Donald Trump will announce his proposed child care policy in at 7:30 PM in Aston, PA, and it is by far the most detailed proposal he's made—because it was crafted by the most serious (and popular) of Trumps, Ivanka. Beginning with her speech at the Republican National Convention, Ivanka Trump has set out to do with child care what her father did with trade and globalization: steal the Democrats' decades-old positions out from under them. So far, she's nailing it.
The first half of Trump's announcement is expected to be a mandate that all companies provide women with 6 weeks paid maternity leave. This was a big deal when Ivanka first proposed it, and a direct departure from Republican orthodoxy, which states that it's an inappropriate expansion of government spending (the government helps companies pay for leave, they can't just order it) and an unfair imposition on employers' freedom. Clinton, by contrast, is proposing 12 weeks of paid family leave.
The second big piece of the Trump plan is helping pay for child care (and care for the elderly). According to a Trump campaign memo shared with journalists on Tuesday, the proposal “will rewrite the tax code to allow working parents to deduct from their income taxes child-care expenses for up to four children and elderly dependents.” It will not be available to individuals earning over $250,000 or families earning over $500,000 a year.
That part is less revolutionary, as the GOP has always been a fan of deductions. The only problem is that families already get lots of deductions for kids, and the families who need the most help don't have a large tax burden to cut. Furthermore, low-income parents often work multiple jobs, requiring even more child-care expenses since they're away from home so often.
The alternative option, favored by Democrats, are subsidies for child care to make it cheaper for everyone. The Clinton campaign unveiled their proposal in May. According to the Washington Post, she's "proposing to cap the expense at 10 percent of a household’s income. She intends to reach that lofty goal with tax credits and subsidized child care, both of which would require an enormous public investment."
Ivanka Trump has been urging her father for months to make this a centerpiece of his campaign, correctly guessing that the Democrats had taken the issue for granted. Her involvement suggests this won't be an issue Donald flip-flops on like so many others. While Donald has had some missteps on this topic—he claimed he provided daycare to workers, when in fact he only provided it to paying hotel guests—it would be a mistake for Democrats to assume his daughter has the same inattention to detail.