>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made in some possibly confusing or conflicting headlines when it comes to childcare on the federal level.

PBS NewsHour reported on the concerns that many parents and childcare providers have.

Here's what they write, quote, the Trump administration's crackdown on the $12 billion Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes care for 1.4 million children from low income households, has rattled childcare providers and families that rely on the aid money, citing unspecified allegations of fraud.

Trump administration officials are requiring states to provide extra documentation before receiving any money.

End quote.

So that's on the federal side.

But this week, some very different news on the state side.

You might have seen Governor Kathy Hochul standing on stage next to the new mayor of New York City.

Zohran Mamdani.

Here's the New York Times reporting, quote, New York is poised to vastly expand free and low cost childcare for families across the state over the next several years, and to put New York City on track to become the first city in the United States to provide free universal child care.

On Thursday, Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood together to announce a plan that would begin by expanding childcare options for nearly 100,000 young children, putting the mayor on a path toward realizing the most ambitious and costly promise of his campaign and handing him a significant political victory.

Barely a week into his term.

End quote.

So how much of this new plan at the state level is about the state?

How much is about New York City?

And who is affected here?

The cost of childcare is obviously a massive concern for millions of Americans.

Surveys show that young adults often say that the cost of childcare is affecting whether or not they want to have children, or think they can afford to have children.

Let's talk about it with our guests this hour.

Two people who have worked on this longer than probably anybody at the state level.

I don't know, I mean, maybe somebody who's worked more than Assembly member Sarah Clark from district 136, but I will anoint you as one of the people who have worked the longest on it.

It's been a long road.

>> Thank you very much and thanks for having me.

>> You know, the the there's been a lot of work from the moms group, the.

>> Moms moms squad.

>> The moms squad, the moms squad.

And we're going to talk about what's happening at the state level as well with Pete Nabozny, director of policy for the Children's Agenda, who's back with us.

Welcome back.

Pete, thank you for being here.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Let's start with just the overview here in general here on the federal level.

How concerned should people be?

Assembly Member Clark, when it comes to the president and the administration saying they're concerned about fraud, I suspect this has to this stems from their concerns, concerns about what's happening in Minnesota and saying they're going to withhold this money here, what's what's going on here and what happens next.

>> First of all, I mean, I would say, Minnesota aside, there is no not even a single notion that there's any kind of any kind of fraud like this in New York state.

And I think we run a really great program for our child care assistance program.

but second, if there was if there were real concerns about the program in and of itself, all 50 states would have been frozen.

>> Oh, it's not all 50 states.

>> No, it's five.

five states.

I mean, you could all guess what they are, but it's New York, California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota, and you could guess what they all have in common, which is a Democratic governor.

so the attorney general has announced that she's suing on this.

It's not just the child care money, it's it's our TANF.

So Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which is a huge amount of money lost to New York State if it were frozen.

And funds so many things from our domestic violence shelter to more child care support to, emergency housing and beyond.

So that is a huge piece, as well as the Social services block grant.

but the premise that you can, you know, you can freeze this for five states on no information and no data is is crazy and unconstitutional, according to the attorney general.

So we'll see where that goes.

>> Assembly member I don't want to be flippant about Minnesota.

I will say I don't live and work in Minnesota, so I'm not covering that story, but I am.

I'm concerned about how in the world that ended up happening from what?

From what has been reported, from what I understand of it.

I think it is a big problem, and I think it is something that deserves scrutiny.

But what you are saying is there is no evidence that these other four states have anything like this, and that you think that they're being targeted.

New York state included, for political reasons, correct?

Okay.

And now let me ask Pete Nabozny what you see as the likely possible outcomes here, because the AG's office is taking this to court.

We don't exactly know how long that will take.

What do you see as possible here?

>> Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't comment on the on the particulars of the of the lawsuit.

I do think as a, as a general matter freezing all funding to a state because of unspecified concerns about, you know, fraud is not a way.

Even if there was fraud going on.

And that's not how you target fraud.

You do investigations, you there's, you know, criminal investigations.

You bring people to justice.

You you take care of it that way.

right now in Monroe County, there's a little under 8000 children who are benefiting from the child care assistance program every month.

it's important to note that that those families, the providers that care for them are not under any immediate threat of losing funding, but those are families that need child care.

Those are those are parents who are going to work every day.

They're going to school.

They're trying to to improve their family's lot in life.

And they need care in order to be able to do those things.

And the idea that from with some unspecified idea like, oh, there must be some fraud going on, it's New York state and then you, you want to withhold funds that could, in the future deny care to countless families?

it's just it's not the way that we should be operating any program, and certainly not this program, which is relied upon by so many families.

>> Sometimes when we talk about issues like food assistance, snap child care, we focus on the numbers and the biggest counties for understandable reasons.

I mean, that's where the population centers are.

So you just mentioned 8000 families in Monroe County.

Yeah.

But what that means is in the outlying counties, which are politically tend to be redder as the farther you go from population centers, the redder they go.

that may be hundreds of families per county, but it's certainly not zero, right?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

there's in every corner of the state there are families relying on, on this program.

And in fact, the demand in a lot of the counties outside of Monroe County is so great for this program that those counties have had to close enrollment for lack of funds.

And so the prospect of the federal government withholding more funds, which eventually, again, does get down to the to the county level these are places that are desperate for more resources to support the needs of families in their communities.

And so, yeah, I mean, the numbers aren't as great in Wayne County and Genesee County.

Orleans County, but those are all all places where there's tremendous demand for childcare and there's families that qualify for assistance.

And and we need to be doing more to support them.

>> Yeah, I happen to go ahead.

>> I was just going to say, I mean, the interesting thing always about childcare specifically is it has always had very deep, broad bipartisan support.

It's so this is sort of shocking as we're trying to unravel this in terms of if there are some concerns, what's the right way to do it without, you know, really jeopardizing the entire system.

But as in the childcare assistance program in the state, we have vastly expanded eligibility to include families of four now up to about $114,000.

We are probably the top state in the country in terms of the eligibility to receive these funds.

And if you look in our rural counties, that has created like an exponential shot up of more and more families that have been applying for this and wanting this to the point where Pete mentioned that, that there's actually waiting lists and they've had to close enrollment down.

So this is really big in our rural counties.

>> Yeah.

I mean, I happen to spend a lot of time in some of the poorer counties in the state from here to the Southern Tier.

And there's no doubt that there are a lot of people who are going to be hurt here.

And one of the one of the problems I have politically, I want to get your take on this, this idea that you can penalize blue or red states as if there are not millions of people.

So if you're the president and you're upset that a state didn't vote for you in an election in California, I don't know how many counties, how many counties that are in California.

I think there's two thirds of the California counties are red.

People always seem to forget this in New York state.

I mean, how many counties do we have in New York State?

>> 62.

>> 62 counties.

I mean, a lot of red counties.

Millions of people who voted for the president.

You can't just hurt the people who voted against you.

It doesn't work that way.

And I don't know why we're still trying to do it that way.

>> it has a real challenge because the impact are real.

And I think one of our things when the reelection or the the second term for President Trump last year and him coming out immediately with both DOGE and the impact it's had, but also just this complete gutting of programs that help so many people, particularly not just red counties and blue states, but red states also.

the it's been really hard as a challenge for us to say here in New York.

Well, let's just, you know, put money into that to fill it.

But some of it politically is like we have to show people how much this will hurt them, right?

Like if we continue as a state to just find ways to plug that hole that's created by the federal government pulling out support, we don't show people how hurtful these cuts actually are because we, you know, but we have to balance that with how we protect people, how we save people, how we ensure that our our citizens are safe and can continue to do what they need to do, like go to work and have childcare or have housing or whatever it is.

But they're really cruel and it's like no one will know how cruel they are until they happen.

And that's such a horrible place to be in, because you don't want these things to happen to people.

>> But if you can fill that gap on the state level, maybe the Trump administration would say, well, you should, not us.

>> And they have.

And it has been echoed by a few of few of our federal representatives from the same party as the president, particularly around Snap, is that we should we should just fill it as a state.

And what's so perplexing and so frustrating about that is that New York is considered a donor state to the federal government, right?

So we our tax dollars, we don't get nearly back what we pay out as a state.

And so then to further cut what our state gets is really.

>> Really is cruel and really, really difficult for us to sort of counterbalance that.

And to be clear, we could not fill all the gaps.

I mean, even.

>> At least not in.

>> Perpetuity, not in perpetuity, and not with the revenue we currently collect.

>> Okay.

So before we get to the state, stuff a couple of other points here for both of you.

Assemblymember Clark, what is wrong with the federal government saying, hey, we're going to make sure that there's not fraud in your system before you get any more money.

>> I mean, I definitely think, like if there are investigators, I mean, we have our own internal audits.

I will tell you over the years that one of the things I've been pushing for is a quicker way to get families approved, because honestly, the process to really get the child care assistance program is arduous.

It is a complex form.

And so for me to think that families who truly do qualify are struggling to get qualified, the fact that there's this rampant fraud out there of people who are able to game that system when it is so complicated and has in these built in sort of not audits, but these built in ways of ensuring and and verifying what we need to.

So we do have all of that to the point where, again, like I said, there are families that go without approval that actually probably should.

so but if there were those are concerns and you have to bring them to us as legitimate concerns.

and, and with the there are tools and ways to audit and understand programs and go after people who are committing fraud and abuse.

so to think we don't want that or that we do want that in our program is crazy.

But that's not that's not what this is at all.

>> Pete.

>> Yeah.

I mean, in Monroe County.

And again, as Assemblymember said, I mean, this is something that we would like to see made easier for families.

But you know, it's a it's a pretty difficult process to get through the application to get child care assistance today.

not going through all the details of it, but there's multiple pages you have to fill out with all sorts of attestations under penalty of law.

You if you want assistance, you have to get your employer to fill out various parts of an application and attest that you work in these various these hours, that you're seeking care for.

You have to provide pay stubs.

you have to get your child care provider to fill out certain forms, and they have to go through a whole separate process in order to get approved for assistance.

There's a lot of steps in place.

And and the county regularly reviews, the, you know, these cases to make sure that families or kids are going to care, that providers aren't billing for children who aren't there, that everything's on the up and up to the to and again, this is tricky to talk about, but but you know, it's very difficult to root out 100%, you know, fraud anywhere.

People cheat on their taxes, people cheat.

sure.

People are getting star property tax rebates that they aren't quite qualifying for in this state.

There's all sorts of things that that people take advantage of systems for.

And the idea that we're going to target low income families who are trying to get child care so they can work or go to school or do whatever it is that they need, because there might be some case somewhere of somebody getting away with something that has been unspecified at this point is just a crazy way to run a program.

And we have safeguards in place if there's problems with those safeguards, let's figure that out and find a way to fix that.

But but at this point, it's just an unspecified freeze.

that has, again, the potential to harm many, many families across the state.

>> It does sound like both of you are skeptical that there will be any actual freeze of federal funds long term on this program.

>> I think in the few cases where the AG has joined with other states on some other other issues around similar kinds of things because it's it's not targeted to the program itself.

It's targeted to very a few named states with unspecified allegations that they've won to some extent on a couple of different other funding issues.

So, I mean, I think there's hope that again, if you're following the same sort of statute of law that says you can't target states for unspecified reasons and freeze constitutionally congressionally authorized money to them that we, you know, we are all hopeful that it will have the outcome.

But again, whether that's a quick injunction or the court case just goes on and there is no injunction, which means it is a freeze.

But I think the impact, as Pete has mentioned, is not immediate.

It, it, it it really will be something that if it goes on for months, that we really have to keep an eye on.

>> And Pete, give me best case, worst case scenario with this.

>> I think best case is that this gets settled by the courts pretty quickly, and the money starts to flow again.

short of that, I think the state will do what it can to get the funding from the federal government under the the requirements that the feds are putting forward.

I will say some of the things that they're asking for are almost impossible given the current state of information systems and and things like that.

I mean, they want to take a photograph of attendance records from every provider.

We have 100 something thousand providers across the state right now.

These things are collected by county governments.

The idea that we could just kind of collect these and send them up to the federal government in an anonymized way, because we're not allowed to share specific family information on who's getting assistance like that with the feds is just impossible.

So I think the state can try to figure out what to do, given these unrealistic expectations that are being put under.

so that's on the positive side.

Like, we'll figure out some sort of settlement or the courts will take care of it.

Worst case is that we do is we're going to talk about in a moment, I hope the state does put our own funding into this program.

This does take a while for the state to run short of state dollars to fund this program.

But if this stretches on for months on end you know, and we're looking at not receiving federal reimbursement, it's going to make for some difficult choices.

And and I don't know how the state will react.

We'd love for the state to backfill these things until this gets sorted out.

But you know, we have a lot of other cuts that we're facing and priorities that we're facing, and the state needs to to figure out how to do that.

But you know, so I don't want to say that, that six months from now, there would be no impact of this because there really could be.

And that's why it's important that people contact their elected officials.

Whether you're in a you have a representative or a a Republican representative that make clear that this is really important to, to your community.

And this funding needs to be unfrozen right away.

>> And you saw it for Snap is during the federal shutdown.

you know, unprecedented that they decided not to continue Snap payments even though every other shutdown has but, you know, the state did what it could.

It took a little while to realize that the only thing that would make sense to really help families is to backfill that month, which is what New York state, New York state ultimately did.

but again, it's not if it's temporary or short, it's one thing.

It, it, it the real issue is if it goes on you.

>> We're talking to Assembly member Sarah Clark from district 136.

Pete Nabozny director of policy for the Children's Agenda.

And we're talking about some pretty big news regarding child care and affordability this week here.

So we've covered now the federal level stories.

Let's talk about what's happening at the state level.

And I want to listen to some of what Governor Kathy Hochul had to say yesterday in an event with the new mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.

Let's listen.

>> This city just elected a mayor who spoke boldly of his vision for universal child care and what needs to happen to be on this road.

Back in November.

Fresh off the election, we sat down.

We had many conversations leading up to this, but we started talking about how we make this vision become reality.

No longer a dream.

And I told him this whatever the city was ready to deliver, I would be his partner.

100% of the way.

And today, I'm proud to announce that New York State is paying the full cost to launch to care for the first time, universal daycare for two year olds, as proposed by Mayor Mamdani.

We're not just paying for one year the program.

We don't usually go one year out in our budget.

But just to let you know how serious we are, we're taking the unprecedented step to not just commit for the 2027 budget, which I'm working on right now, but also the following year as well, to show you we're in this for the long haul.

>> That's Governor Kathy Hochul, and I'm going to give Assemblymember Sarah Clark the floor to talk about what is happening now.

And for some listeners who hear that, they go, well, there's a lot about New York City here.

Is this a New York City thing or is this a statewide thing?

So take it.

>> So definitely there's a lot more to what she announced than what the clip you heard.

But what I want to preface this is by someone who has been working at the child care, looking at child care statewide, is that outside of New York City?

This is done at administered, particularly our child care assistance program is administered county by county in New York City.

It's all five boroughs are all under aces.

Their children's services agency.

So even when we are trying to make policy to help our counties upstate, so much of what we're able to accomplish is really driven by what's happening in New York City, because they serve millions and millions of families, you know, people versus our counties that are much smaller and and don't serve as many.

So even when we've tried to do things statewide having their buy in has been necessary.

So when Zoran, who is my former colleague in the assembly, ran for mayor and child care, was his big piece.

I've had conversations with his policy team and and conversations with him himself.

that having New York City drive.

This does help the rest of the state.

You know, they have different because they do it sort of citywide.

They have some things that like, you know, so they have guaranteed 4K for pre-K.

They have guaranteed pre-K, which has been great.

And so it's made it a little easier in some ways to have a the next step solution.

Outside of New York City, though, we don't have those same structures.

So our big argument is if New York City is fighting for this investment, we're just asking that the rest of the state get a similar investment to continue what we need to do, county by county, in the child care assistance program, but also what is sort of buried deep in her press release, which is some pilots and some allowing some local areas to pilot out real universal child care ideas in communities to see if that's what works upstate or in Westchester, Westchester or Long Island, wherever it might be to so that we can start building out the infrastructure that works for our communities to ensure we're getting the same kind of universal child care.

>> So this is an issue you've been working on for years, and I don't think it's incorrect to say that there have been times in the past where you have pushed and the governor, this governor has not been on board with everything that you've wanted.

Fair, fair.

So do you look at yesterday and go, really like Mamdani gets elected and instantly he's getting everything.

Or do you think like this is part of the process?

I mean, how do you see it?

>> So I will say one of the first bills we put in you know, right before I was elected, there was a child care task force that looked at sort of the where child care was.

And then when I was elected, it was COVID.

And so we that task force had come out with recommendations similar to what we still are seeing now, but we resurrected it right after COVID to say mostly look at the impact of COVID, because we knew a lot of providers closed their doors and there were a lot of issues.

But we also had a mission to create a roadmap to universal child care.

And the governor was committed to that.

The governor actually ensured that the universal child care roadmap was put into that group.

they did come out with a report that many of the things that are in it are some of the things that we are are, you know, that she did announce and we are excited to have happen.

so I think she's always been committed.

I think what the election in New York City really did was push it to the forefront to say now, because this is going to take a lot more money.

And so the question is, where does that money come from?

Are we really committed to spending it at this moment?

And even what she announced today you know, for the first year versus what it will look like, it's going to continue to be more money.

>> Where is the money coming from?

>> I don't from what I've heard.

She said she's not raising taxes on the wealthy.

She said we can pay for it.

Currently, from our current fiscal projections.

I don't know what that means.

I've heard that there's been some talk of looking at things like corporate taxes and some others.

I have an idea to to model it after what we do for family leave, which is a payroll tax, because I do think both employers, you know, employers do benefit from childcare, right?

So why not have this payroll tax like we do for family leave?

be be part of it.

There are a lot of ideas out there.

I think those are some of the details.

>> But you don't have those details yet.

>> I don't have them all.

Those are important part of the budget negotiations.

I always say, we're in the moment of, of sort of big picture.

>> Big ideas and.

>> Then small.

details to come start negotiations and see details, then then the the real work begins.

But but we will get there and so again, I don't think it was just that it is a moment in time that she is capitalizing on.

because of the enthusiasm, I will say, in New York City, childcare is the second reason people leave in terms of cost and affordability.

Housing is number one in childcare second, over and over and over again.

So she too is in an election year.

This year, New York City voters matter to her.

so I think it was a great opportunity to really make this the moment.

but I will say we also had a rally in, in Albany this year or this week as we kicked off session.

And there's a lot of movement to make this the year of childcare everywhere.

So.

>> Okay Douglas and Victor, I'm going to take your call in just a second.

Pete Nabozny and the children's agenda.

How significant.

Forget the New York City stuff for the state.

Is this?

>> Yeah.

So what we were talking about earlier with a number of counties across New York kind of seeing the demand for care exceeding what funding that they have.

a lot of us were going into this winter worried, like, is that going to continue indefinitely?

Are we going to have waitlists all over the state?

Are we going to start to see a waitlist in Monroe County this year?

which would be really devastating for families if you're if you've got a new job and you're like, all right, I'm starting this work and I need childcare lined up, and I'm going to go to the county and apply and they say, sorry, we're we don't have the funding.

Figure something else out.

And that causes you to lose that job for you to be not able to show up on your third day because whatever.

I mean, it can be really destabilizing for a family.

So this funding, at the very least, the amount of money we're talking about going to the other parts of New York State will ensure that that we don't see that that the waitlists that exist right now in Wayne County and Orleans County, in Genesee County and many other parts of the state, will will be cleared.

And that's really important for families in those communities.

And it prevents families in Monroe County from experiencing that in the future.

it also, there's a commitment in there.

And this is getting into some of the weeds.

But a commitment to expand 4-year-old pre-K across the entire state in a way that would allow every family and every school district to get the, the pre-K if they, if they wanted.

And so that comes down to a lot of funding.

and and so we'll see.

I mean, we need to see some more details.

We need to get the governor's budget proposal and some legislative language to see how this all will play out.

But but it's really promising.

Truly universal 4-year-old pre-K would be really helpful for families and to child care assistance program that meets the demand across the state will be really important for families.

And finally, just as as Senate member said these other pilots which again, we don't have a ton of detail about, could a lot of us think that that's a way to we we start to build the system that we need outside of New York City to achieve something like truly universal care?

So there's a lot of really promising proposals in here.

We need more details.

But it it's a really great day for the childcare system and, and a credit to the governor for really stepping forward and making a bold proposal here.

>> And I just want to.

Yeah.

Do you want to follow up on the 4K issue.

So first of all, I mean we as the representative of one of the counties or one of the school districts, one of the last school districts to even go to full day kindergarten.

but now accomplished.

Right?

We have full day kindergarten everywhere across the state.

so then next is how do we get to universal for pre-K?

and one of the issues this is really going into the weeds is that as we've expanded that outside of New York City we've increased the rate that we give schools to implement this.

But if they had old preexisting pre-K programs, they were still locked into these low rates.

And we didn't sort of elevate those.

And so one of her commitments is to both ensure that everyone's getting the same rate and that we're actually going back and fixing that so that they're not stuck in these old low reimbursement rates for a program that then they can't afford to continue expanding or running.

and then moving forward with a rate that really covers the cost of moving to pre-K four year olds.

I will want to caution that was saying one of the biggest issues as we move forward with these programs, both in New York City and outside, is that when you look at the childcare ecosystem that hangs on by a very, very fragile math equation you know, the ratios for infants and toddlers are so low that oftentimes how providers make up for it is when they get the three and four year olds into their program.

And so we have to make sure that as we do these things, that we make sure that we're not just pulling out four year olds from childcare providers because it will make their math equation very hard to work in terms of, you know, being able to keep the lights on and pay their pay their staff.

So it is a precarious system that, you know, everyone over these years is always like, well, what's the one thing I can do to fix childcare?

And I'm like, there is no one thing that's the problem.

so that that is.

And then on the pilots, just to give a sense of ideas, I mean, the children's agenda has been really great and innovative, along with the Empire, the campaign, the Empire State Campaign on Childcare and the Schuyler Center, to look at how we could do these things.

And so when you look at how school meals started to come out, what we did in school districts is we said, if you have a poverty, like a percentage of kids, over 80% that qualify for free and reduced lunch, we're going to end the administrative burden for you and just give every kid in that school free lunch.

And that's how that that really started to expand.

And now, of course, we have free meals for every kid in schools.

You could do that.

Similarly, in childcare, if you put a childcare center in a high higher poverty neighborhood or census tracts, and you said, you know, if we're pulling families from around here, the idea is all of them would qualify.

So let's remove the administrative burden and just let every person here get childcare.

Is that more cost effective?

Is that a better way to deliver child care or to start looking at sliding scales so that when you make a dollar more than eligibility for for the program, that you don't lose everything that you you can pick a different way to say, I can step down to this new rate that doesn't isn't like all of a sudden I have to pay $20,000 a year.

but it allows me to make more money and continue to, you know, move up the financial security scale of your job.

>> Well, when we come back from our only break of the hour, Douglas and Victor, we're going to take your phone call.

I've got a couple of emails I want to share with our guests as some member Sarah Clark from district number 136.

Pete Nabozny from the Children's Agenda, talking about big news with child care, both at the state level and some of those federal questions as well.

So we'll come right back.

Answer your questions next.

Coming up in our second hour, my colleagues from the WXXI newsroom and from City Magazine join us to round out the week Gino Fanelli reporting on a demonstration in Rochester against Ice last night, as there were demonstrations across the country.

Brian Sharp joining us talking about what Wegmans is doing with biometric data.

And the team from city joining us to talk about their best of awards and quizzing us on what we know about Rochester.

That's next hour.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson and this is Douglas and Victor on the phone first.

Hey, Douglas, go ahead.

>> Yes, with all of these issues that we're dealing with today, there seems to be many dynamics with regard to child care.

One of the things I'm curious to hear from your listeners about is how much might the Heritage Foundation 2025 goal of having women stay at home, no longer work, be playing into the child restrictions?

Thank you.

>> well thank you.

Douglas, what do you think?

>> Well, it's interesting because I am part of some national work being done in state legislatures across the state.

So I've gone to four ish now, conferences or, even done some policy work around this on the national level.

And every once in a while, we have speakers, particularly now under the current administration, who have come and spoke, and it's clear that their goal is to really squash some of these programs and move to other ways, including child care, tax credits and other things like that, where really incentivize the person to stay home or pays the person to stay home.

it is it is definitely a wing and a an issue that we fight in certain situations.

And I think does play into all of this.

To some extent.

It will be interesting because I think in the state, like I said, we've had very bipartisan support on childcare.

I will tell you, when we were fighting to increase funding in the budget at the end of the budget talks last year to sort of put in some emergency dollars into the child care assistance program.

We did a press conference, and I would say half of the minority conference was there.

and, and, and very vocal in their support for it.

So that is the bigger question, particularly here in New York State, is how they navigate when they're same party.

Is is really the one.

>> How the Republicans in the minority.

>> Will navigate what is being proposed from the feds right now?

but there is not a single part of me that doesn't think that there's a piece of this that really you know, is part of project 2025 to, have women stay home.

>> Anything to add to that, Pete?

>> Yeah, I'll just say.

I mean childcare, as some member clerk said, is a historically a very bipartisan issue.

I'm someone at the children's going to get at me because I don't have the data point in front of me, but we had a poll that we commissioned in December, and you can check out the results on our website.

It shows overwhelming bipartisan support among voters in New York State.

Republican voters support more investments in childcare.

Democratic voters support independent voters support it.

So as a general thing, I think most people are very supportive of increased investments in childcare.

There are people who aren't just as there are people who aren't supportive of many things.

but it's by and large a very strong bipartisan issue.

I do think, you know, there are we want to make sure that we're supporting families who choose not to have a parent go into the workforce.

And there's ways that we can do that through expanded paid family leave, through other types of support programs that exist.

I mean, you know, I'm supportive of those things.

I think the Assembly member support of those things, you know, but it's about choice and it's about ensuring that families have options that best meets their needs.

So we're not forcing anyone to go into child care.

But for families who who need that, who don't have, you know, a home circumstance that allows someone to stay home or they don't have a relative who they're trusting with, who need, you know, formal care.

you know, we want to make sure that that's available for them and that they can afford it.

And so and I think most voters across the whole country are similarly minded with that, that attitude.

>> Is it fair to say that a healthy situation would be you've got a wide range of options for families, whether that's one parent in a workforce, one staying home, both parents in workforce, affordable childcare, sort of a hybrid approach.

>> There's a hybrid approach.

There's the benefits cliff, because also I think for single parent household and different things where they you know, they qualify for all these services and then then maybe they remarry and it makes their financial situation better, but then they're penalized for remarrying because now they lose all these benefits that they were getting.

So I do think there's a lot of different ways that policy does impact family choices, unfortunately.

which isn't the case, but it is also why childcare is so hard to solve is because you want all the choices to be there.

I want center based providers.

I want home based providers.

I want to be able to do legally exempt, which means, you know, you're you're paying a friend who watches just 1 or 2 children that are not theirs at their home.

They also have a way to qualify to get subsidies for that kind of care.

So, you know, to protect all those different options makes the system that much more complicated.

But I do also want to say, like the teachers have been very vocal in terms of pushing out their support over the last two years around childcare.

And they are recognizing, too, that getting kids into structured systems, whether you have a stay at home mom and they just go to preschool for a couple hours when they reach three or whatever it may be, those opportunities really ensure that that child is kindergarten ready on day one.

And so we also have to think about that child and what we're doing to make sure they're prepared for the education system ahead of them.

>> Douglas, thank you.

And to put a bow on that, I think what I'm hearing, correct me if I'm wrong.

Sarah.

Assembly Member Clark is it is not 100% at all of the Republican conference that would agree with the Heritage Foundation's goals on this.

It may be some, but you've got plenty of Republicans in the minority conference who have supported child care goals.

so it's a divide.

But you do see, there is at least some non-zero number on the state level.

And certainly you feel that pull nationally from the heritage, whether it's heritage or other groups.

>> Yeah, I mean, I, I can't say it's not there.

it is it is hard to, to the way it's presented.

not as a choice, but more as a direction we should all go into does, does sort of turn my stomach a bit.

>> All right.

Alex emails to say, I want to take a second to appreciate how much Governor Hochul's political game has improved since taking office.

There was a time where she would have caved for fear of losing funds.

I think he's talking about the federal issue, he says.

But a courts have generally ruled in states favor for these cases, whether to appeal or throw out.

And b she's featuring Mamdani in her state of the state accessibility pressers.

She knows Trump loves him, or at least recognizes that Republicans need to increase voter approval ahead of midterms.

And taking money from kids really doesn't play well in November.

So do we think the Assembly will again be the budgeteers to play it safe, or will they put forth increases to millionaire income taxes as Mamdani and many left leaning Dems have pushed for to help balance the budget?

>> I mean, I would say to Alex to look back at one house over the years we have put in more fundraising.

You know, our one house budgets have had larger revenue proposals than what have been in the governor's, and then they end up falling out in the budget negotiations.

We have also historically over the years, had more in for childcare than ends up in the final budget.

So I would say in the Assembly side, it for me yesterday really felt like a moment that I want to capitalize on because it's not perfect.

There's still some, some tweaks that I think we need to do in there to really make make this work and make it work.

Well but we can work on that.

But this was the moment where at least I think there was a final final, like a full recognition that we have to infuse real dollars into this system.

And so I feel like now the governor's there.

We've always been there, the Senate's always been there where we get those revenues will be a point of contention.

But I think there's multiple ideas out there and we can talk to folks about it and how to do it.

But I will tell you, a millionaire, taxes and taxes on the highest earners are also very, very popular.

Even cross party.

>> All right.

Here's Jim.

An email says I never understood the philosophy of having child care.

I always thought that if you couldn't afford to have children, why have them?

What is wrong with my thinking?

That's from Jim.

>> I mean, I guess I would say is that then maybe, I don't know, no one would have children.

I don't, I don't, I don't really know where to go that, that I mean, obviously I wanted children.

Obviously I was lucky enough that I also had a mom that watched my children two days a week so that I could afford the three days a week of childcare.

I do not think we would have been able to afford to have three children, if not for my mom.

but that puts all the pressure on someone to not be in the workforce.

And I just think a lot's more people want to be in the workforce because it's fulfilling and, you know, makes them feel like they have a purpose in life.

that's all part of who they are as a mom and as an employer, usually a mom, sometimes a dad.

but I just also think that the financial realities of the world is that there are very few families that could support children on one income.

>> I mean, the birth rate now is, what, 1.6 people in Jim's world, the birth rate is going to lower than one, I think.

>> Yeah, I mean, I don't know, Jim.

I, I don't think children should be viewed as like a luxury.

Good that only people who have, you know, high wealth should be able to have children.

Children bring a lot of of joy and satisfaction and, and love to people of all income levels.

And certainly you want people to, to, to be able to plan and to have children when they feel like they're, they're ready.

If that's the choice that they make.

But to say that, you know, you need to be well off or you know, that we don't want anyone who's, you know, working class, which is essentially given the cost of child care.

anyone who's, you know, not making well into six figures, like, shouldn't be, shouldn't have children, I think is a that's denying a lot of people something that brings a lot of a lot of joy and meaning to a lot of people's lives.

And so I just don't think that's the, the framing that we want to have and the message we want to give to people.

I think we want to affirm people's choices around whether or not to have children.

And if they do, we want to be able to support them in that.

>> This is.

>> Oh, I would just say I mean, I think that if you extrapolate that to its furthest extent, why would we have public schools, right?

I mean, public schools are a collective way that we all sort of decide that, you know, educating our children is really important, but we don't individually pay for it.

We collectively pay for it, even if we no longer have children in the system, like when you're, you know, my parents still pay property taxes that go towards paying for public schools.

So there is a collective good to ensuring.

>> I know plenty of people who think they shouldn't pay property taxes if they don't have kids.

>> I'm not saying there aren't.

>> Your office has heard from them too.

>> I'm sure we hear from them.

And I'm not saying there isn't something to do there, and that maybe they are very high, but at the same time, I mean, we collectively pay for a lot of programs to both support families and children.

>> But this is where I think there's a possibility of interesting bedfellows here, because on Jim's side and Jim's question, by the way, Jim, I'm not saying your question is unfair.

I mean, if you haven't thought critically about this issue and you think, well, why have kids if you can't afford them?

I mean, it's a natural question, perhaps.

but take that thinking to its extreme.

That becomes the personal accountability.

Usually a pretty small C conservative viewpoint.

Don't have kids if you can't afford them, they're your responsibility.

Then you've got the Heritage Foundation, which thinks women really should be raising children almost exclusively and should not be nearly as much in the workforce.

Then you've got the pro-natalist side, who are tend to be pretty conservative, often very religious, but who are worried about birth rates and replacement rates and want to see that go up.

And they they tend to favor childcare.

And anything that convinces more people to have more kids.

So they may be more conservative, but you may be able to form alliances with people in that group.

Do you do you hear from anybody who's sort of in the pro-natalist side?

>> No.

I mean, I do think it is when you look at birthrates and you look at we have had very direct conversations with folks, particularly families, who choose not to have a second child, specifically because once they've paid for childcare, they're like, whoa and so I think that people are truly making a financial decision not to have a second or third or whatever a child because of the cost.

And so there are folks out there that that is alarming to because they're, you know, if you look at things like birth rates and you look at other ways that, you know, populations growing or not growing and the reasons why people want, you know, Americans to have more children versus how we've mostly grown in population, which is immigration.

And so it's weird to be bedfellows with people like that, because I do think the reason why they are the way they are or feel the way they are is not something that feels good to me.

But at the same time, I have always said that the more we can do to support families and children, the more people are always going to want to have children.

and it's not just childcare, it's it's family leave and ensuring maybe a longer time.

I would definitely support a longer time for parents to be home with children after their birth.

but that's been such a fight.

We can't even get it on the national level.

We're one of the only countries in third world or first world countries that don't have it.

It's crazy.

>> and here is a note from someone who.

It's a private note.

So I'm not going to mention a name, but someone who works in a different part of government.

Who says to Jim, from the most pragmatic side, no kids, no workforce to pay Medicare and Social Security as well.

>> So that's one of the issues on the birth rate.

that has come up.

And I also would say no employees, no productivity, no increase in gross national product and all the things that we want to do to continue to have a successful country.

>> Patrick writes about the need that some moms have to drop out of the workforce, at least temporarily, temporarily.

And he says it becomes a loss of identity and makes it exponentially harder to reenter the workforce from where you left it.

It can.

Right?

>> It's a pay equity issue.

I mean, you it affects your retirement.

It affects your pay equity because you ultimately go back into the workforce at a lower rate than where you were, or lower rate than where you would have been if you had stayed.

and, and so it does ultimately affect your financial security.

so there's multiple.

>> Yeah.

Go ahead Pete.

>> Yeah.

I'd say I mean, from my perspective, we need to tackle that from from both ends.

you know, we want to ensure that if you know, a mom in this instance wants to get back to work after 1224, I'd go a year, you know, a nice, long paid family leave.

That's that's well supported.

you know, that we want to be able to help through public policy to make that happen.

and then on the other hand, we also need to work to ensure that people who do take time off to raise children have opportunities to get back to work and aren't penalized for it.

And so there's some, some ways we can work on that from a policy angle.

That and some of that's really on employers also to look at okay, this person had a gap in their employment, but they were doing this and they are qualified to do this.

And that may be an outstanding applicant for your job.

That, that if you're just looking at their current work, you know, their recent work history, you're missing a potentially great hire.

And so I think there's some social and cultural stuff that we need to change around that.

And then there's some some policy interventions as well.

But but certainly finding ways to reduce that, that pay gap and that, that sort of motherhood penalty that, that exists is, is a really important thing for us to tackle as a society.

>> Thank you.

Patrick.

Wendy in Rochester on the phone next.

Hey, Wendy, go ahead.

>> I wanted to put in that one of the things I think we don't manage to think about is when we talk about women going home to raise children, we act as though that this was something normal, when if you go back far enough, it other than people of great means, most women were working in ways that were economically contributing to the family all along.

They lived on a farm.

They helped with the planning.

They helped with the harvesting.

they did crafts within the home.

When we didn't have all these manufactured goods, they did most of the clothing, et cetera.

So treating women as doing economic work within the economy as something new.

And so how we have to go back to a time when they didn't do that is ridiculous.

It's not it doesn't show the truth of the matter.

>> Amen.

>> that was Mike.

Drop.

>> That was a good one.

>> Good one.

Thank you.

Wendy, I appreciate that phone call, Wendy.

And I've had a lot of great feedback this hour.

I'll read one more.

A listener who asked me not to use their name said in response to the email from earlier.

It would be like saying, don't get old if you can't afford it.

I mean, there's a lot of challenges with cost in society.

>> And we've had recently a conversation on the cost of getting old and planning for it.

And yes, again, that is all it is really collectively how we want to live as a community, as a state, as a country.

and how we want to help people.

And I want to say, not that I want to rehash the mommy wars, but because they are awful and pit people against each other that should not be pitted against each other.

But you know, my children were raised three days a week in childcare, two days with my mom.

So many neighbors, whatever it truly takes a village and all all these people that were in my children's life loved them, cared for them, brought something different to them, and I think it has made them the amazing children they are today.

So, it's not just this cold hearted like I have to go to work, so I'm going to leave my kid with whoever it is, really creating kids that have a lot of exposure to a lot of different things.

>> before we go here.

Pete Nabozny.

What didn't we cover this hour?

That people should be thinking about anything we missed?

>> Oh, boy.

That's a that's a tough question.

We got through a lot, didn't we?

>> What's the big question you have in the next few weeks as you watch, especially at the state level, some of this play out?

>> Well.

I love to see what Senator Clarke and her colleagues do to take up the governor's proposal and find ways to to maybe improve on it in certain angles.

I mean, we don't have again, I'm the kind of person who needs to get into the legislative text and see what the budget amounts are and how it's going to roll out and what, you know, some of the ways that this is structured.

And so I think there's a lot there was a great press release and press conference yesterday and all things look great.

But we're going to we're going to learn a lot more as the legislative session plays out.

and then we we also know that this is just the first step or not the first step, because we've been doing a lot of work on this for a number of years, but a significant step towards this vision that we have for achieving universal child care.

So I need to see and I think a lot of us need to see what's the long term commitment look like to actually get us there within a reasonable period of.

>> Time.

And Assembly member in the last 45 seconds, I do think some of your critics might say, even if it's a nice idea, this is another big government can't afford it.

New York State spends too much program.

>> Well, we can all see the the the lack of dollars and the productivity lost when when there aren't when someone doesn't return to work.

And so I do think that this is an economic development and economic development engine that actually helps our state and actually creates more revenue than it than what we lose when we don't really help families both work if they want to.

So there's that.

I also would say some of my the devil is always in the details.

That's what I say a lot this time of year is the governor rolls out some of her great ideas, which I'm.

This is very exciting.

So I don't want to downplay it at all.

But, you know, some of the bills of mine that have really tried to get at some of the antiquated issues we have in the child care system that she has vetoed over the years because of cost.

These are some of the things that I hope that we can now with this huge enforcement and commitment of cash maybe fix some of those.

>> Well, in the weeks to come here, we're going to hear from the governor's address.

State of the state is Tuesday.

Tuesday.

You'll hear that at 1:00 right here.

on your public media.

And then we're going to be talking to members of the legislature about how they see some of the governor's budget ideas, what they want to see.

And then once we have a final budget, maybe late March, maybe April, who knows, maybe June.

God forbid.

>> We may.

>> I'm going to go April 2nd.

>> We'll talk a lot more about that with them.

But thank you for the time.

Assembly member Sarah Clark nice having you.

Thanks for being back.

>> Thanks for.

>> Having me.

Pete Nabozny Director of Policy for the Children's Agenda.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thanks as.

>> Always, more Connections coming up in a moment.

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