Democrats slam plan to pay stay-at-home parents

The vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on Wednesday condemned a reported Trump administration plan to give federal childcare funding to stay-at-home parents. The program, which was created in the 1990s primarily for working parents, was already underfunded and had hundreds of thousands of mothers on its waiting list, she said. She referred to the plan as “grift.”

A draft of the plan suggested making a new federal rule allowing money from the Health Department’s Child Care and Development Fund to go to families with a stay-at-home parent, according to the New York Times, which first reported the initiative. The program typically provides about $9,000 a year, per child, for working parents. The newspaper, citing unnamed sources familiar with the plan, said it was a priority for Vice President J.D. Vance.

Conditions would apply: the added use of the funding would be only for married parents, when one spouse is working at least 35 hours a week and the other is staying home with children, according to the New York Times. Income requirements, which could vary by state, would also apply.

The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., also condemned the plan, saying that the Trump administration was using the proposed change to impose its preferred definition of a family. The plan would particularly hurt single mothers, she said.

How did conservatives respond to the plan? Few conservative politicians publicly commented on it, and many influential figures seemed divided on the issue. U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said it made sense, because being a stay-at-home parent was a full-time job. Conservative media figure Michael Knowles didn’t directly state support for the plan, but said other conservatives shouldn’t be furious that the government might modestly reform a liberal welfare program.

However, some raised concerns about the plan. Former National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch said it would make more families dependent on government welfare. She also argued that the money would go to many illegal immigrants whose children are American citizens. Angela Morabito, who worked as press secretary of the Education Department during Trump’s first term, said the plan would tax working moms to fund someone else’s decision to stay at home.