Ivanka Trump reportedly pushing for a US$500 billion child care policy

In line with her father’s promises, Ivanka Trump urges lawmakers to support a tax benefit for child care that’s estimated to cost US$500 billion (AU$649) billion over ten years. The first daughter is reportedly aiming for the deduction to be a required element of a tax code revamp that US President Donald Trump has promised.

The president’s eldest daughter allegedly met with the members of the House and Senate in the Roosevelt Room at the White House last week to talk about her proposed plans concerning the child care tax benefit. According to an estimate by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit research group, the child care proposal would cost the federal government $500 billion (AU$649 billion) in revenue after a decade.

Alan Cole, an economist with the Tax Foundation, commented that the child care proposal is generous and broad. “However, the largest benefits will go to relatively affluent dual-income families using paid child care," he explained.

Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Executive Dina Powell, now an economic adviser to Trump, helps Ivanka to ensure a tax overhaul includes child care benefit and a requirement that employers provide paid maternity leave. Sheila Marcelo, founder of www.care.com, a website that helps parents and guardians find babysitters and other caregivers, confirmed that Ivanka and Powell are working together for the proposed tax overhaul and that they are rpushing to ensure that child care benefit will be covered. "Ivanka is really pushing that none of it gets passed unless it includes the child care tax plan,” Bloomberg has quoted her saying.

Earlier this year, the first daughter invited Marcelo to dinner. They have met at the home of Wendi Deng, the ex-wife of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. co-chairman Rupert Murdoch. Ivanka and Marcelo have supposedly discussed the former’s plans to focus on women’s empowerment during the Trump administration. Bloomberg reported that top female executives were also invited for the dinner, which includes International Business Machines Corp. Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty, Xerox Corp. Chairman and CEO Ursula Burns, and Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert.

During the 2016 presidential elections, Ivanka pressed the then presidential candidate’s plans to focus on child care. Ivanka promised in her July 2016 speech at the Republican convention that her father would "focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all" if he wins the presidency. The president assured earlier this month that he would work on a proposed comprehensive tax overhaul but provided no further details.