A liberal political organization that promotes economic policies for working families, the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, will spend $40 million to support President Biden’s re-election bid and other Democratic candidates for the House and Senate.
The program, announced Monday morning, is the Democratic-allied organization’s largest political investment, aimed at supporting Mr. Biden and drawing attention to economic issues such as the cost of child care and elder care in the 2024 campaign. While these remain top concerns for voters, they have not yet become a central focus of Mr. Biden’s re-election efforts.
The group’s plans, first shared with The New York Times, include mobilizing broad swaths of Democratic and independent voters in states that will be important for the presidential election and control of Congress: Georgia, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In addition to the president, the Campaign for a Family-Friendly Economy plans to support Democratic candidates who support policies such as paid family leave, lower-cost prescription drugs and affordable child and elder care.
“You would be hard-pressed to find a kitchen table where there isn’t a discussion about the high cost of care, particularly child care,” said Sondra Goldschein, executive director of the group’s political action committee. “People don’t know what Biden and the Democrats have done to help with things like child care, and that’s where we come in.”
Early in his term, Mr. Biden’s administration allocated $24 billion to keep child care centers open as part of a rescue package to combat the pandemic. These funds expired in September.
Since then, Mr. Biden has not followed through on his initial pledges to make child care more affordable for families. Proposals that would have provided preschool for more than six million three- and four-year-olds, child care and health subsidies, and monthly payments for families with children failed to gain support in Congress. Mr. Biden ultimately abandoned those legislative plans in favor of increasing infrastructure and environmental spending.
In April, Mr. Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to find ways to make child care cheaper and more accessible, moving forward on his stalled promise.
J. Glenn Hopkins, president of Hopkins House, a child care provider in Virginia, said he has lost more than half of his employees during the pandemic. He finds it difficult to hire qualified teachers and childcare workers.
“Where we are now, post-pandemic, we are no better than where we were pre-pandemic,” said Mr Hopkins, who supports the Campaign for a Family-Friendly Economy. “We are still looking for good people.”
Ms. Goldschein believes her group’s efforts can help create policy momentum to make affordable child care policies a reality should Mr. Biden win re-election.
“We really believe that the way to make sure this gets across the finish line is to elect the Democratic trifecta and do it in a way that shows that this is the issue that voters care about.” lies,” she said. “We are fully focused on building that political momentum.”
As the 2024 campaign shifts toward a likely rematch between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, other liberal organizations have made a series of spending announcements. VoteVets, a group that supports veterans running for office, will spend $45 million to support Mr. Biden and other Democratic candidates. Future Forward, the main Democratic super PAC supporting Mr. Biden’s bid, has planned a $250 million advertising campaign. Last month, liberal activist group MoveOn unveiled its $32 million program.
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2024-02-12 10:01:47
www.nytimes.com