Phoenix, AZ - On Sunday, Kari Lake published a new op-ed titled “Making Families Affordable Again” in the Arizona Daily Star. Lake highlighted the pain that families are feeling under the Biden-Harris economy that Ruben Gallego has voted 100% of the time for, and the importance of Arizona’s next U.S. Senator passing meaningful legislation to help make raising a family easier.
READ: HERE
Key Excerpts:
– As Americans grapple with Bidenflation, families with young children are being hit exceptionally hard. According to Child Care Aware, families in the U.S. spend an average of $11,000 on child care each year.
– Burdensome child-care costs also limit economic growth by often preventing young parents from seeking better employment or additional opportunities. Current support programs, including direct child-care subsidies, Head Start and Early Head Start are either insufficient, poorly managed and promoted, or both.
– Ensuring a brighter future for our children means addressing these problems aggressively and creatively.
– With the U.S. birth rate falling to dangerous lows, below the level needed to maintain our population, and many prospective parents citing the cost of raising a child, child care costs, and difficulty of providing a stay-at-home parent as reasons to delay or avoid having children, it is incumbent that the U.S. Congress and Senate take up meaningful legislation to make raising a family even just a little bit easier. As Arizona’s next senator, I will fight to make that happen.
– First, we need to increase the monthly child-care subsidy and associated tax credits to bring them more on par with other developed nations…an increase in direct, voucher-based subsidies for parents to choose childcare options that best serve them and their families would end up being a net revenue generator for the federal government, rather than a loss.
– We need to reform Head Start and Early Head Start to maximize the very significant investment in these programs — over $12.2 billion in federal funding alone for Fiscal Year 2024. In addition to federal funding, all Head Start and Early Head Start programs require some matching funds from state and local governments. An increase of funds for these programs could be considered, but not until existing deficiencies are addressed.
– Head Start funding should be allocated to providers based on the average daily attendance, not the inflated monthly totals, or — as is now the case — on the basis of allocated seats, which providers have a negative incentive to fill (as the only mother in my race, I can tell you what any parent would: A handful of kids are a lot easier to handle than a whole roomful). Changing the compensation basis to reflect actual attendance gives providers a clear incentive to advertise and promote their programs and fill all those empty spots taxpayers are currently funding.
– We need to make existing Head Start and Early Head Start programs more accessible geographically…Reducing individual program size and spreading them out over a larger geographic area, utilizing existing school infrastructure, would increase the uptake of these programs and maximize the value of current federal spending.
– Rules surrounding [Head Start and Early Head Start] programs should ensure that creative, smaller providers who can produce high-quality programs are not frozen out of an anti-competitive bid process.
– Strong American families are the foundation of our future and the most important institutions in any society. It’s time for Washington to step up and protect them. As Arizona’s next Senator, I’m prepared to lead that charge.
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