BEFORE OR AFTER THE PART WHERE ANYTHING FREE IS WORTH LESS THAN YOU PAID FOR IT? Free day care for all: What could go wrong?

New York could lower costs by lowering education requirements for preschool teachers and child-care workers, she writes. Expanding visas for au pairs and nannies would help too, but seems politically unlikely.

Of course, New York City could get a lot more home-based day care centers, which parents prefer for young children, by “scrapping the city’s rent-stabilization regime,” Wolfe writes. Letting market forces work “would free up 28 percent of the total housing stock (and 44 percent of all rentals!).” But don’t hold your breath.

New Mexico’s free child care program launched on Nov. 1, reports Eryn Mathewson for CNN. “Nearly all families, regardless of income or immigration status” are eligible for free home-based or center-based care for children from six weeks old to 13. (I was a free babysitter for my newborn brother was I was 13.)

Sixty-three percent of new enrollees come from middle-class or more affluent families.

The program’s estimated cost is $600 million, and some worry it will not be sustainable.

Much more at the link.