Solution: Free Child Care for all Americans Paid for by a 1% Tax on Billionaires.

The Reason: The average American family with two children spends $28,000 a year on child care. Many single parents pay 35% of their pay for child care. In most modern countries, child care is free or close to it.

How it Works: Because of complicated loopholes that reduces what the IRS regards as income, most billionaires pay a lower percentage of their actual income in taxes than school janitors or teachers, who struggle to pay child care costs.

Meanwhile, the assets of America’s 989 billionaires increased by more than 20% last year, to more than $8 trillion. If Congress passed a law to tax these 989 billionaires just 1% of the value of their assets, it would raise $80 billion, which is more than every American family spends on child care each year.

With this simple tax on 989 billionaires, the federal government could pay for free child care for every American, without raising the deficit.

It would be a huge boon to the American economy. Instead of accumulating in the accounts of the world’s richest people, $60 billion currently spent on private child care would be available to millions of Americans. Cash-strapped families would be able to reallocate the funds to spend on things like vacations, home improvement, education, and paying down stressful debt.