{"id":238358,"date":"2026-04-07T06:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/238358\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:30:09","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-child-care-child-tax-credits-james-talarico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/238358\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the editor &#8211; Child care, child tax credits, James Talarico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"A child care room is seen during an open house at Genesis in south Oak Cliff on March 29 in Dallas.\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-gray200 mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A child care room is seen during an open house at Genesis in south Oak Cliff on March 29 in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p>Chitose Suzuki\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n<p>Quality child care<\/p>\n<p>On the way home from church on Easter, I saw signs for gas for $3.99 per gallon. Will this be the week I start paying over $4 per gallon? The $12 billion our president wasted in the first two weeks of his unlawful and so far unsuccessful invasion of Iran could have paid for a year of child care for 900,000 children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Quality child care helps children grow up to be responsible citizens, which would probably make us safer than anything Donald Trump has ever done.<\/p>\n<p>Refundable child tax credits\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Imagine working hard every day, yet watching wealthier neighbors receive a child tax credit three times as large as yours simply because they earn more. For millions of Dallas families, this is not hypothetical \u2014 it is current law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>One in five eligible taxpayers misses out on critical tax credits each year, but the deeper crisis lies in Congress. Under today\u2019s rules, a working family earning $25,000 receives just $3,375 in child tax credit support, while a family earning $400,000 receives $8,800. This is a system that rewards wealth over work.<\/p>\n<p>Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=dallasnews.com\" data-link=\"native\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Add Preferred Source\" class=\"td300 cp f aic jcc disabled:cd wsn px24 y40px px16 py8 buttonSm fs13 xs:fs16 xs:buttonLg bg-primaryAccessible hover:o80 c-white disabled:bg-gray300 disabled:c-gray600 border bn tac br2\"><\/p>\n<p>Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The solution is clear and bipartisan. Making the child tax credit fully refundable for low-wage working families would cost just $16 billion annually \u2014 a modest investment that in 2021 cut child poverty by nearly half. I urge readers to call Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz today. Demand that they fix the child tax credit phase-in formula and put working families first. Our children are worth that call.<\/p>\n<p>Bukekile Dube, Dallas\/Turtle Creek<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Texas can lead the way\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a North Texas resident, I recently read about the 110-degree March heat in Arizona with alarm and recognition. Climate scientists confirmed that extreme early-season heat like this would have been virtually impossible without decades of fossil fuel emissions. Here in Dallas, we know our summers are getting longer, hotter and harder on kids and seniors every year.<\/p>\n<p>I am not writing to sound the alarm. I am writing because Texas is genuinely positioned to lead the way out of this. We already lead the nation in wind energy, our solar capacity is growing fast and our entrepreneurs and workers are ready to build a cleaner, more reliable grid.<\/p>\n<p>What is holding us back is not resources or ingenuity. It is a permitting process that has not kept pace with the opportunity in front of us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Streamlining clean energy permitting with faster, clearer approvals for solar and wind would mean more investment, more jobs and a grid better prepared for extreme heat that is no longer a distant threat but a present reality.<\/p>\n<p>Texas ID issues\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It took me five months to get a Texas ID. The birth certificate my brother got for me was rejected by the Department of Public Safety because the seal of California was not embossed. I had to download a form, get it notarized and wait six weeks while it was processed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Texans born in Texas can request documents online, but those of us born elsewhere don\u2019t have that luxury. Once I got an official birth certificate, I tried to get an appointment at the Plano DPS. The available dates were four months out!<\/p>\n<p>So I joined the campers waiting in line for any open slots for the day. After three tries, I got an appointment but was denied an ID because 55 years ago, I took my husband\u2019s name. I needed my marriage certificate, which I do not have.<\/p>\n<p>It was easier to get a passport (takes more time and is expensive), but the government did not have a problem with the name mismatch.<\/p>\n<p>The SAVE Act discriminates against married women and people who have lost their papers. It\u2019s not wearisome rhetoric unless you believe it is OK to deny or delay U.S. citizens\u2019 access to the ballot box.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Not a fan of Talarico\u2019s preaching\n<\/p>\n<p>Re: \u201cRepublicans: Politics and Bible don\u2019t mix \u2014 Talarico\u2019s faith-heavy campaign criticized, but Democrats pushing back,\u201d March 14 news story.<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to candidate James Talarico\u2019s sermons on the purported biblical truths supporting his positions on cultural issues such as late-term abortion, open borders and placing gender ideology above science regarding transgender rights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Maybe he can square his positions on these issues while at the same time defending his opposition to the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>Do you think this Presbyterian seminarian will defend the holy words of Jesus Christ on the campaign stump, or just pick and choose to loosely interpret selected biblical passages to con the biblically illiterate into voting for him?<\/p>\n<p>The holy Bible that I read does not support the positions espoused by Talarico as expressed in this news article. Frankly, I don\u2019t need or want a candidate for the U.S. Senate to preach to me on biblical interpretation. That is what church is for.<\/p>\n<p>John Riggs, Highland Park<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>\nAgrees with editorial on gender care\n<\/p>\n<p>Re: \u201cAMA Chooses Science Over Gender Ideology \u2014 For too long, America\u2019s medical associations ignored contrary evidence,\u201d Feb. 23 editorial.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for this important and timely editorial. As a physician, I have found myself at odds with many in my profession \u2014 knowing that the science was simply not solidly behind gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n<p>Patients with gender dysphoria deserve compassion. Expecting society to change federal and state registration forms, and the public to accept pronoun changes has always seemed unrealistic to me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775038934_972_rawImage.jpg\" alt=\"image\" title=\"#\" class=\"x100\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall c-gray600\">By signing up, you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/terms\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"underlinedButton fw500 tuo1px tdu tuo2px tdc-secondary tdt-px hover:o70 td300\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/privacy\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"underlinedButton fw500 tuo1px tdu tuo2px tdc-secondary tdt-px hover:o70 td300\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Compassionate people \u2014 teachers, physicians, parents and even some politicians \u2014 have been placed in impossible situations because of the insistence of a tiny (1%) of our society that has pushed for trans ideology to become mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>So, again, thank you, The Dallas Morning News, for publishing this important new position of both the American Medical Association and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.<\/p>\n<p>Ellen Taylor Seldin, Dallas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A child care room is seen during an open house at Genesis in south Oak Cliff on March&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28,90649],"class_list":{"0":"post-238358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-texas","9":"tag-texas-headlines","10":"tag-texas-news","11":"tag-tp-letters-to-the-editor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}