San Diego was apparently the first city to do this, and even then only halfway subsidized. But the trend is now spreading.
Can we muster the political will for universal childcare? No. But what we can do is provide it for our favorite overpaid security-sector occupations.
40% of the city budget is allocated to police, who number only half a percent of the population. In order to scale it up to the whole population, even eliminating the rest of the budget, we would also have to raise taxes by a factor of 16. No, not 16%, 1600%.
We just can’t afford police.