Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

California needs superheroes. Children, families and child care providers are in danger of losing access to healthcare and early childhood education funding. Yet the only ones being saved now are corporate billionaires known as the “Silicon Six,” who paid $278 billion less in taxes than they should under statutory rates. Our working class has helped catapult California into becoming the fourth largest economy in the world. The people keeping California strong are the working class, not the billionaires. 

 Try explaining California’s strong economy to a family struggling to afford child care and housing or to a child care provider who has been paid poverty wages for decades. How do lawmakers reckon with having the strongest economy in the country with one of the highest child poverty rates? We deserve better. 

 The wealthiest Californians are awarded billions in state tax breaks each year with minimal oversight. Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom is pausing his promised 77,000 child care slots and delaying payment for the true cost of operations for child care providers. How can children be our future when the state is shortchanging them now? 

There is a disconnect between our values and the use of our tax dollars. Nearly 2 million children are eligible to receive subsidized child care in California alone, yet only 11% of eligible children are enrolled. Our governor, representatives and budget committees must take a hard look at our needs and decide whether to address them or continue shirking responsibility. 

There is little hope at the federal level. The Trump administration is diverting billions of dollars that could support children and families so that he can give tax breaks for the uber-wealthy. Diverting resources from the most vulnerable to the elite is villainous. For California to lead, our state budget must be the first line of defense. Only lawmakers hold the power to correct inequities in the state budget.  

Federal cuts put tremendous pressure on our state. California’s May Revised Budget will come soon and tell us that we do not have enough money to invest in our needs. However, we must exhaust all options before delaying promises. Lawmakers must check their moral compass and pause tax breaks on billionaires. Those funds are better used expanding access to child care and ensuring wages for the child care providers we rely on. 

As a mother and the executive director of Parent Voices, I know the needs of families and early childhood educators. I know families want a hand up, not a handout. Caregivers play a critical role in the success of early brain development in children. The toxic narratives that families are not deserving or that early educators are just babysitters need to end. 

On May 12, Californians joined National Day Without Child Care to sound the alarms on America’s child care crisis. On May 14, Parent Voices and I joined hundreds at the State Capitol for our annual Stand for Children Day. We brought people from across the state to Sacramento to meet with our legislative leaders and demand they choose kids over corporations. 

Leaders must govern with conviction, not self-serving avarice. Even beyond the moral imperative, every dollar invested in child care in California leads to $1.88 in immediate economic activity. We can afford to invest in child care, and doing so builds economic power for all. 

Access to child care made all the difference for me — I wouldn’t have made it without it. Child care is what allows the workforce to thrive. Expanding affordable child care for all is not just an investment in families. It’s a commitment to a more prosperous future. 

We are angry. We are scared. We are hurt by federal slashing while the rich roll in their wealth. Our leaders must find their consciences. This problem has a clear solution. 

 It comes down to this: Superheroes protect kids, not billionaires.

Mary Ignatius is the executive director of Parent Voices, which uses grassroots organizing and leadership development to center parents in transforming child care to be just, fair and inclusive. Parent Voices is a grantee of the Raising Child Care Fund.