A simple question on child care should have elicited a boilerplate response. Instead, it further revealed delusion.

Conservative opposition to social safety nets is nothing new. But, as daycare costs continue to soar and the US Surgeon General warns that parents are dangerously overwhelmed, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle appear to agree that at least something needs to be done to help address the crisis.

Yet when faced with a simple question on the issue this week, Donald Trump and JD Vance stumbled profoundly, prompting many to wonder whether the Republican ticket had even bothered to think about child care affordability—again, one of the most acute problems facing the US economy—at all.

Just take a look. Here was Trump at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, rambling through an incomprehensible, half-baked theory that foreign tariffs will solve the problem, easy-peasy—all while dodging the question of specific pieces of legislation he’d push to help make child care more affordable. Meanwhile, economists widely agree that sweeping tariffs would severely hurt world trade.

  • @[email protected]
    12•11 days ago

    But as the Ohio senator has oft proven to do, it was his suggestion that grandparents pitch in that, once again, gave the impression of being wildly out of touch.

    I’ll just dig up their corpses, three of whom were dead before my birth. That’s gonna be great for a child’s development.

    “One of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is to make it so that grandma or grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” Vance said at a Turning Point Action event in Mesa, Arizona, on Wednesday. “Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we’re spending in daycare.”

    My family lives 1600 miles from me. I’m sure they won’t mind making a trip to watch the kids for the afternoon so I can take a nap.

    Repubs have no plans for the future outside of targeting their perceived enemies. This has been obvious for quite some time. Their constituents are completely misinformed and incapable of critical thought.

    • RubberDuck
      3•11 days ago

      Deregulate so “billy bob” can start a daycare in his trailer.