SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Dori: Teresa Mosqueda wants us, the taxpayers, to fund her childcare
Apr 17, 2019, 5:00 PM
Seattle councilmember Teresa Mosqueda speaking at the announcement of Governor Inslee's presidential campaign on March 1. (Matt Pittman / KIRO Radio)
(Matt Pittman / KIRO Radio)
For the first time anyone can remember, we have a pregnant member of the Seattle City Council, Teresa Mosqueda. So guess what they’re proposing, now that one of their own is pregnant? They’re thinking about having the taxpayers pay for a childcare facility at City Hall.
I believe that when you are at work, you are getting paid to do a job, and you owe your employer 100 percent of your focus and energy. If your children are at work with you, your attention may be divided.
But more importantly, why do I have to pay for Teresa Mosqueda’s child? Why in the world is it my responsibility, or the responsibility of any of my listeners, to pay for someone else’s choice to have a baby?
RELATED: How the Seattle City Council’s childlessness influences its policy-making
Public employees already have the most generous benefits package of any workers in the country. Their medical benefits are far out of proportion to the rest of us. Plus, the members of the Seattle City Council make $130,000 a year. That’s a pretty nice salary.
Why should taxpayers fund the childcare of government employees when we have to pay for our own?
No one paid the childcare for my wife and me when we had our three kids. My wife was a reporter at the time for The Seattle Times. It was her dream job. Journalism was all she wanted to do, from the time she was a kid. We did childcare for a few weeks after our first baby was born. Then we made the decision to take the huge loss in family income and have my wife stay home. She decided to freelance, to write from home, and carve that out as her new career. We made sacrifices so we could raise our own kids.
The average person in Seattle makes $60,000 a year. So now, they have to give some of their taxes so that someone making $130,000 a year can get taxpayer-funded daycare.
Parenting is a choice. If you can’t pay for your own childcare, maybe it’s not time to have a kid. I think we should be more supportive of people taking care of their own lives. Deal with it yourself. It’s the choice you made.
Or, if we’re going to fund childcare for government employees’ children, then let’s also have the taxpayers pay for radio talk show hosts’ childcare.
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