We must broaden our discourse on economic and concrete supports for families, and child care subsidies and universal early education specifically. Universal child care and early education have the potential to provide economic support for families, increase parental workforce participation, create living-wage jobs, improve children’s development and kindergarten readiness, begin to address some dimensions of inequities, and lastly prevent child maltreatment. Substantively increasing funding for child care and early education would provide a down-payment on the long-term health and development of our next generation of Americans. (author abstract)