Afternoon Must-Read: Ann Friedman: Heather Boushey on Can We Solve Our Child-Care Problem?

What’s interesting about the cost question is that it presumes that no one is paying the costs right now…. We are paying for it, we’re just paying for it in this inefficient way that doesn’t work for families and isn’t good for kids.

Families that can scrape together the money for safe, inspected day-care facilities are forgoing other priorities like saving for retirement or buying new shoes. Families who can’t afford day care are relying on a relative or a neighbor to provide informal care, which may or may not be paid…. Obama’s suggested tax credit is a first step. But he was not proposing a network of state-run, quality day-care facilities–which actually did exist, during World War II, when men were at war and women flooded the workplace…. Nixon vetoed a bill that would have established a network of federally subsidized child-care centers, open to all parents on a sliding scale. He cited the bill’s ‘family-weakening implications’…. The notion that affordable day care is harmful to families sounds downright crazy today…. Sure, personal politics play a role in how each family makes child-care decisions. But in the vast majority of cases, the economics matter far more…