Clinton To Propose Plan To Ease Financial Burden On Caregivers

Clinton, who was in the midst of a campaign swing through the South, has tried to create a wedge on taxes with her main rival for the nomination, Vermont Sen.

“I’m fighting for the man I met whose mother has Alzheimer’s”. And her plan is to propose a tax credit offsetting up to $6,000 in caregiving costs. Clinton’s campaign says the plan would cost $10 billion over 10 years and would be paid for through other revenue increases.

Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Saturday she is willing to split apart big financial institutions if the need arises.

Clinton also is proposing a recalculation of Social Security benefits for caregivers. She says that family members often have to take time away from work, using vacation time or personal time to provide care.

Clinton has said she supports paid family leave but has not embraced a bill introduced by Kirsten Gillibrand, Clinton’s successor as a senator from NY, that dozens of progressive lawmakers have lined up behind in both chambers of Congress.

Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters “the most important moment” for the campaign during last week’s second Democratic debate was when the three discussed taxing the middle class and to expect Clinton to discuss it more fully in the coming days.

As part of her caregiving plan, Clinton is seeking a “Care Workers Initiative”, to create what her campaign calls a “government-wide” effort to support and ensure fair wages for full-time professional caregivers. She has accused Sanders of promoting programs that she says would raise taxes on middle-class families, including his plan for a single-payer health system based on Medicare. “We are there miracle workers”, Lizabeth Bonilla, a home care worker from Las Vegas, told Clinton about her job.

Clinton has also said she supports extending the American Opportunity Tax Credit for education expenses.

The caregiver proposal is part of a series of tax proposals geared at the middle class that Clinton is rolling out. In 2015, the program received $2 million in federal dollars. President Obama has asked to up the allocation to $5 million.

“That will help family budgets stretch, it will help seniors maintain independence”, Clinton said Sunday at a campaign stop in Iowa, which holds the first party-nominating contest in February.