Ahead of the VP Debate: Rural Families Need Childcare, Walz will deliver, Vance just doesn't care

On Tuesday, October 1, Governor Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance will participate in the Vice Presidential Debate. This is the first debate between two candidates with deep roots in rural communities. Governor Walz has been a champion for our issues while Vance built his career on showing disdain.

The Harris-Walz campaign did release an outline of its rural agenda titled, We Believe in Rural America. All we’ve seen from the Trump-Vance campaign is grievance, xenophobia, tax cuts for billionaires, a health care plan that would remove protections for pre-existing conditions and a plan for a national sales tax. All of  that will hurt rural families.

There are so many important questions we want the Vice Presidential candidates to answer. How to take care of our families is at the top of the list. 

Our polling at RuralOrganizing.org has repeatedly shown that rural Americans want solutions focused on increasing jobs and wages, decreasing daily expenses, and improving quality of life. But these goals are out of reach for most rural families without available, affordable, high-quality child care. In rural communities, one key issue is the Child Care Crisis, which is a barrier to economic thriving. 

Child care—the backbone of our workforce and the foundation for children’s development—faces critical challenges across America. These challenges are particularly acute in rural communities. The broken state of child care in 2024 and the economic impact of its deficiencies make this a topline concern for families in small towns and rural places. 

Parents face a double bind: paying exorbitant fees for child care while grappling with limited availability. Astonishingly, child care costs can rival or even exceed college tuition. The average cost of child care in this country is more than what it costs to send a child to college for a year, and in rural areas, where options are scarcer, families drive on average more than three times farther to access child care services. 

The child care gap has significant economic consequences. While the absolute numbers may be smaller in rural areas, the proportional impact is staggering. In 35 states analyzed, the lack of access to child care cost the United States an estimated $142 billion to $217 billion in economic productivity. States with the largest rural child care gaps face the greatest economic consequences, with costs  in these rural areas ranging from $33 billion to $50 billion. Every missing child care slot matters.

We hope this is discussed during the VP Debate. But it’s worth looking at what we’ve learned so far.

The Harris-Walz agenda prioritizes investing in affordable child care. They have committed to expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to $6,000 for families with newborns, the age that is most difficult to find care for. This expansion could ease child care cost burdens, especially during the critical early years. The Harris-Walz rural agenda outline also noted that as Vice President, Harris, “Kept childcare providers in business during the pandemic, investing in nearly 30,000 childcare programs in rural communities.”

Trump-Vance's “Agenda47” does not mention child care as an issue. It commits to returning to the previously expanded Child Tax Credit, which could benefit some families struggling with child care costs.  However, not to be overlooked, Vance skipped the Senate vote on this very issue. That shouldn’t be surprising, really. But, be wary of these promises. They may be paying lip service to the child tax credit now, but when they've had a chance to actually do something, Trump and Vance haven’t. 

Even as the credit was modestly expanded in 2017, it is set to expire in 2026, along with basically all of the other tax provisions that benefited regular people. (Remember, every Republican in the House and Senate opposed the American Rescue Plan, which included the child tax credit increases.) Meanwhile, the 2017 law reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% permanently. You know who else isn’t facing tax benefit expirations? Oil, gas, and coal industries - to the tune of somewhere between $14 and $20 Billion. 

Furthermore, Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 proposes to eliminate Head Start, which would be especially devastating in rural America, where Head Start makes a massive percentage of rural child care possible.

Head Start is a crucial part of the rural child care ecosystem. In the 2015-2016 program year, rural Head Start programs enrolled over 175,000 children, employed nearly 50,000 staff, and delivered family services to more than 110,000 families. One out of every three rural child care centers is a Head Start program, and these programs bridge gaps, providing education, family support, and even addressing health disparities in rural communities where poverty is disproportionately higher than non-rural communities.

Head Start operates child care centers in 86% of America’s 1,760 rural counties, far outpacing their urban and suburban counterparts. They’re not just filling slots; these programs are nurturing our communities. 

Trump-Vance want to end that.

In what has become one of the iconic moments of the campaign, Trump was asked a very clear question about child care at the New York Economic Forum. His answer was, basically, incomprehensible.  His disjointed and rambling “answer” started: “It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about that, because, look, child care is child care. It’s something you know you have to have it, in this country you have to have it,”

Vance’s solution was grandparents. Not kidding. He recently told Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk, “So one of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for day care is … maybe Grandma and Grandpa [want] to help out a little bit more, or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we’re spending on day care.” Grandparents should be very wary. In 2017, Vance claimed his failed nonprofit was going to help grandparents impacted by the opioid crisis. Instead, his non-profit hired his political consultant and a flak for Purdue Pharma.  

And, when we talk about what’s best for families, we can never for a minute overlook how important abortion care is for rural communities. We did a deep dive on that issue last week - and this is another issue we hope is discussed at the debate.

Again, this is the first time we’re seeing two candidates with ties to rural communities on the same stage at a VP debate. We look forward to seeing which one actually cares about our communities - and we already know that’s Tim Walz. We hope that message comes across to voters.  

Rural communities bear unique economic pressures. Both Walz and Vance should know that. But, only one of them cares