In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

Housing, subsidies, and landlords

• Several argue free childcare is partly a way to offset high living costs by pushing both parents into the workforce; with housing supply constrained, new subsidies get capitalized into higher rents and land values.
• Others counter that by this logic no affordability policy would ever be worth doing, and the real fix is to prioritize building more housing and reform zoning.
• Land value tax is proposed as a way to prevent landlords from capturing the gains of welfare programs, though skeptics note existing high property taxes and rigid zoning would blunt its impact.

Childcare, labor force participation, and child outcomes

• Commenters cite Quebec’s experience: large increases in maternal employment after subsidized daycare, but also studies suggesting worse behavioral and developmental outcomes for children, possibly due to rapid expansion into low‑quality providers.
• Others respond that high-quality, well-regulated early childhood education (e.g., with low child‑to‑staff ratios and trained staff) shows positive long‑term effects in other contexts; quality, not universality per se, is framed as the key variable.
• Some worry universal childcare nudges society toward a norm where both parents must work, reducing the option of a stay‑at‑home parent.

Healthcare and broader welfare debates

• A big subthread pivots to children’s healthcare: proposals range from “Medicare for kids” to universal care for everyone (including undocumented people), with detailed back‑and‑forth on actual Medicare vs ACA costs and cross‑subsidies.
• Others note Medicaid/CHIP already cover many children, but access and eligibility are patchy.

Moral responsibility vs child protection

• One camp stresses parental responsibility and fears “creating dependents” and moral hazard (more births into poverty if the state covers basics). Extreme versions propose removing children when subsidies get “too high.”
• The opposing view: children lack autonomy and shouldn’t be allowed to suffer because parents fail; you fix abuse at the parental level, not by withholding food, healthcare, or childcare.

Economics, birthrates, and who pays

• Supporters frame free childcare as productivity policy: enabling parents to work, supporting long‑run GDP and partially “paying for itself,” especially if funded by resource revenues (as in New Mexico’s oil and land funds).
• Others see it as expensive, potentially regressive (benefiting employers and landlords), and question whether more births are desirable or whether pro‑natalist arguments resemble a Ponzi scheme.

State-level experiment, quality, and social fabric

• Many like that this is a state‑level experiment under US federalism: results can be observed before any federal push.
• Concerns include fraud, administrative overhead, and displacement of informal neighborhood care.
• Several note that declining social trust, liability fears, and dual‑income norms already make informal childcare networks much harder than in past generations.