Last year’s sequestration had serious implications on everything from government employees to the federal Head Start program, which cut early education services for nearly 60,000 low-income children and saw some programs close entirely.

But as the Center for American Progress points out in a report released today, the child-care subsidy took a massive hit as a result of politicians bickering in Washington. In addition to the $400 million cut from Head Start, $115 million was cut from the Child Care and Development Block Grant. During the shutdown, 19,000 kids were locked out of Head Start programs because of the cuts.

Early childhood education and childcare isn’t as inflammatory a topic as, say, legalizing marijuana, so it doesn’t quite capture the full attention of the news cycle. Yet the problem isn’t just about making sure kids get a proper education. It’s about their parents, too.

“This affects your workforce,” Jennifer Bradley, co-author of The Metropolitan Revolution, told me in October. “If Head Start’s not working, where are kids going while their parents are at work? In some places that has a more direct economic effect.”

Slashing the federal spending also leaves states and cities hamstrung. From the Center for American Progress:

Flexibility in federal child care funding allows states to set their own program requirements, including families’ eligibility, provider reimbursement rates, and health and safety standards. States can even choose to transfer funds from other federal grants into the child care subsidy funding stream, which can mask the impact of funding cuts.

All this was lost because a bunch of elected representatives in ill-fitting suits couldn’t agree on something in Washington.

Bill Bradley is a writer and reporter living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Deadspin, GQ, and Vanity Fair, among others.

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