WI Senator Suggests Moms On Assistance Staff Child Care Centers

WISCONSIN — A U.S. Senator from Wisconsin suggested that mothers who are getting assistance from the government should have to work in child care facilities.

"Why don't we have them have staff child care for other mothers?" Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Oshkosh) said during a telephone town hall, Heartland Signal reported.

Johnson said he wanted an "imaginative solution" to the state's child care staffing shortage where Wisconsin mothers on government assistance take care of other mothers' children.

Child care providers where a worker's child receives care aren't allowed to collect subsidy payments from the state, according to state law. The law was enacted after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discovered day care providers receiving subsidies while watching each other's children in 2009, The Wisconsin State Journal reported.

"Maybe Senator Ron Johnson can take some time to listen to the childcare meeting we had a few weeks ago so he can understand (so many things! And) that just because you work in childcare doesn’t mean you can afford that childcare, or that there’s a spot for your child," Rep. Robyn Vining (D - Wauwatosa) said in a statement.

Sarah Godlewski, a Democrat from Eau Claire running for U.S. Senate seat, said that the idea would punish working families.

"We have a full-blown childcare crisis and a record number of moms getting knocked out of the workforce," Godlweski said in a statement. "There are commonsense solutions to these problems, but Ron Johnson's “imaginative” idea would punish working families"