On Wednesday night, Donald Trump did something that sounded downright progressive.
At an event outside of Philadelphia, he proposed a national child care plan under which child care expenses would be tax deductible and all American mothers would get six weeks of paid maternity leave.
Trump said this is something his daughter Ivanka, herself a new mother, has been begging him to do for a long time.
This is pretty blatant attempt to win over women voters, and critics have been quick to point out that Trump's plan has a bunch of problems, not the least of which is the fact that its tax credits wouldn't actually help the people who need child care help the most.
As Simon Maloy, points out over at
Salon: "[T]he centerpiece of [Trump's] plan is a provision letting parents deduct the costs of child care from their taxes. The problem is that people who need the most help affording child care - poor and low-income families - frequently don't have any federal income tax burden. If they're already paying zero dollars in federal income tax, an extra deduction won't do them any good; they'll still be paying zero dollars."
There's also a problem of funding.
Trump plans to pay for his six week maternity leave plan by ending unemployment fraud.
Now, if that sounds like a Republican gimmick, that's because it is a Republican gimmick.
What estimates that we do have about the extent of unemployment say it costs the government about $3 billion every year, which sounds like a lot but is pennies in the big scheme of things and hardly enough to pay for a new benefit program that would supposedly
cover all American moms Just out of comparison, Hillary Clinton's child care plan, which would offer 12 weeks of paid family leave for new moms and dads, costs about $300 billion.
So yeah, Trump is totally full of it if he thinks ending unemployment fraud is going to be the basis for an effective maternity leave plan.
