Conservative opposition to social safety nets is nothing new. But, as daycare costs continue to soar and the US Surgeon General warns that parents are dangerously overwhelmed, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle appear to agree that at least something needs to be done to help address the crisis.

Yet when faced with a simple question on the issue this week, Donald Trump and JD Vance stumbled profoundly, prompting many to wonder whether the Republican ticket had even bothered to think about child care affordability—again, one of the most acute problems facing the US economy—at all.

Just take a look. Here was Trump at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, rambling through an incomprehensible, half-baked theory that foreign tariffs will solve the problem, easy-peasy—all while dodging the question of specific pieces of legislation he’d push to help make child care more affordable. Meanwhile, economists widely agree that sweeping tariffs would severely hurt world trade.

    • someguy3@lemmy.world
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      30 days ago

      Their plan is the free market will fix it. What they as the government have to do is nothing, get out of the way, let the problem fester, and that way the free market will come up with a solution. That’s their ideology.

        • darvocet@infosec.pub
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          Come on dude wake the fuck up. If three kids die at the daycare on the corner you’ll know not to take your kids there. It’s the free market and it absolutely works.

          /s

          • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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            30 days ago

            That place shut down, there’s a new place there now.

            Yes, it’s got the same staff as the old one, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

        • someguy3@lemmy.world
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          When something bad happens Vance will say “that’s a fact of life”.

          Because his daycare will be rich people only, his free market will have solved it. If you want to solve yours, then just get rich. That’s how their ideology works.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        Yes but the only problem with that is the reason we have regulation was the free market. It’s like the economic liberals that call themselves libertarians. Claiming that all our economic problems are because of regulations. And don’t get me wrong there absolutely are regulations that are bad that need to be changed. But the horrors of even the worst regulation. Are nothing compared to the horrors of unregulated unfettered capitalism.

        Unfortunately though for too many Americans are completely brainwashed to the point where. You could make a series of unintelligible grunts, shout MERICA! Free market! Yeeeeeehaaaaw! And have just made a convincing policy platform.

    • frickineh@lemmy.world
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      They’d have to care that there are crises to bother trying to fix them. Trump only cares about his personal problems and I’m pretty sure Vance is some kind of robot with bad AI who will just stop charging himself if things get too bad.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        30 days ago

        When someone responds to what kind of donuts would you like with whatever makes sense, you might not be wrong. That whole exchange was severe cringe.

    • vegeta@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      4D chess. You obviously need to deal with an imaginary crisis with an imaginary plan.

      /s

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Oh no, Vance has a plan. Vance’s plan is as follows:

    1. Less regulations on daycare employees.
    2. Make grandma and grandpa do it.
    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      “One of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is to make it so that grandma or grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” Vance said at a Turning Point Action event in Mesa, Arizona, on Wednesday. “Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we’re spending in daycare.”

      Yeah, good luck with that. My parents dumped me on their parents, then were conveniently absentee when I struggled with child care. It’s just another reason I’m so vocal about certain things needing to be socialized, like housing, medical, water, utilities, food, decent basic clothing, etc, and funding it by returning to 1950’s era tax policies.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        30 days ago

        Also, these days, a lot of grandparents can’t afford to retire.

        On top of that, it would be ridiculous to expect them to take over childcare duties rather than enjoy their retirement. If they wanted to, fine. If they wanted to go travel the world or whatever they can afford to do, they’ve earned it.

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
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          I’m sure some have. Mine were just incredibly cluster B, but could have definitely afforded it. Especially *one side. I’m not even angry at them anymore, because it’s plain to see why. I went through it, because multigenerational trauma is real and access to therapy, especially quality, is all but non existent. I just kept muddling through to get this far along, mostly by dumb luck and persistence and stubbornly, doggedly doing the work, mostly on my own. Cutting out drinking, doping (reefer, even) and most socializing helped. Not that I’m surrounded by bad people, they aren’t. They are good people, but also multigenerationally traumatized and in active alcoholism and other addiction, and not really interested in healing, just self-medicating. And a lot of the trauma is just being told what we went through is normal, therapies are evil, pray it all away, moral failure, etc.

      • rand_alpha19@moist.catsweat.com
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        Yeah, my parents have been living in Mexico off and on for years, and are about to move back. If I had kids, it would all be on me and my wife. Thankfully I don’t want kids, but other people do and they’re struggling. Grandparents can’t & won’t fix this problem.

        • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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          28 days ago

          Also, relying on relatives is a way of circumventing freedom of movement. It keeps everyone in the same place, at the same low paying jobs, with no hope of improving their or their children’s situation in life. Which is also perfectly in line with the Republican playbook.

          • rand_alpha19@moist.catsweat.com
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            Didn’t even think of that, but you’re right. Not that there’s anything wrong with not wanting to leave your hometown, but when you literally can’t due to finances, that’s pretty fucked. Especially since moving to a larger or different city can open up so many opportunities.

            As a personal example, I moved from a city with a lot of manufacturing to one with very little, and now I can’t find a job in my chosen field. Some other stuff has come up and I have relatively easy access to government financial aid, so I’ve decided to go back to college. So many others just don’t have that option so they’d be stuck in shitty or low-paying jobs.

    • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Grandma and grandpa won’t be able to, they’re not retiring because pensions effectively no longer exist, we’ve had 40 years of declining real wages, and they didn’t know what a 401k was or save in it for much of their careers.

  • derf82@lemmy.world
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    The don’t have a plan to fix ANY crisis. Or problem.

    Republicans have only a few plans:

    • Tax cuts for the rich
    • Appoint conservative judges that will ignore the law in favor their political beliefs
    • Ban abortion
    • Repeal LQBTQ+ rights
    • Send more people to prison
    • Fire every liberal in government
  • someguy3@lemmy.world
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    Vance’s answer was clear: it’s your problem.

    He’s a libertarian so this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

    • Dearth@lemmy.world
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      They do have a plan. They published a 900 page roadmap to steal power for themselves and turn the American population into peasants

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      They one a single plan. To (re)gain power, no matter what damage is done. These issues that the press and voters keep talking about are just inconvenient sidelines.

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      Felt like at least in 2016 they really had a solid dumbass plan to get rid of all those Mexicans. The hate platform is way more vague now.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    Their plan for any given crisis will be: “pay corporations more money”.

    These are business people pushing the same old trickle-down agenda. Why they continue to be able to convince so many poverty-stricken people to vote against their own best interests is beyond me, but there is no magic in the platform.

    Corporations > people, and if the people just gave them a little bit more, all the problems will go away. They promise.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      No no… there is also de-regulate.

      Vance explicitly said it in his “let grandpa and grandma help out” speech.

      He suggested that “you should not need a 6 year degree to open a daycare”… Which you dont. He also referred to “resources wasted on childcare”.

      So his message to parents is “we will lower the quality” and thinks people in childcare “jobs” could serve the economy better if they do other things while the retired post menstrual women should watch the kids.

      He is… a ghoul.

  • nkat2112@sh.itjust.works
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    It’s a serious problem that even their side of the political aisle acknowledges, and yet they couldn’t say anything half-meaningful about it?

    I guess that would have been too much to expect of them.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    But as the Ohio senator has oft proven to do, it was his suggestion that grandparents pitch in that, once again, gave the impression of being wildly out of touch.

    I’ll just dig up their corpses, three of whom were dead before my birth. That’s gonna be great for a child’s development.

    “One of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is to make it so that grandma or grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” Vance said at a Turning Point Action event in Mesa, Arizona, on Wednesday. “Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we’re spending in daycare.”

    My family lives 1600 miles from me. I’m sure they won’t mind making a trip to watch the kids for the afternoon so I can take a nap.

    Repubs have no plans for the future outside of targeting their perceived enemies. This has been obvious for quite some time. Their constituents are completely misinformed and incapable of critical thought.

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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    Trump and Vance Have No Plan to Fix One of America’s Biggest Crises

    Of course not.

    They’ll just exaggerate the problems and blame someone (anyone) else for everything.

  • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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    A new good stroller is $600+.

    That is less than a week of daycare in our area. Ignoring thinking about college, daycare is the only cost that matters in terms of our kid. Everything else is pocket change, comparatively speaking. And the $5k dependent FSA amount is a total joke.

    • vortic@lemmy.world
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      Right? The $5k dependent care FSA does save me about $1k per year but I’m still shelling out $21k for day care with $16k taxed.

  • VerbFlow@lemmy.world
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    Yeah, Drumpf is too old for office and can’t understand how money works imo. It’s not even the Dictatorship On Day One deal. Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte could, at least, solve a great many of their people’s problems. Drumpf and Vance aren’t even doing that. It’s a bit exhausting having almost every U.S. politician cramming into the D-Party, but after this whole fiasco, it’ll split up.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    29 days ago

    Child care is SOCIALISM!

    -Protect The Children Republicans who LOVE Tax Breaks for Billionaires!