverty. If we want a better society tomorrow, we must pull today’s kids out of poverty.
Republicans seemingly agree that investments in children’s health and education might help your family, but they say those programs constitute big government so we should reject them. Instead of worrying whether government is too big or too small, decide first what it is that we want it to do, then decide what is the right size to get the job done. Government needs to be the size it needs to be to effectively and efficiently accomplish what the people decide they want, need, and vote for.
The U.S. is the only advanced economy without legally mandated paid maternity or paternity leave policy, yet 82% of Americans are in favor of it (YouGov poll April 1, 2021). If a government consistently refuses to deliver what the people want and need, in what sense is it a democracy?
Butler County Democrats member David Mansheim recently had this column appear in The Courier.