Episode 321: Subsidies for Child Care?

0:00Hello and welcome to David Bonson's Capital Record brought to you by National Review where the news headlines, the big stories, all the things that people are mixing it up on online play right into our hands in Capital Record where we want to have a podcast to defend free enterprise and discuss the underlying objectives of a free and virtuous society and how we need to promote both not either or but both and and all of a sudden you get an issue like subsidies for married parents wanting a spouse working from home excuse me staying at home with kids and as a matter of public policy as a matter of family values as a matter of the role of the state all

1:02of these discussion items come front and center and yet it just so happens their tailor made for us a capital record where this is the stuff we feast off of because it gets to the heart of the matter and I have a lot to say about this particular development and the policy proposal that Vice President Vance made over the weekend that a fair number of people who identify as being on the right have come out in support of but I'm going to explain what I believe is the proper approach from the vantage point of those of us who are in pursuit of the aforementioned vision of a free and virtuous society so let me start off by saying what it is it's been proposed I'm going to do my very best to be fair and objective and describe it objectively in terms of what is actually on the table first of all they do want to do this skirting Congress they from

2:09they believe that they have the discretionary authority within the executive branch to take the child care development fund which has passed in the 1990s and has currently used primarily to pay for child care for low income families take funds from it and instead give to married couples where one spouse works and the other has to work a minimum of 35 hours and the other is home with kids unmarried couples are not eligible in this proposal and it would apply to families I'm going to say for the sake of simplicity and I'll give you a caveat that are making $76,000 or less per year it's actually based on 85% or less of the given states median income and in some states is actually 60% of the median income so we're using kind of a round figure of where the estimate actually

3:11ends up falling right now at a median level is about 76,000 and again it can be lower in some states and as I mentioned only applies to married families if you believe that the married family provision would hold for future administrations I think you might have a more optimistic view but never the less it's on the table I want to present it as it is so some caveats are important here I am going to be very very critical of this idea and I'm going to explain why in a moment but what I'm not going to do is suggest that family formation is irrelevant the family values don't matter and I'm not even going to suggest that the state shouldn't care about family formation or family values I believe that the states role in these things is extremely limited and I believe this is an utterly horrific way to suggest the state does get involved or should be involved but I believe the state has a role in

4:20protecting families and in not enacting policies that penalize family formation or discriminate against families or marriage so there is a role but I consider the role to be more one of removing impediments as opposed to a finger on the scale intervention but nevertheless the intent of those who are advocating in good faith for this proposal may very well be good I've seen some that I do not believe are arguing from good faith but I have seen some who I do believe are and I just want to say that one of the hallmarks of my vision of conservatism and one of the things I learned from studying Thomas soul is a very young man is that we do not believe in judging policies on their intentions I expect more from conservatives and it is not enough to say those who like this are somewhat driven by trying

5:26to promote stronger marriages or child rearing therefore this must be a good idea the bar must be higher those that are in favor of this from the right are saying that the money is being spent anyways so why let daycare centers get it why let single moms get it let's see some stay at home moms benefit and if you care about family this is a way for government to not support daycares and single moms but to support good old fashioned traditional families so those are some of the arguments I think are on the table I mentioned I believe some people are proposing them in good faith and I mentioned that my own approach is one of being very supportive of family formation and very questionable about the state's role in such but not an absolute this where I would suggest that the state ought to pretend

6:27they don't care I think that the state has a very vested interest in there being strong family unit in American society however I would suggest that this bill does nothing of the sort nothing first of all the argument that the welfare state already exists so we should use it to reward our preferences and choices is not a super principled argument you actually have no choice but to work against the expansion of the welfare state if you fancy yourself a defender of the family the welfare is a destroyer of the family and we have seen this for decades dependency on welfare welfare cliffs that disincentivized productive and dignified behavior are the enemy of a strong family unit and conservatives know this now look you are not going to get what you're after

7:32supporting a larger welfare state and it will bear no resemblance over time to what you say your social preferences are now history is remote not remotely ambiguous about this point however I want to make a far bigger issue about the the the major argument being proposed in support of this that the money is being spent anyways that the money is already codified into law and therefore we have no choice but to pursue a reallocation let's clarify a few things of the money that is funding the child care development fund a little less than 30% of it is under a mandatory funding provision of the Social Security Act a little over 70% is reappropriated every year on a totally

8:34discretionary basis but there is a nuance to even that that makes it far more disingenuous to say that this money has to be spent and that is that the statutory authorization for this discretionary 70.9% expired in 2020 congress has just chosen manually year by year to reappropriate every year since there is no legislation to do so so there is not in fact a mandatory provision requiring that this money be spent congress is choosing to go do it last I checked we have a Republican majority house and a Republican majority senate and a Republican White House so it would be the easiest thing in the world for us to divert our efforts to saying let's stop allocating this money to whether we daycares or single moms or married moms if that is in fact

9:36what we want to do the notion that we simply want to recarve it into something we like better it may be what JD Vance wants us to do it may be what some of the new right want us to do but it is not true that it is something we have to do by law it is not right now mandatory and even the discretionary provision expired so my question is within the current amount of spending I want you to understand how it is going now and I want you to tell me with a straight face that you think this doesn't represent an expanded entitlement once I share with you the fact of the matter my thesis is going to be that this is going to cannibalize current funding by definition it's already way underfunded demand for this bill outpaces the capacity of this funding with that discretionary

10:36extension year by year by something in between nine and 10 to one okay now what I'm suggesting is it guarantee that they will increase and expand the program to avoid any decrease of benefit to current recipients and if you don't believe that will happen you're not paying attention to this bill to the mechanics of this or to the obvious history of entitlement programs right now who's receiving it over 80% are single mothers of low income do you believe this new bill that is only for married people does not guarantee an expansion when the married couples right now with one income excuse me with two incomes below 76,000 are a minimal amount of what would be on the table that

11:36though so I guess my question is this do you believe that nine thousand dollars to a married family per kid is going to this is a very important question will incentivize people to get married who are not married that it will incentivize those without kids and have one working spouse to have that they don't have kids but now they're gonna have kids or so is that the intention is promoting family values I believe Kevin Roberts and Herodic has suggested it that this is going to promote family formation that they currently don't have a married unit or currently don't have kids but now with nine thousand dollars of a federal government payment will now decide that kids is that what we're arguing or are we arguing that the movement of funds to those who are already married who have one working spouse and are not currently receiving nine thousand dollars of federal government money that will be a reward to them they're doing the right thing they're trying to raise their

12:39family a certain way let's give them nine grand to help them out if it's the latter which it most certainly is okay the question is do you really believe you're gonna redirect benefits from poorer single parents to somewhat better off married parents I'm not suggesting they're rich but they are at a higher income place than the people currently receiving it and they are married not single mothers you believe that government's gonna allow a redirecting of the benefits from campaign it can't be it is going to become a new federal entitlement there is absolutely no question about that it reinforces a demand for the welfare state period and I just want to point out that right now married couples who do have two incomes that are below 76,000 who are getting program money for daycare is very very rare of the current program it's almost non-existent

13:47so redirecting that the daycare support to stay at home mom support is not an accurate description it is more or less a single parent a low income single parent support bill now so then to have this new dimension does not divert but expands and I think that this reinforcements a demand for the welfare state even if you think the people receiving it are noble some may very well be I assure you some will not be but it is still nevertheless an expansion of the welfare state where I have to question why and I'm gonna make a few comments about that but I've said a few will not be and I just want to point out I cannot even fathom somebody with a straight face saying that they don't think we're being set up here for fraud boondoggle like you can't even believe that there will be people with two incomes that hide income that claim the benefit that whatever

14:50okay now that's a critique of government programs from conservatives it's a legitimate critique because it happens all the time we are now putting a rip me off sign on the front lawn but nevertheless when people say this promotes strong families and husbands doing their work and providing and the ability for families to so choose to be have a mother who stay at home look I do believe there are needs based situations where a family of single income is in a tough predicament but I want to speak very candidly openly and I think honestly and I'm not here to poke a bear I'm not here to be belligerent and sensitive but I do think it's fair to ask what is the vision of promoting strong families and promoting husbands as providers that says hey go get yours from the federal government we're gonna get you 18k 27k 36k for your

15:53two three or four kids that's not what those who have talked about strong families and strong husbands and strong providers have ever met in my lifetime now to the extent we're talking about needs based situations emergency programs safety net predicaments that's not what this is this is a form of perpetual support which we have historically defined as dependency now you're asking some segments of society single people dual income families to subsidize another segment of society single income married families and I can't come up with a conservative rationale if I tried is this to say that I'm against single income married families of course I'm not I very much support it I myself was in one where my wife and I're raising our kids she was a stay at home mom there's a lot of traditional values and and whatnot that I very much hold dear here but that's not

16:58the subject at hand the subject is who pays for it and what we're suggesting is that people without a family yet or who've already raised their family or do have two incomes in their family that they ought to be subsidizing that other choice and I'm sorry but there isn't a conservative rationale for it subsidies have never ever ever increased family formation or birth rates even in Orban's Hungary which is kind of the case study for what a failure these types of grift programs proved to be pulled forward the expediting of some benefits and then ended up seeing a decline in birth rates later is that people took advantage of a system to get some free money but it didn't net increase the fertility or population growth families do not form generally speaking as clients of the state

18:01it just isn't how family formation works and I'm not speaking now in the last 10 years in American culture 30 years or post war through thousands of years they're all sorts of factors that contribute to birth rates fertility family formation marriage state subsidies are not one of them families are not special interest groups they're not in line to try to go get their share of cash and if they were I would like to point out that we are in even those of us who are pro family not in any position to be adding a list of recipients to the unpaid for welfare state this program you have to understand is begging for people who want an expansion of the welfare state to use it as rationale to do just that the current intent where there are a couple with good motives is going to get lost the absolutely inevitable immediate inevitable outcome will be

19:08expansion of the benefit and this money does not have to be spent there is absolute discretionary ability to stop that in appropriations if you want family formation if you want to promote a various traditional vision of the home if you do not want the welfare state subsidizing daycares or single moms or other issues that you think should not be receiving it then adding a list of recipients is the last thing you ought to be doing what you want if you care about family formation is to not put to that burden on the state who is a terrible actor they're great at cultivating and supporting and paying out on fraud they're great at expanding one entitlement at at get at satisfying voters with the transfer payment of money and then adding more to the

20:13list of customers that receive transfer payments they're great at building dependency on these programs that simply do not work but what they are not great at doing is creating the underlying conditions that lead to family formation which is first of all a better income level deregulation lower tax burden a great lower barrier to entry in economic activity for all on an even playing field but where you have strongest family formation fertility birth rates all of these things are in societies are increasingly religious the institutions and spheres and domains whereby these things can be promoted and cultivated are in church family civil society and the meeting mediating institutions that the state is not the ultimate promoter of family this is not to say

21:20they should be agnostic however I will tell you that the greatest thing the state can do to promote family values is to stop hurting wage earners through heavy economic interventions and burdens that they impose only in societies where we have increased evangelism values morality a civic virtue have you seen birth rates grow I believe advocates for this are unintentionally being lazy because family church civil society are harder to promote than defaulting to the state who has power it feels like they can go use executive branch authority or legislative branch authority or appropriation budget authority to immediately implement something and that is harder than planting the seeds for a sustained society the values married men and women working was raising

22:21families doing so with the right economic backdrop and so forth I understand those that are impatient and want to see hard working stay at home mothers not be penalized but this is not a way to do it the system easily could allow us to stop the boom dog will that it takes place and there is a zero percent chance that we are going to go take from poorer single mothers and give to less poor married mothers it is not going to happen so you are expanding an entitlement and you are growing the welfare state and you are making an argument for the next batch of entitlement dependency welfare state if you want strong families if you want husbands that are pioneering and hard working and providing then please don't play into this please do not succumb to the arguments of the great

23:25society the vehicle by which we promote families primarily the evangelism the churches that strong message in moral culture that we care about is not going to come from an executive order and to the extent there is any bill you could share with me that says come on what about this what about that where they are penalizing married couples then let's work like you know what to stop that but that's not what we're talking about here what we're talking about here is taking a bad bill and making it worse when we have an easy tool to make it better at the end of the day this is at the crux of what is dividing many in the right right now do you believe the state is the vehicle you want to use to promote this agenda or do you believe the state ought to be enforcing an even playing field that allows less impediment to business growth to job growth to wage growth to economic

24:33freedom i think this is obvious for those of us who hold to a burky in vision and a traditionalist conservative vision and i think the tragedy of this bill is that even with its good intentions it is going to make things worth worse and i believe we know what is built on the path of good intentions thank you for listening to david bonson's capital record