Trump said fixing child care would not be very expensive. Here are price tags for other proposals

Asked recently how he would bring down the high cost of child care, former President Donald Trump said doing so would be relatively “not very expensive” — at least, not compared with revenue from tax hikes he would impose on foreign goods.

Economists are skeptical tariffs would raise enough to cover Trump’s tax cuts as well as a large-scale child care program, and Democrats said higher tariffs would raise costs for families by increasing the prices of consumer goods. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to questions on his plans for child care.

On one point, some child care experts agree with Trump: Fixing the child care system would not be very expensive compared with some other government expenditures. But as past proposals have shown, the price tags associated with a federally funded child care system make it difficult politically to achieve.

“I do think his comments are somewhat accurate — that fixes to child care, making child care more accessible and more affordable for families is actually, in the scheme of things, probably not that expensive relative to many of the other things that we already spend money on,” said Chloe Gibbs, a University of Notre Dame economist who served on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2022 to 2023.

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