The Republican congressional leadership that was on the verge of putting together a comprehensive child care package that Democrats found agreeable had the rug pulled out from under them by Donald Trump who accidentally blurted out his private thoughts.
According to the Washington Post, Republican and Democratic congressional leadership had made significant progress on a child care bill designed to address the costs families say are driving up expenses across the country. Lawmakers from both parties had signed on in record numbers requesting funding for early childhood programs.
Then along came Trump in a characteristic unguarded moment.
"We can't take care of day care. We're a big country, we have 50 states. We have all these other people, we're fighting wars. We can't take care of day care," Trump said at an Easter lunch on April 1, according to a video the White House posted online and later took down after it went viral.
The admission contradicted the administration's official position. Trump's domestic spending package had expanded tax credits for working parents and maintained about $20 billion in combined funding for Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant — measures adopting elements of a bipartisan bill from Sens. Katie Boyd Britt (R-AL) and Tim Kaine (D-VA).
The White House immediately leaped into damage control, claiming Trump was merely referring to allegations of fraudulent payments for child care centers in Minnesota, the Post report noted before adding that a White House official pointed to Vice President JD Vance's fraud task force, saying it would ensure the programs' "viability for the Americans they're meant to serve."
Sen. Tim Kaine isn't buying it.
"I wish the White House would focus on partnering with Congress to get that done — instead of saying it's 'not possible' to address the child care crisis because of Trump's unnecessary and unpopular wars," Kaine said.
According to the report, the economic stakes are huge with employee distractions, missed work, and job losses due to child care disruptions costing the economy $35 billion to $45 billion annually, according to new McKinsey research. Families with children under 5 lose $172 billion annually in earnings and productivity, according to First Five Years Fund research.