President Biden on Tuesday will sign an executive order intended to expand access to child care as well as reduce its costs, although White House officials did not put a price tag on the plan.
The White House says the order’s directives will be funded out of existing commitments such as untapped federal grants.
That means it likely won’t be as costly as Mr. Biden’s 2021 push for $425 billion in taxpayer dollars to expand child care. That proposal was part of his scuttled Build Back Better agenda and was eventually removed from his pared-down tax climate, tax and health care agenda, which he signed into law last year.
In his fiscal 2024 budget, Mr. Biden called for spending $600 billion over 10 years to expand access to affordable child care and free preschool. The funding will let states boost child care options for more than 16 million children, the White House said.
That proposal likely won’t win much support among House Republicans who are seeking to limit government spending amid their fight with Mr. Biden over the debt ceiling.
The U.S. technically reached the debt limit of $31 trillion earlier this year, but the Biden administration took special budgetary measures in January to continue borrowing. Those moves are temporary solutions while the president urges Congress to increase the debt ceiling.
The House GOP leaders say they will lift the debt limit only if they can secure an agreement from the Biden administration to cap federal spending as well as land other policy concessions.
Both sides are in a standoff over the debt ceiling.
Under the executive order, nearly every federal agency will be directed to identify grant programs that can cover the cost of child care and long-term care for individuals working on a federal project. It will also tighten the eligibility requirements for businesses seeking federal job-creating funds by requiring them to expand access to care and directs the Department of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to improve the quality of home care jobs.
The Office of Personnel Management would also be directed to conduct a review of the government’s child care subsidy policy and consider setting standards for federal government employees to access child care. Expanded access to child care for government workers would come through federal child care centers, child care subsidies or contracted care providers, the order states.
The executive order aims to bolster care access for military veterans who require support for daily living activities.
Mr. Biden will sign the executive order at a Rose Garden ceremony Tuesday afternoon.
Susan Rice, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, told reporters the order will include more than 50 directives to agencies to address child and long-term care issues for their employees.
“The child care and long-term care systems in this country just don’t work well,” she told reporters during a conference call previewing the order.
Caring Across Generations, which represents care workers and their families, hailed the executive order as “unprecedented and historic.”
“Today’s executive order is the largest set of executive actions for care in history and embodies the transformative policy shift millions have been demanding for years,” the group said in a statement, adding that care is “the heart of our economy.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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