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Comment by F_J_H | Hacker News Reader

"pays for itself...via increased income taxes"?

It's a "nit pick" for sure, but in my understanding, something that "pays for itself" is not dependent on government subsidies. Quebec has some of the highest income taxes in the country - you pay for such services one way or another.

Plus, according to the linked article, there is not enough space in the subsidized program to meet demand, so there are private options available, which must be paid for out of pocket and covered by a tax rebate. According the to the article, the private options do not provide the same standard of care.

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> something that "pays for itself" is not dependent on government subsidies.

I think you are ignoring the aggregate here. A govt program can "pay for itself" in ways private action cant because the govt can help smooth out risk among the participants.

Your point that this is ultimately funded by taxpayers is correct, but that doesnt mean the program cant generate more in new tax revenue than it costs. Like roads, education, and other areas, reliable and affordable child care can enable a lot.

(Note I have no actual knowledge of the specifics, so I'm arguing what is possible, not what is definitely happening)

> It's a "nit pick" for sure, but in my understanding, something that "pays for itself" is not dependent on government subsidies. Quebec has some of the highest income taxes in the country - you pay for such services one way or another.

The subsidies that are required are offset by the increased labour force participation that occurs as a direct result of said subsidies. Conversely, if the subsidies disappeared, then there's a good chance that many of those currently employed parents would have to make a choice – do I remain in the workforce and pay $1-2k/month for childcare, or do I quit my job and raise my child/children?

I've had relatives that live in Ontario that had to make this choice. Daycare in Toronto is $1600/month, and can be around $2500/month if you have two children. If one of the parents is pulling in $50,000/year (net pay of $38,979), and you have to drop close to $30,000 for childcare, for 2-4 years, is it even worth staying at your job?

> do I remain in the workforce and pay $1-2k/month for childcare, or do I quit my job and raise my child/children?

That the program "pays for itself" in increased taxes implies that the additional tax burden is at least the $1-2k/month required to pay for the childcare.

So if you just cancelled the childcare and reduced the taxes you'd end up at the same place on average, except you wouldn't have non-parents subsidising childcare for parents.

No, the argument is that the program increases GDP because more women with children are participating in the labor force. A portion of that increase is collected in taxes, and if that amount happens to be the same or larger than what the government spends on childcare, the program "pays for itself".

Non-parents are not subsidizing parents in this scheme. And if the additional amount collected in taxes is greater than the cost of the program, then parents are subsidizing non-parents.

If you cancelled the childcare, the GDP increase would disappear, so the increase in tax revenue would disappear, and you wouldn't be able to reduce the tax rate.

I understood it as it would "pay for itself" in increased tax revenue in the future as the children who had access to better child care become more productive citizens. That sounds like how any other investment works, you pay now for a better situation in the future.

If you argue that you don't want to pay now because you won't benefit in the future because you'll be dead, I assume you're not willing to support any other investments either. That sounds like you're just freeloading on the investments that our ancestors made.

>children who had access to better child care become more productive citizens.

From the article:

But young Canadians who were eligible for the program experienced, as teenagers, “a significant worsening in self-reported health and in life satisfaction” relative to Canadians from other provinces. So, did the Quebec child-care experiment “work”? Yes, for parents and public financing. Perhaps not for the kids.

It's also hard to pry apart what "pays for itself" and what doesn't. Quebec doesn't just have incredibly high taxes, they are subsidized by the rest of the productive provinces in the country to the tune of about 10% of their yearly budget. A 10% cut in spending would be classified as incredibly harsh austerity in most cases, and so taking any sort of predictive value from the success of programs run by Quebec is very hard. It should also be noted that for all of these efforts to give incredibly generous benefits to Quebec parents, their birthrate is still among the lowest in Canada and buoyed up only by immigration. So it isn't even really helping people have more children.

Lots of incorrect facts in that comments that need to be corrected.

The program was measured to be productive in the sense that the increased expenses for the program was paid back by the increase income taxes generated by more parents going to work IN THE PROVINCE. Since beginning the program more than two decades ago, Quebec has seen the rate of women age 26 to 44 in the workforce reach 85 percent, the highest in the world (and in Canada). More taxes paid by moms (and dads) paid for the price of the program. So yes, you can measure the success of the program and has nothing to do with the provincial perequation system for having a lower GDP.

Also, the birthrate is not among the lowest, it's actually right in the middle (per capita) and ahead of Ontario (which has the most similar economy). Quebec used to be among the lowest rate in Canada and what the program has done is increasing it dramatically, this has been measured by multiple studies.

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/daycare-difference-quebec-fert... https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2018001/article...

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