by Dave Anderson
The battle for many months between the Democrats and the Republicans over the so-called social services bill covered traditional ground. The Democrats argued that a handful of critical family centered policies were not only needed by middle class, working class and poor families, but that these families had a right to these policies: paid parental leave, major child care subsidies, an expansion of the existing child tax credit and universal pre-K education.
The Republicans, by and large, protested these policies, which together with climate change policies and free community college, among other things, added up to $3.5 trillion. They argued, as moderate House Democrats and especially Senate Democrats Manchin and Sinema have argued, that these policies basically would turn the United States into an “entitlement society.”
So the two-generation-old battle has been before us: The progressives say our families have a right to more federal support, especially concerning programs that speak to sustaining their family structure itself; the moderates and conservatives say that it is not the role of the federal government to provide such extensive financial support.
The debate has been, in many ways, boring. Same old themes. Many of the same players even. President Biden himself, now a progressive and not a centrist, has been a player in these debates for four decades.
President Biden’s $1.75 trillion compromise bill is a good effort, but it misses the opportunity to address one of the great struggles of our time. And it is not clear if the current version is going to be supported by the House Progressive Caucus.
A very important theme that is often submerged in this over half-century-old battle is what model of parenting is best for children. The progressive model aims to provide parents — moms and dads, two moms or two dads or one mom or one dad — with the resources they need to reconcile their work and family responsibilities.
In particular, resources are leveraged so that parents can reenter the workforce when their children are in a position to be cared for by individuals who are qualified and suitably paid to care for them.
The moderates and conservatives, on the other hand, hope that parents can afford to have one parent, typically a mom but not necessarily a mom, stay at home with a child in the early years of life, principally birth to age five. The moderates and conservatives may or may not seek government resources to help parents be able to do so.
This over 50-year struggle has been submerged in the Capitol Hill fighting. At this point, House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro, AOC and the Squad and House Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal should talk with Senator Sanders and Senators Manchin and Sinema about the idea of including a tax credit for stay-at-home parents in the social services bill.
Perhaps Manchin and Sinema would be pleased to bring home this tax credit to their states, namely a tax credit that specifically provides parents with a right, and funding to back it up, that would enable them to keep one parent at home in the early years of a child’s life.
Certainly more than half of Republicans (who are not needed in the reconciliation process) in both chambers would support a tax credit for stay-at-home parents. The explicit attention given to strengthening families, which keep a parent at home in the early years of a child’s life, would probably be music to the ears of moderate Democrats and most Republicans.
Sen. Manchin might drop his opposition to paid parental leave if the tax credit for stay-at-home parents was put in the bill, and the progressive senators and representatives might support the tax credit for stay-at-home parents if paid parental leave was put back in the bill.
Congress needs to offer hard-working middle class parents a choice: They could either take the tax credit or an equivalent amount of child care, after the time period dedicated to paid parental leave. The President would sign the bill because supporting both models of the family is the right thing to do, from the moral point of view and in order to pass the two bills at the core of his agenda.
Dave Anderson (dmamaryland@gmail.com) ran for Congress in Maryland’s 8th District in 2016. The centerpiece of his campaign was a family policy he first defended in 2001 in Progressive Politics for the Global Age (Polity Press), edited by Henry Tam.
