In anticipation of President Trump’s State of the Union speech, CSEA/AFSCME Local 1000 member and child care provider Armett Newman of New York joined workers from across the country to set the record straight on how the administration’s policies are favoring billionaires over working families.
“[On Tuesday night] the billionaires, the greedy billionaires, along with the anti-worker politicians, are going to talk about how awesome everything is when the reality of it is, everything is not okay,” said Newman. “A couple of weeks ago parents got a message from the Trump administration that was a nightmare: that funding was going to be cut for child care. Not only is that impacting families, but it’s also impacting us as providers.”
Newman represented AFSCME members at a major town hall Monday night in Washington, D.C., hosted by Families Over Billionaires, where members of Congress heard first-hand stories from workers about how anti-worker politicians in Congress and the administration have catered to the wealthy and made life less affordable for everyone else.
“I provide quality care and the parents go to work knowing their children are well cared for,” said Newman, who serves 18 children in her child care business near Rochester, N.Y. “Parents have to go to work. They have to be able to support their community. And they also need to … feel like their kids are in a safe environment.”
The White House attempted to illegally withhold $10 billion in child care and family assistance funds from California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York.
Newman said the loss of funding would force some families to quit their jobs and pull their kids from child care because it would be too expensive without the federal support, and the economy would suffer.
“It’s important to know that 90 percent of my parents rely on the child care subsidy, so if I were to lose one family, that would be devastating to my business that’s been up and running for 16 years,” Newman said.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration’s illegal funding freeze, but AFSCME members and other organizations are still working to protect the family assistance funds.
“It takes a village. And it’s deeper than just providing child care services. We can’t allow the child care cuts to happen. We have to continue to fight,” Newman said.