WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Child Care for Every Family Network condemns Senate Republicans for advancing cruel, anti-family legislation that will rip health care and food assistance from millions of families to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires and extend Trump’s cruel family separation and detention agenda. 

Andrea Paluso and Erica Gallegos, Co-Executive Directors of the Child Care for Every Family Network, released the following statement: 

“With this bill, Republicans in Congress have once again turned their backs on working families, caregivers, and communities who need care and support the most. This vote isn’t just a missed opportunity—it’s a deliberate choice that will harm kids, strain local economies, and deepen inequities nationwide.

“Child care costs continue to skyrocket and families across the country are struggling to make ends meet. Instead of investing in meaningful child care solutions and family-friendly policies, Republicans chose to strip away essential health care and food assistance programs that millions depend on. They did so to bankroll enormous tax breaks for corporations and billionaires and to expand Trump’s inhumane mass detention and deportation agenda that are tearing families apart.

“These should not be the priorities of a party that claims to champion family values. Families nationwide will remember how Republicans chose corporate profits over their children’s wellbeing when it mattered most.”

Families across the country of all political persuasions have been speaking out against these devastating cuts, and recent public polling shows that a majority of Americans want more investments in Medicaid, not devastating cuts. After House Republicans passed their version of the bill, Senate Republicans had the opportunity to listen to their constituents and pass a bill that makes meaningful progress on family friendly policies. Instead, they made even deeper, more harmful cuts, including:

• Slashing benefits for working families: According to the initial estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, 17 million Americans would lose health care due to this bill, including 11.8 million who would lose their Medicaid. Further, this bill includes the largest cut to SNAP benefits in history. These impacts would be particularly severe for the child care community. Nearly 28 percent of child care workers are covered by Medicaid, and 43 percent of early educator families rely on one or more public safety nets such as Medicaid or SNAP to make ends meet.
• Providing massive tax breaks for billionaires and corporations:  The tax benefits of this bill are massively skewed towards the wealthy, with the richest 20 percent getting an average $6,055 tax break while the bottom 20 percent will pay $560 more. Not only would this continue to squeeze families already struggling to get by, it also neglects to use the tax code in a way that could truly support families—by taxing the ultra-wealthy in order to fund transformative child care investments.
• Expanding mass deportation and attacks on immigrants: This bill would not only impose outrageous fees on immigrants seeking asylum, it would also expand mass detention and ramp-up mass deportation efforts that are already traumatizing and upending communities. This particularly impacts the child care workforce. Immigrant women are a cornerstone of the caregiving system, comprising 20% of the child care workforce and over 25% of direct care workers, despite making up just 8% of the overall U.S. workforce.
• Ignoring the child care crisis: Despite the fact that child care costs continue to go up, families still struggle to find child care in their community, and child care workers continue to make poverty wages, this bill does nothing to address the child care crisis. In fact, the only so-called child care solution in the entire bill is a small expansion to yet another tax credit for corporations to provide child care benefits to their employees. But according to CRS, this credit is rarely claimed (less than 1% of all corporate tax returns include it). Moreover, tying child care to your employer means losing your job results in losing your child care, which would be devastating for families. 

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The Child Care for Every Family Network is the national movement and campaign to transform child care, representing 1,500+ child care providers, impacted families, state and national organizations, and organizers across the country. Learn more: childcareforeveryfamily.org.