Policy experts react to Trump's 'incomprehensible' child care cost plan

The Economic Club of New York trustee who asked Donald Trump what he would do to alleviate the child care crisis in the U.S. later called the former president’s answer "incomprehensible at best."

Trump, speaking at an Economic Club forum Thursday, suggested to business leaders that his plans to increase tariffs on foreign imports would solve a host of seemingly unrelated challenges – including the rising cost of child care in the U.S.

Reshma Saujani, founder of the nonprofit Girls Who Code and an Economic Club of New York trustee, asked Trump what he would do to solve the child care crisis if he’s elected in November. 

Here’s his answer in full: 

Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that, because, look, child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it. In this country you have to have it.

But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to — but they’ll get used to it very quickly – and it’s not gonna stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care.

We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, that I just told you about.

We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about Make America Great Again. We have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation, so we’ll take care of it."

Trump’s child care comments spark backlash

Saujani, founder and CEO of the child care advocacy group Moms First, responded to Trump’s comments on social media following the event. On X (formerly Twitter), she called his response "incomprehensible at best."

"At worst, outrageously offensive to the millions of families drowning in costs," Saujani wrote. 

Women provide two-thirds of unpaid care work — valued at $1 trillion annually — and are disproportionately impacted when families can’t find affordable care for their children or aging parents, according to The Associated Press. The cost of care is an urgent problem: Child care prices are rising faster than inflation.

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On TikTok, Saujani said she doesn’t believe Trump has given any thought to the cost of child care and how it impacts the economy. 

"He basically said it’s, like, not really that expensive for parents and not an important issue, and train and tariffs or something like that will just fix it," Saujani said on TikTok. "I don’t think he’s actually even thought about this. And parents are suffering … they’re drowning under these costs."

Brian Riedl, an economist and senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, called Trump’s child care answer "rambling gibberish."

"Somewhere in that incoherent word salad was a claim that the proposed tariffs could both balance the budget and pay for free child care across the country, which is of course mathematically absurd," Riedl told NBC News.

"This sounds like my kids when they didn't study for the test," Riedl said on X. 

Trump’s tariff proposals

Trump has embraced tariffs as he appeals to working-class voters who oppose free-trade deals and the outsourcing of factories and jobs. But in his speech Thursday and his economic plans as a whole, Trump has made a broader — to some, implausible — promise on tariffs: that they can raise trillions of dollars to fund his agenda without those costs being passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

The GOP presidential nominee promised to lead what he called a "national economic renaissance" by increasing tariffs, slashing regulations to boost energy production and drastically cutting government spending as well as corporate taxes for companies that produce in the U.S.

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His campaign attacks Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ proposals to increase corporate tax rates by saying they would ultimately be borne by workers in the form of fewer jobs and lower incomes. In June, the right-leaning Tax Foundation estimated that Trump’s proposed tariffs would amount to a $524 billion yearly tax hike that would shrink the economy and cost the equivalent of 684,000 jobs. 

Kimberly Clausing, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has repeatedly warned in economic analyses about the likely damage to people’s finances from Trump’s tariffs. She noted that Trump wants tariffs to pay for everything, even though they can’t.

"I believe Trump has already spent this revenue, to pay for his tax cuts (which it doesn’t), or to perhaps end the income tax (which it cannot)," she said in an email to The Associated Press. "It is unclear how there would be any revenues left over to fund child care."

Kamala Harris plan for child care costs

Harris has signaled that she plans to build on the ambitions of outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration, which sought to pour billions in taxpayer dollars into making child care and home care for elderly and disabled adults more affordable. But she has not etched any of those plans into a formal policy platform.

As vice president, Harris worked behind the scenes in Congress on Biden’s proposals to establish national paid family leave, make prekindergarten universal and invest billions in child care so families wouldn’t pay more than 7% of their income. But those initiatives didn’t end up in the final version of the Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed and Biden signed into law in 2022. 

READ MORE: Where Trump, Harris stand on easing childcare costs

Harris also announced the administration’s actions to lower copays for families using federal child care vouchers, and to raise wages for Medicaid-funded home health aides. Before that, her track record as a senator included pressing for greater labor rights for domestic workers, including nannies and home health aides who may be vulnerable to exploitation.

At a community college in North Carolina, Harris outlined her campaign’s economic agenda, which includes raising the child tax credit to as much as $3,600 and giving families of newborns even more — $6,000 for the child’s first year. (Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, said he wants to raise the child tax credit to $5,000.)