With this option, they are now financially penalized for making that choice in order to subsidize those who don't. I'm not so sure that's a good thing.
My wife and I have no interest in ever having children, yet we are happy to pay property taxes that go to local public schools. Why? Because an educated society is better able to make educated decisions. We are being "penalized" for making the choice to not have kids in order to "subsidize" those who don't.
Correct. It all comes down to whether you believe parents leaving home to work on their careers instead of staying home to raise their kids is an unambiguous good that needs to be subsidized the same way education is.
Assuming by education you actually mean schooling, this is the very same thing. The question is really only about at which age subsidized schooling should first start. This moves that age of first subsidized engagement to approximately birth, as opposed to waiting until age ~3-5 (varies by jurisdiction).
Historically it was considered a beneficial necessity to gather the children to write down knowledge so that it could be brought back home for the whole family to learn from, but in the age of the internet perhaps separating children and parents is never good at any (young-ish) age?
I think the biggest difference isn't age, it's that childcare also happens during the summer, not just during the school year. (And of course the lack of any particular educational curriculum.)
Is that a meaningful difference, though? Schools were originally open all year round, but the hot summer classroom eventually was deemed an unsuitable place to occupy, thus schools decided to compromise by closing during the hottest months.
Since the advent of air-conditioning, there really isn't any good reason to close schools during the summer. But, like the internet bit before, we've just never bothered to stop and actually think about what we're doing. We carry on with the status quo simply because that's what we did in the past. Not because it makes sense, just because that's what we do.
But in establishing subsidized daycare now, we don't have to think about the time before air-conditioning was invented. We only have to worry about the constraints we have today. Hot summers are not a practical problem as of right now.
People are going to respond to incentives whether you think they should or not.
I think it's less "mindsets" that have changed so much as the incentives themselves. People no longer need to have kids in order to have sex or to have a comfortable retirement, so many simply don't. Though I'd agree there's certainly a mindset shift that has developed along with that.
Tax $100 each from couple A and couple B. Couple A leave their kids at a daycare and work. They get $200 in childcare costs reimbursed by the government. Couple B has one parent stay home to take care of their kids. They get nothing.
Sure and under income taxes, Couple B probably pays much less since US income tax structure is gives massive benefits to couples with single income. It may not be enough to offset joint income. As with most economic changes, there is massive web of things.
> US income tax structure is gives massive benefits to couples with single income
It gives massive structural advantages to couples with low income, in the form of a lower marginal tax rate. Does it really discriminate between single and dual income though? I wasn't aware of that.
Let's say you made 150k and partner made zero. If you were filing as single, high tax bracket you would get is 24% at everything past 100k. Married filing jointly, 22% at 94k. Also, you could borrow your spouse standard deduction as well to help reduce the tax requirements.
Yea and I think that’s great. OP makes it sound like every parent is pining to contribute to the churning of capitalism if only they didn’t have to worry about raising a child. It’s not so.
> every parent is pining to contribute to the churning of capitalism
People don’t want to work because they’re “pining to contribute to the churning of capitalism”. They want to work for income, for career development, or even because they like what they do.
This is such a dismissive way to phrase it that doesn’t even acknowledge why people work. Reducing everything to “capitalism” is missing the point.
