Trump Abandons Child Care Promise, Tells States to Raise Taxes Instead

The Bait-and-Switch

Over 3.1 million Ohioans voted for Donald Trump in 2024 after he promised to fix child care costs, protect Medicare and Medicaid, lower grocery bills, and boost manufacturing. He claimed his tariffs would generate trillions to fund affordable day care and create an "economic boom like we've never seen before."

Ten months later, every single promise has collapsed.

Last week, Trump casually dismissed the child care crisis affecting over 500,000 Ohio households with young children. "We can't take care of day care," he announced at a pre-Easter luncheon, suggesting states handle it by raising taxes on the families least able to pay.

This from the man who campaigned on the fact that "you have to have it" and swore his tariffs would fix the broken system once and for all.

The Economic Wreckage

Trump's tariff scheme, recently struck down as illegal by the Supreme Court, has delivered the opposite of prosperity. Private sector job creation has been "effectively zero" since Liberation Day last April. Manufacturing shed over 90,000 jobs in 2025 and another 12,000 in February. The farming industry is in free fall, squeezed by retaliatory tariffs and surging diesel and fertilizer costs driven by Trump's war in Iran.

His promised boom turned into a bust, paid for by American consumers through price hikes on imported goods. The tariffs are taxes on working families, not the revenue windfall he claimed.

Ohio's Child Care Crisis

Ohio's publicly-funded child care system serves about 100,000 children daily at a cost of roughly $1 billion per year. But state investment falls catastrophically short of what parents and providers need. Ohio is one of only six states that refuse to invest state funds beyond the minimum required to draw down federal matching dollars.

About 79-80% of Ohio's child care funding comes from the federal government. A temporary pandemic funding pool is running out, leaving a potential $600 million deficit. The average Ohio family with two kids spends about 29% of their income on child care. Many parents are forced to miss work, cut hours, or leave the workforce entirely.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, inadequate child care costs Ohio billions in lost tax revenue and earnings. Nationally, the economic impact totals $172 billion per year in lost productivity.

The Real Priorities

When Trump says "the United States can't take care of day care," what he means is he has other spending priorities. Like the extra $200 billion he's requesting for his unauthorized, unprovoked war in Iran, on top of the $1.5 trillion already in his budget for defense spending.

"We're fighting wars," Trump said. "We have to take care of one thing: military protection."

Translation: Bombing Iran matters more than helping parents afford child care. Endless military spending matters more than protecting Medicare and Medicaid for over 5 million Ohioans.

Broken Promises on Health Care

Trump also announced the federal government can no longer afford Medicare and Medicaid, which provide health coverage to 140 million Americans, including over 5 million Ohio seniors and low-income residents. This directly contradicts his 2024 campaign promise not to touch Medicare.

Working-class Ohioans who broke hard for Trump expected him to tackle the cost of food, housing, and health care. Older voters on fixed incomes powered his victory after he swore to protect their benefits. Now he calls those programs too expensive.

The Buyer's Remorse Factor

Ohio gave Trump his biggest win ever in 2024. Voters in a state hammered by manufacturing job losses and rising costs believed his promises to prioritize everyday families over corporate interests and foreign entanglements.

Instead, they got record tariffs that killed jobs, a war that spiked fuel costs, abandoned child care commitments, threats to Medicare and Medicaid, and a president who shrugs off their struggles while requesting hundreds of billions more for military adventurism.

Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning think tank, noted that the state's last biennial budget included only "band-aid programs that do not affect the underlying causes of the crisis: low wages for providers and a family eligibility threshold among the worst in the nation."

Now Trump has made clear the federal government won't step in either. His solution is for states to raise taxes on the working families already spending nearly a third of their income on child care.

What Comes Next

The state that handily bought what Trump was selling in 2024 may have serious buyer's remorse by 2026. Farmers facing financial ruin from tariffs and trade wars, parents crushed by child care costs, manufacturing workers who lost their jobs, and seniors watching their Medicare threatened all have one thing in common: They believed Trump would help them.

He lied. And now he's telling them to figure it out themselves while he funds another war.