WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Child Care for Every Family Network slammed House Republicans for passing their anti-family reconciliation bill that will rip health care and food assistance away from millions of American families, and continue the Trump Administration’s cruel mass deportation effort. The bill gives massive tax breaks to corporations and billionaires, while making it harder for families who need it most to access tax credits. Despite the Trump Administration’s rhetoric around encouraging Americans to grow their families, the bill also does absolutely nothing to address the child care crisis—which continues to be a central stressor for working parents.  

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

“This bill is a gross betrayal of working families struggling to raise their children. Congress had the opportunity to make meaningful progress on child care and other policies to help American families, and instead House Republicans just voted to kick millions of people off their health care and food assistance. And for what? To pay for massive tax breaks for corporations and billionaires, and to fund Trump’s cruel family detention policies and deport more immigrant parents. 

“There’s a reason why Republicans have been scheduling hearings in the dead of night to pass this bill—they know this bill is going to devastate their constituents. Working families across the country will hold Republicans accountable for their gross anti-family policies.” 

After voting under the cover of night multiple nights in a row, House Republicans passed their reconciliation bill early this morning that will slash benefits for working families, increase the cruel practice of mass  detention and allow the federal government to deport more immigrants without due process, provide massive tax cuts for billionaires, and do absolutely nothing to address the child care crisis. In particular, the bill would: 

• Slash benefits for working families: According to the initial estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, nearly 14 million Americans would lose health care due to this bill, including nearly 9 million who would lose their Medicaid. Further, restrictions to SNAP in this bill would also result in more than 5 million people losing some or all of their SNAP food assistance benefits, with an average loss of $254 dollars per family per month. 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.
• Provide massive tax cuts for billionaires:  The tax benefits of this bill are massively skewed towards the wealthy, with an initial estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office determining that the bill hurts the bottom 10 percent of households while the wealthiest 10 percent of households will benefit the most. 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.
• Expand mass deportation: 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.
• Ignore 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. The bill doesn’t include a single investment in child care, despite its multiple trillion dollar price tag. Even a modest proposal to improve the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit and make it fully refundable was rejected by every single Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. 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.