The House Just Passed A Massive Child Care Rescue

The House on Wednesday passed a massive child care bailout in the form of two bills that would provide billions of dollars for an industry that has been long neglected.

All the Democrats in the House, along with 18 Republicans, voted in favor of the Child Care Is Essential Act, which provides $50 billion in immediate funding to child care centers. (Libertarian Justin Amash and 162 Republicans voted against the bill.) These in-home and center-based programs look after infants and preschool children and have been on the brink of collapse from almost the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

The second bill, the Child Care for Economic Recovery Act, provides more long-term relief for child care providers, offering funding to revamp center infrastructure to adhere to the more stringent health guidelines of the COVID era. The bill would also expand child care tax credits that parents can use, expanding coverage to middle- and low-income parents. The bill would provide $170 billion in funds over 10 years. All the Democrats again voted for this one, joined by 20 Republicans. Libertarian Justin Amash and 160 Republicans voted against the bill.

“We bailed out the airline industry. We bailed out banks, and now is our moment to be serious about child care and stabilize this piece of our economic infrastructure,” Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) told HuffPost Wednesday ahead of the vote. The Massachusetts representative has been calling for a child care bailout from the earliest days of the pandemic, when it became clear that the industry was going to struggle with closures, reduced enrollment and, eventually, the higher costs of operating in a pandemic.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-house-just-passed-a-massive-child-care-rescue/ar-BB17llxf?li=BBnbcA0