Three top Senate Democrats are accusing the Trump administration and Republicans of “taking a wrecking ball” to childcare programs, highlighting the issue in a midterm year where many Democrats are running on inflation and the high cost of living.
Childcare costs have skyrocketed in recent decades, outpacing inflation. There’s bipartisan consensus on the crisis: an Associated Press-NORC poll from last year found that 76 percent of Americans, including over 70 percent of independents and Republicans, view the cost of childcare as “a major problem.”
Democrats have long highlighted the issue, but many Republican politicians also agree there’s a problem — if not on the solutions to it. Republicans, who largely oppose major new spending on social programs, control the White House and both chambers of Congress, meaning that Democratic-controlled states and cities like New York City and New Mexico have been taking the lead on major investments aimed at making childcare more accessible.
Now, in a new memo, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and two fellow Senate Democrats are accusing the GOP of having “inflamed the childcare crisis.”
The report on childcare from Schumer and Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, released Tuesday and shared first with The 19th, is the latest in a series of memos highlighting what Schumer says are the Trump administration’s “broken promises” in areas including healthcare, housing and energy affordability.
Even as childcare costs rise for families, wages for childcare providers remain low and draw fewer workers, creating a shortage of childcare slots and leaving many providers in a precarious position, especially since the funds Congress passed to stabilize the childcare industry during the COVID-19 pandemic have run out.
“People in the richest country in the world should not view child care as a financial burden,” Schumer said in a statement. “Senate Democrats are fighting to lower costs while continuing to expose how Trump and his administration’s continued broken promises have led to families struggling to make ends meet.”
The memo from Schumer, Murray and Warren charges that President Donald Trump and Republicans have “abandoned America’s children and families” by passing tax breaks for the wealthy and pursuing the war with Iran.
“Trump promised no new wars and lower costs—he broke that promise and even insisted that America couldn’t pay for child care because we had to pay for wars instead,” Murray said in a statement. “Meanwhile, Democrats are putting forward an agenda that will make life more affordable for American families in all 50 states—and we’re making high-quality, affordable child care a top priority.”
The Democrats point to Trump’s comments in April, when he stated that “the United States can’t pay for daycare” because of the conflict in the Middle East, saying: “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”
“The fact is that Trump and Republicans have done nothing to address the child care crisis in this country – in reality, they have made it worse,” the report says. “Rather than lowering the costs of child care for the American people, Trump has taken a wrecking ball to federal programs and infrastructure that help American families access affordable child care.”
The Schumer-led memo charged that the Trump administration has “systemically attacked and undermined early childhood education programs” with funding pauses, delays and personnel cuts at offices overseeing the federal government’s funding of childcare and Head Start, which funds early learning for low-income children. It also accused the administration of “waging an all-out war” on the childcare sector by freezing over $2 billion in federal childcare funds to five Democratic-controlled states over exaggerated and misleading claims of widespread fraud in childcare programs.
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have introduced bipartisan proposals on childcare, and Republicans are also embracing the issue. Republican Reps. Ashley Hinson of Iowa, a candidate for U.S. Senate, and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania, who is seeking reelection in a competitive district, are among the cosponsors of the recently introduced bipartisan Child Care Modernization Act.
“Family is at the heart of everything I do, and I’ll keep fighting to make it easier to raise one,” Hinson said in a statement.
Mackenzie highlighted the rapidly increasing costs of childcare in his statement about the bill, saying: “It’s more important than ever that we deliver the relief and reform that working families need to thrive.”
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a fellow Pennsylvania Republican, cosponsored a bipartisan bill to expand a tax deduction for teachers to early childhood educators that passed the U.S. House in April. He’s also a cosponsor of the Improving Child Care for Working Families Act with Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier of Washington.
But there’s been little appetite among Republicans for the kind of large-scale federal investments many Democrats argue are needed to make childcare affordable and accessible nationwide. Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York are the lead sponsors of one such Democratic bill, the Childcare for Every Community Act, which proposes new federal investments to create universal and affordable childcare.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans’ party-line tax-and-spending bill passed last year, expanded some childcare subsidies and tax credits used by parents and employers, changes that experts said primarily benefit middle- and higher-income families. The Democrats’ report noted that childcare costs are especially burdensome for the lowest-income families and that “many parents — disproportionately women — are forced out of the labor market as they simply cannot afford the high cost of care.”
Democrats have also criticized the bill for cutting Medicaid and food assistance programs, which many of the lowest-income families rely on. Federal cuts, combined with the COVID-era federal childcare funds running out and other economic pressures, have, in turn, led some states to cut funding for childcare programs.
“Americans are drowning under child care costs that just keep going up, and instead of doing anything to fix it, Donald Trump slashed the programs that help families afford care and gave billion-dollar tax handouts to giant corporations,” Warren said in a statement. “Fixing the affordability crisis in this country means delivering universal child care, and Democrats are fighting to get it done.”
In the absence of major federal action, some Democratic-controlled states and cities are leading the charge on universal childcare. And as Democrats focus on affordability in their messaging ahead of the 2026 midterms, candidates across the country are campaigning on universal childcare, universal pre-K and early childhood education.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned last year on enacting free universal childcare and is working with Gov. Kathy Hochul to phase in his childcare plan, recently made New York the first city to open a free childcare center for city workers. New Mexico also became the first state in the country to offer free universal child care to families last year.
The state’s departing Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told The 19th that New Mexico’s investment also raised salaries and expanded benefits for childcare providers, a woman-dominated industry. “It’s time,” she said, “that America embraces universal childcare.”
“When people refer to states like ours that still have some deep-rooted poverty issues, if we can do it, then anyone can do it,” Lujan Grisham said in an April interview. “I’m not suggesting that it is a quick, 24-hour fix. … It took us all this time to build it out, but it is doable. And I think it could be some of the most important, impactful set of services and legislation for New Mexico families, and then a blueprint for American families, since the FDR investments in Social Security.”
In remarks at the Center for American Progress’ IDEAS conference last month, Warren argued that Republicans are “fumbling the childcare issue at the most basic level.” She also criticized her own party for not making major investments in childcare in its major party-line spending bills when Democrats controlled Congress for the first two years of President Joe Biden’s presidency, saying “we lost childcare because not enough Democrats who were already in office were willing to fight for it.”
“It would be political malpractice for Democrats not to be talking about childcare every chance we get, going into the midterms and beyond,” Warren said. “When I look at the upcoming Democratic presidential primary, every 2028 candidate who understands what’s happening in this country, who wants to win, and who will deliver for families, will make universal childcare a core piece of their agenda.”
