So many questions

On government child care

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” —Milton Friedman

YOU KNOW how government always makes things better. And public restrooms are better than private restrooms. And public transportation beats the private kind. If you don’t know that, join those of us who have a healthy skepticism when the government knocks on the door and promises to help.

The press is beginning to dive into the details on the Next Big Spending Bill in Washington. The Biden administration (and the country) has its infrastructure bill. Now it’s time to crack apart the roundup spending bill, to see what’s inside. Let’s not pass it just so we can find out what’s in it. (Pelosi, N.)

After all these months of fighting about family leave and drug pricing, one item has managed to stay intact without drawing much fire: the child-care plan. And what a grand plan it is. Grand as in scope. According to the story in Sunday’s paper, the “Democrats’ plan to transform how the nation provides early child care stands out as one of the most expensive and sweeping provisions of their $1.85 trillion social safety net bill.

“Costing $390 billion, the proposal would provide all 3- and 4-year-old children with universal access to preschool, the largest expansion of free education since high school was added about 100 years ago. It would also subsidize the cost of child care for the vast majority of parents with a child under 6.”

Here’s where things get tricky. For what kind of cold-hearted conservative (but we repeat ourselves) would come out against education? And pre-K education at that? We do remember one superintendent telling us, only half-kidding, that he’d trade 12th grade for pre-K in a minute, because getting them young was that important.

But before we spend at least $390 billion, can we ask some questions? Or is that considered poor form? Can we have a national discussion on this particular matter without going so far as to shout down anybody who wants answers, just because the term “education” is used? And can the black helicopter types on the other end of the political spectrum keep it down in the back, with their howls against government intrusion into the family? (Government certainly tells your teens when to arrive at school.)

Poor form or not:

This isn’t going to cost $390 billion. According to the Los Angeles Times: “The child-care and pre-school policies will take time to fully implement and would be in place only through 2027—a constraint that will make successful and early implementation politically important to the Democrats who will want to ensure a future Congress will feel political pressure to renew it.”

Ah. This is one of the several proposals in the roundup bill that “sunsets” in a few years, thus making the paperwork look as if it will only cost a third of a trillion dollars. But once the nation’s families have this new entitlement, it will become yet another third rail of politics. And nobody will dare touch it. This country doesn’t undo entitlements. Few countries do. So expect the cost to be northward of $390 billion. North Star northward.

The proposed law, if passed as is, would guarantee pre-K to children in this country illegally. We can debate whether that should be done. What can’t be debated is that this sends yet another message to the world: Show up on America’s shores, and get a good deal.

States will decide whether to participate. So this would be another expand-Medicare-type of vote? And if (ahem) certain states do not participate, they’ll subsidize those that do?

“Child care centers that participate,” the Los Angeles Times notes, “whether they are day-care centers, public schools, faith-based institutions or Head Start programs, would have to operate within federal parameters, which would be spelled out more explicitly by the Biden administration.”

Some of us would like to see those more explicit regulations. Especially for those faith-based institutions.

The feds are said to want a say in academic requirements for child-care teachers. So the states wouldn’t set these standards any longer? Teachers, already up to here with paperwork, will have to go through another layer?

And the law apparently says employers will have to pay a “living wage.” So child-care facilities who hire uncredentialed workers without degrees will have another minimum wage to meet? And will the people working in nurseries and pre-pre-school facilities be forced to go through some other training? Or will they be grandfathered in?

And when will get the details, that is, these answers?

These questions affect the nation’s children, and children to be. But they are not childish questions.