Published in the Omaha World-Herald.

The numbers don’t lie: The cost of living has dramatically increased under the Trump administration's chaotic economic policies that put billionaires and corporations ahead of working families.

Food is more expensive. Health care costs have gone up for most of us. Gas prices are dramatically going up because of the war.

But it’s child care that is the biggest monthly bill for thousands of Nebraska families — and the cost keeps rising.

The child care cost crisis is especially bad in Omaha. According to Lending Tree, Omaha is one of the most expensive locations in the country for average child care costs, as compared to average monthly rent costs.

Lending Tree’s estimate shows that on average the monthly cost of child care for a 4-year-old in Nebraska is $988. The cost is even higher for infants, and a November 2025 Lending Tree study found a family in Omaha with a 4-year-old and infant end up paying more than $30,000 a year on child care.

I’m a dad of four, and both my wife and I have always worked jobs outside our home. When my youngest started kindergarten last year I felt a sigh of relief — over the years we spent somewhere around $300,000 on child care. More than our home, more than my student loans.

It doesn’t have to be this way: A few years back some Democrats in Congress fought for a policy that would cap child care costs at 7% of a middle class family's household income, for families with kids 6 and under.

Republicans opposed this plan, and it never became law. And while in 2024 the Biden administration issued a rule to cap child care costs at 7% of income for households that get child care aid under a certain grant, the support only made it to around 100,000 families nationwide.

While that’s a good start, it wasn’t enough for the millions of families who are struggling to afford child care.

In Congress, I’ll fight for legislation that addresses the full crisis. We should cap child care costs at 7% of your annual income for all middle class families, expand the federal Child Tax Credit to give families thousands of dollars back in their pocket, and make sure child care workers are paid a living wage.

The median household income in Omaha is around $70,000 — so capping child care costs to 7% would make a massive difference in many families' budgets, saving them thousands of dollars a year.

I’ve seen how child care and issues often get put on the backburner by politicians because we tend to elect people who are older and wealthier than the rest of us. But as someone who has recently changed a lot of diapers, these issues are on my mind — in the Legislature, I authored a change in the law to remove the sales tax the state was charging on diapers, proposed expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit which supports families with kids, and am co-sponsoring legislation to make current state subsidies for child care permanent.

That’s the same focus I’ll bring to Congress. While Presdient Donald Trump focuses on his golden ballroom decorations and enriching himself, I’ll be focused on lowering costs for Nebraskans.