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A comment on Americans want paid family leave and affordable child care, why can't we get it?.

Re:Americans want paid family leave and affordable child car... by throwaway7877 on Thursday December 05, 2019 @02:36PM (#21715637)
According to Census demographic trends, in the next couple decades, half of America’s population will live in just eight states. The half that is whiter, older, more rural, and more conservative, will be spread across the other 42 states. That’s 84 senators for them, and 16 senators for the other half of America- This is why.
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Re:Americans want paid family leave and affordable child car... by toomuchtodo on Thursday December 05, 2019 @02:48PM (#21715767)
Those eight states can enact state legislation to provide those benefits, no? That's how Canada arrived at universal healthcare: provinces started these programs as experiments.

Not saying the current system of representation doesn't have issues, but there are ways to hack around it to deliver progressive policies in the population centers most will be living in.

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Re:Americans want paid family leave and affordable child car... by HeroOfAges on Thursday December 05, 2019 @03:50PM (#21716339)
This is a fantastic point. Less representation on a national level perhaps, but maybe the federal government will have to become much smaller in the future. I personally don't think that's a bad thing.
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Re:Americans want paid family leave and affordable child car... by downerending on Thursday December 05, 2019 @04:18PM (#21716649)
That's quite the flamebait. So the theory is that we don't have affordable childcare today because of where we'll be demographically in twenty years?
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Re:Americans want paid family leave and affordable child car... by ebg13 on Thursday December 05, 2019 @04:53PM (#21717013)
Right now it's 9 states that have 50% of the population. In 20 years it will be 8, but this is very much a today issue.
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Re:Americans want paid family leave and affordable child car... by downerending on Thursday December 05, 2019 @05:32PM (#21717404)
I'm going to go the other way and say that white, older, rural, conservative Americans care about child care as much as anyone else. And if anything, older Americans have a habit of donating their time for free child care.
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