    [House Hearing, 117 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                         EXAMINING THE POWERFUL IMPACT
                            OF INVESTMENTS IN EARLY
                            CHILDHOOD FOR CHILDREN,
                       FAMILIES, AND OUR NATION'S ECONOMY

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                            COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 20, 2022

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 117-14

                                   __________

               Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                           Available on the Internet:
                                www.govinfo.gov

                                  __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    48-355                     WASHINGTON : 2022

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                      JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky, Chairman
    HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         JASON SMITH, Missouri,
    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York                Ranking Member
    BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania,      TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
      Vice Chairman                      TOM McCLINTOCK, California
    LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas                 GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
    DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina       LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania
    JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois       CHRIS JACOBS, New York
    DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan           MICHAEL BURGESS, Texas
    JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York          BUDDY CARTER, Georgia
    STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada              BEN CLINE, Virginia
    BARBARA LEE, California              LAUREN BOEBERT, Colorado
    JUDY CHU, California                 BYRON DONALDS, Florida
    STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands   RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
    JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia            BOB GOOD, Virginia
    ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia  ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            JAY OBERNOLTE, California
    JIM COOPER, Tennessee                MIKE CAREY, Ohio
    ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
    SCOTT H. PETERS, California
    SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
    PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington

                               Professional Staff

                         Diana Meredith, Staff Director
                      Mark Roman, Minority Staff Director

                                   CONTENTS

                                                                       Page
    Hearing held in Washington, D.C., July 20, 2022..................     1

        Hon. John A. Yarmuth, Chairman, Committee on the Budget......     1
            Prepared statement of....................................     5
            Report submitted for the record..........................    90
            Letters submitted for the record.........................   147
        Hon. Jason Smith, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget....     8
            Prepared statement of....................................    10
        Hilary Hoynes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy and
          Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities University
          of California Berkeley.....................................    12
            Prepared statement of....................................    15
        Maureen Black, Distinguished Fellow in Early Childhood
          Development, RTI International, Professor, Department of
          Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine......    30
            Prepared statement of....................................    32
        Rasheed Malik, Senior Director, Early Childhood Policy Center
          for American Progress......................................    47
            Prepared statement of....................................    49
        Hon. Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the U.S. House of
          Representatives............................................    55
            Prepared statement of....................................    57
        Questions submitted for the record...........................   207
        Answers submitted for the record.............................   208

                         EXAMINING THE POWERFUL IMPACT
                            OF INVESTMENTS IN EARLY
                            CHILDHOOD FOR CHILDREN,
                       FAMILIES, AND OUR NATION'S ECONOMY

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2022

                               House of Representatives
                                        Committee on the Budget
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in
    Room 210, Cannon Building, Hon. John A. Yarmuth [Chairman of
    the Committee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Yarmuth, Higgins, Horsford, Lee,
    Chu, Plaskett, Scott, Jackson Lee, Moulton; Smith, Moore,
    Grothman, Jacobs, Burgess, Cline, Boebert, Donalds, Feenstra,
    Good, and Carey.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The hearing will come to order. Good
    morning and welcome to the Budget Committee's hearing on
    ``Examining the Powerful Impact of Investments in Early
    Childhood for Children, Families, and our Nation's Economy.''
        At the outset I ask unanimous consent that the Chair be
    authorized to declare a recess at any time.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        Before I begin, I would like to welcome the newest Member
    of the Budget Committee, representing Utah's First District,
    Blake Moore. Blake, I heard you're a father of four, so perhaps
    it is fitting that the first hearing on the Budget Committee is
    about the investments we should make in our nation's children.
    We welcome you and the Committee is happy to have you here.
        Now I will start by going over a few housekeeping matters.
    The Committee is holding a hybrid hearing. Members may
    participate remotely or in person. For individuals
    participating remotely, the Chair or staff designated by the
    chair may mute a participant's microphone when the participant
    is not under recognition for the purpose of eliminating
    inadvertent background noise. If you are participating remotely
    and are experiencing connectivity issues, please contact staff
    immediately so those issues can be resolved.
        Members participating in the hearing room are on the remote
    platform, are responsible for unmuting themselves when they
    seek recognition. We are not permitted to unmute Members unless
    they specifically request assistance.
        If you are participating remotely and I notice that you
    have not unmuted yourself, I will ask if you would like staff
    to unmute you. If you indicate approval by nodding, staff will
    unmute your microphone. They will not unmute your microphone
    under any other conditions.
        I would like to remind Members participating remotely in
    this proceeding to keep your camera on at all times, even if
    you are not under recognition by the chair. Members may not
    participate in more than one committee proceeding
    simultaneously.
        If you are on a remote platform and choose to participate
    in a different proceeding, please turn your camera off.
        Finally, we have established an email inbox for submitting
    documents before and during Committee proceedings, and we have
    distributed that email address to your staff.
        Now I will introduce our witnesses.
        This morning we will be hearing from Dr. Maureen Black, a
    distinguished fellow in early childhood development, RTI
    International, and a professor in the Department of Pediatrics
    at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine.
        Mr. Rasheed Malik, the Senior Director for Early Childhood
    Policy at the Center for American Progress. And the Honorable
    Newt Gingrich, the Former Speaker of the U.S. House of
    Representatives.
        At this time I would like to recognize Ms. Lee to introduce
    our final panel--oh, she is on the phone? Wait a minute. Do you
    want Ms. Lee to recognize and introduce her constituent? She is
    on the phone.
        Well, when she comes back, we will let her introduce Dr.
    Hoynes, who is our fourth witness.
        Once again, I want to welcome all of our witnesses here
    today. Thank you for joining us.
        And I will now yield myself five minutes for an opening
    statement.
        Good morning. I want to welcome our witnesses and thank
    them for appearing before our Committee today. One of our
    witnesses is a notable veteran of this chamber. Speaker
    Gingrich, we are glad to have you back with us.
        This hearing is about the importance of investing in our
    nation's children. It should be a concern to everyone on this
    Committee that while the U.S. is the wealthiest nation in the
    world, we are among the stingiest nations when it comes to
    funding for our children, and it shows. Despite having the
    highest rated education system in the world, U.S. students
    consistently score lower in math and science than students from
    many other countries. It is no coincidence that just as U.S.
    education rankings have decreased by international standards
    over the past three decades, so have our federal investments in
    children. While the American Rescue Plan and recent
    appropriations bills have helped to reverse this troubling
    trend, there is much, much more work to be done.
        Supporting our youngest Americans is one of the most
    concrete ways we can set our nation up for success. We call
    these programs investments because they pay off, literally, for
    children, for their families, for our society, and for our
    economy. For example, participation the Special Supplemental
    Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, more
    commonly known as WIC, leads to fewer premature births, fewer
    infant deaths, and healthier babies. WIC saves lives, but it
    also pays other dividends. For every $1.00 spent on WIC results
    in approximately $2.48 in reduced medical costs and
    productivity gains.
        The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, not
    only provides healthy food to 44 million children, it also
    gives an important boost to local communities during downturns.
    Each SNAP $1.00 generates more than a $1.70 of economic
    activity, supporting jobs and local businesses.
        Tax policies have also proven successful in reducing
    poverty while generating enormous returns for local economies.
    The expanded child tax credit, which Democrats enacted last
    year as part of the American Rescue Plan, and did so without a
    single Republican vote, lifted 3.7 million children out of
    poverty in 2021 alone.
        Another investment that generates enormous returns for kids
    and for our economy is childcare. Study after study has found
    that enrollment in high quality programs improves kids' school
    readiness, college attendance, and health outcomes and reduces
    their likelihood of future criminal activity. Access to
    childcare clearly can have long-lasting positive impacts, but
    it remains far too expensive for far too many American
    families. In fact, the cost of childcare has doubled in the
    past 30 years while real wages have remained nearly flat. This
    puts many parents in the position of having to stay at home to
    care for their children when they would prefer to be working
    and building a stronger economic future for their families. As
    a result, the lack of affordable childcare leads to economic
    losses between $500 million and $3.5 billion in each state
    every year.
        This is an area where we can make an enormous impact for
    American families. We know the problem, we know the solution.
    What we are lacking is the bipartisan support needed to get it
    done.
        This would be a typical problem in a closely divided
    Congress, but this is no longer a typical time in the political
    history of the United States. Everything changed on June 24
    when the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson. Roe v. Wade
    is no longer the law of the land. This is what Republicans have
    long sought and fought tooth and nail for, but now what? They
    celebrated the Dobbs decision, but they want to cut programs
    that help women afford the care needed to have a safe
    pregnancy, birth, and post-partum recovery. If given the
    chance, Republicans would defund Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, and
    other programs that help mothers and children stay healthy and
    keep them from going hungry. They have no plan for our
    childcare crisis that will now undoubtedly get worse.
        Republicans want to cut education funding when schools will
    need more. If every life were truly sacred in this country, we
    wouldn't be having a hearing about programs to keep mothers and
    their children healthy, fed, and cared for, we would be fully
    funding them.
        The thing is we know these policies work, we know how
    critical these investments are for the health of our children,
    the health of our society, and the health of our economy. And
    now we know we will need them even more. Investing in our
    children is the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do,
    and it is the most important investment we can make in the
    future of our country.
        With that, I would like to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr.
    Smith for five minutes for his opening statement.
        [The prepared statement of Chairman Yarmuth follows:]
        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8355.001

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8355.002

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8355.003

        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I would also like to welcome our newest Member, Blake
    Moore, to the Committee. We are excited to have you.
        Democrats and Republicans can both agree a focus on early
    childhood development is very important. But I find it very
    curious that this Committee, which green lit $2 trillion in
    spending last year and sparked the worst inflation in 40 years
    is not using its time to examine the country's current
    situation. America is on the brink of a recession, which would
    do more harm to families than anything else we could be
    discussing.
        Inflation has risen 13.8 percent since Joe Biden took the
    oath of office. That means families are spending more money on
    clothes for their kids and food to feed them. Our economy
    shrank 1.6 percent first quarter of this year and current
    forecasts show that this quarter it shrank again. Twenty-five
    percent of Americans are reportedly postponing their retirement
    because of financial concerns. The average family will spend
    over $5,000 more this year just to make ends meet.
        The labor force participation is also down--and we still
    have over 11 million job openings--due in part to the
    Democrats' decision last year to remove work requirements from
    the child tax credit.
        The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates at the
    fastest rate in 40 years to combat Biden's inflation crisis.
    The rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is now double than what it
    was before Joe Biden took the oath of office.
        The biggest threat to families right now is not a lack of
    government spending. We are in a state of crisis precisely of
    reckless government spending. None of this happened by
    accident. Washington Democrats, they purposely dumped trillions
    into the economy, they paid people not to work, and they
    strangled American fossil fuels. And congressional Democrats
    are bound and determined to make the economic pain and
    suffering even worse. Using reconciliation instructions this
    Committee passed last September, Senate Democrats are
    reviving--they are reviving a ``Build Back Broke'' agenda that
    would spend hundreds of billions more and raise taxes by as
    much as $1 trillion. Raising taxes when the economy is in or
    headed toward a recession is a horrible idea. Janet Yellen,
    Barack Obama, Joe Manchin, and Chuck Schumer have all
    previously said as much. And yet, that is what Democrats are
    trying to do to this country.
        A looming recession brought on by the reckless economic
    policies of this Administration and one-party Democrat rule in
    Washington would be particularly painful for the parents and
    kids this hearing is supposedly focused on.
        Looking at the most recent recession from 2007 to 2009, we
    lost 9 million jobs, 10 million people fell into poverty,
    including 3 million children. We can't just ignore this problem
    and hope that it is going to go away.
        But turning back to the topic of this hearing, let us look
    at what our Democrat colleagues have actually proposed. The
    Congressional Budget Office confirmed the childcare subsidies
    in their Build Back Broke agenda will actually raise cost for
    middle class families. On top of that, the Democrats' plan
    specifically excludes faith-based providers that millions of
    families rely on for care. Under their plan, federal funding
    scales back leaving states on the hook for almost half the cost
    within seven years. Their plan would require states and
    grantees to have childcare and pre-K programs approved by the
    HHS secretary. This is the same Secretary who let teachers
    unions edit CDC guidelines to keep schools shut down last year.
    Meanwhile, the President's Department of Education is
    threatening schools that don't use the right gender pronouns or
    let biological men compete in girls' sports.
        We should be focused on the things that will directly
    affect Americans today--like avoiding tax increases on families
    and small businesses and halting inflationary spending that is
    making it hard for folks to afford the basic necessities needed
    to raise their kids. We need pro-growth policies that put
    families on solid ground, and when it comes to childcare and
    education, we need to keep the decisionmaking local. Stop
    trying to impose a Washington-knows-best approach.
        I yield back.
        [The prepared statement of Jason Smith follows:]
        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8355.004

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8355.005

        Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman.
        I want to thank the witnesses once again for being here.
    The Committee has received your written statements and they
    will be made part of the formal hearing record. You each will
    have five minutes to give your remarks.
        And I would now like to recognize Ms. Lee to introduce our
    first witness.
        Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good
    morning.
        First of all, let me just thank you for this hearing and
    just say how excited I am to welcome one of my constituents
    from Berkeley today, Dr. Hilary Hoynes, who is a professor of
    economics and public policy and the Haas Distinguished Chair in
    Economic Disparities at UC Berkeley, which of course is my alma
    mater. I have to just say, go bears. Thank you so much for
    being here.
        Her research focuses on poverty, inequality, food and
    nutrition programs, the impact of government tax and transfer
    programs on low-income families. Also, let me just say she
    serves on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on
    building an agenda to reduce childhood poverty in half in 10
    years, and on many more important boards and commissions and
    committees.
        And of course I want to thank her for being here today, but
    also thank her for her expertise on these issues, especially on
    reducing child poverty in half in 10 years.
        Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Ms. Lee.
        I now recognize Dr. Hoynes. You may unmute your microphone
    and begin when you are ready. You have five minutes.

    STATEMENTS OF HILARY HOYNES, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC
      POLICY AND HAAS DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN ECONOMIC DISPARITIES
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY; MAUREEN BLACK, DISTINGUISHED
       FELLOW IN EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT, RTI INTERNATIONAL,
      PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
       SCHOOL OF MEDICINE; RASHEED MALIK, SENIOR DIRECTOR, EARLY
       CHILDHOOD POLICY CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS; HON. NEWT
     GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                       STATEMENT OF HILARY HOYNES

        Dr. Hoynes. Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member Smith, and
    Members of the Committee, thank you so much for the opportunity
    to appear before you today at this hearing on investments in
    early childhood.
        My name is Hilary Hoynes. I am a professor of economics and
    public policy at the University of California Berkeley where I
    also hold the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities.
        My testimony today summarizes evidence that the social
    safety net for children generates widespread benefits over the
    longer-term, both to children and their families and to
    taxpayers and the broader economy.
        In 2019, after a robust economic recovery, 9 million
    American children remained poor. The risk of child poverty is
    not equal across the population. Black and Hispanic children
    are more likely to be poor than white children. Children living
    with one or no biological parent and children living with less
    educated parents have higher poverty rates.
        The costs of child poverty extend beyond families to the
    broader economy. This occurs because child poverty leads to
    lower education levels and worse health and therefore less tax
    revenue and more spending in the future. The National Academies
    report, ``Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty'', to which I
    contributed, concluded that the cost of child poverty ranged
    from $800 billion to $1.1 trillion each year.
        The current social safety net, however, does reduce child
    poverty. The earned income tax credit, or EITC, and the child
    tax credit reduce child poverty by 5.9 percentage points. The
    Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, reduces
    poverty by 5.2 percentage points. Cash welfare raises few
    children out of poverty.
        Furthermore, and importantly, recent social science
    research documents that safety net spending on children leads
    to improvements in economic and health outcomes in adulthood.
    My research shows that SNAP improves long run outcomes. Access
    to SNAP during pregnancy leads to healthier births. Access to
    SNAP during childhood leads to better adult health, increases
    in education, earnings, neighborhood quality, and home
    ownership, and decreases in poverty, mortality, and
    incarceration. Other safety net programs show similar results.
        Access to the EITC during pregnancy leads to healthier
    births. Access to the EITC during childhood leads to improved
    performance in school, increases in education, employment, and
    earnings, and for women, less engagement with the criminal
    justice system. Access to Medicaid for pregnant women and
    children leads to improved health outcomes, better performance
    in school, and increases in educational attainment and earnings
    in adulthood.
        Overall, the research establishes that additional resources
    for low-income children generate improvements across a wide
    range of adult outcomes.
        These findings can be used to quantify the benefits
    relative to the cost of these policies. The costs include the
    benefit payments themselves and administrative costs, as well
    as indirect costs coming from changes in employment that result
    from delivering the benefits and the taxes to fund them.
    Combining these costs and benefits yield large rates of return
    across these programs. For SNAP, providing benefits to children
    yields $56 of benefits to families for every $1 of net cost.
    For the earned income tax credit, taking into account the long
    run benefits, the program fully pays for itself in the long
    run. Medicaid for pregnant women and infants fully pays for
    itself in the long run. Taking into account the long run
    benefits, the 2021 expansion of the child tax credit is
    estimated to reduce the net cost to taxpayers to $0.16 for
    every $1 of new benefits.
        So these results show that spending more now means spending
    less later. Higher adult earnings mean higher future tax
    revenue. Improved health and reductions in criminal activity
    mean lower future government spending.
        It is important to point out, however, that costs are easy
    to quantify and are incurred early at the time of program
    delivery. Benefits on the other hand take time to emerge. This
    is particularly problematic because the CBO scores policy
    proposals over a 10-year window. This disregards long-term
    benefits and can lead to short-term thinking, ignoring the
    investment aspect of these programs.
        In sum, the social safety net for families with children
    represents investments in the human capital of children, not
    simply transfers to adults. The returns to these investments,
    like that in infrastructure, require spending up front, but
    yield important benefits in the future.
        Thank you. And I look forward to the conversation.
        [The prepared statement of Hilary Hoynes follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Dr. Hoynes, for that
    testimony.
        I now recognize Dr. Black for five minutes. Unmute your
    microphone and proceed.

                       STATEMENT OF MAUREEN BLACK

        Dr. Black. Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member Smith, and
    Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to meet
    with you today to discuss the powerful impact of investment in
    early childhood.
        My name is Maureen Black. I am a Distinguished Fellow at
    RTI International and a professor in pediatrics at the
    University of Maryland in Baltimore. For over 25 years I have
    been a licensed child psychologist and I have directed an
    interdisciplinary clinic for young children with growth and/or
    feeding problems. I have also served on advisory boards for
    Maryland WIC, Maryland Hunger Solutions, and Children's Health
    Watch, a non-partisan network of healthcare providers committed
    to improving children's health.
        My testimony addresses the conditions necessary for young
    children to thrive, which is foundational to the health,
    productivity, and well-being of adults and society, and in
    particular, how WIC has contributed to children thriving.
        My testimony is based on my clinical experiences, as well
    as research that I have conducted or reviewed.
        In 2020 WIC served about 6.2 million participants per
    month, or almost half of all infants born in the U.S. I have
    submitted a complete testimony for the record. I will summarize
    six points that highlight WIC's contribution to equity and to
    American children thriving.
        First, WIC is based on the science of early childhood and
    is tightly focused on the most critical period of human
    development, the first five years. Basic brain development
    during this period is rapid with specific nutritional
    requirements, such as breast milk. Adversities during this
    period can have long-term negative effects on adult health,
    including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other
    noncommunicable diseases. Interventions during this period
    provide the greatest potential for children to thrive. By
    ensuring that children have nutritious food and responsive
    care-giving, WIC helps children build healthy habits that last
    throughout life.
        Second, WIC promotes equity with a positive impact on the
    health and development of children in low-income families.
        Third, as the Chairman has noted, the economic evaluations
    find that every $1 spent per WIC participant saves $2.48 in
    medical costs.
        Fourth, WIC brings resources into communities through
    retailers and the WIC farmer's market nutrition program.
        Fifth, WIC is dynamic in responding to external stressors,
    such as children's excess weight gain, the COVID-19 pandemic,
    and the recent infant formula shortage.
        Finally, WIC works. Expectant WIC participating mothers
    have healthy babies with reductions in pre-term birth and low
    birth weight and increases in breast feeding. For children WIC
    promotes responsive care-giving and healthy dietary patterns
    that are associated with reduction in obesity and benefits in
    school performance.
        Based on these six points, WIC is a cost-effective public
    health program that improves the human condition by ensuring
    that infants are born healthy and that young children thrive
    and contribute to the large society as they become healthy,
    well adjusted, productive adults.
        Looking forward, WIC is well positioned to implement system
    level changes, including expanding access to WIC's services and
    leveraging data sharing with healthcare providers that will
    reduce barriers and better serve existing and future WIC
    participants.
        These innovations will enable WIC to continue to
    effectively utilize taxpayer dollars and ensure that all
    American children can thrive.
        I thank the Committee and the Congress for making these
    life changing investments in women, infants, and children of
    our nation.
        I look forward to answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Maureen Black follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Dr. Black.
        I now recognize Mr. Malik for five minutes. Unmute please
    and proceed when you are ready.

                       STATEMENT OF RASHEED MALIK

        Mr. Malik. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member
    Smith, and Members of the Committee. I would like to also thank
    you for the opportunity to speak here today.
        My name is Rasheed Malik and I am the Senior Director of
    Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress.
        I would like to start with a quote from Nelson Mandela, who
    once said ``Our children are the rock on which our future will
    be built, our greatest asset as a nation. They will be leaders
    of our country, the creators of our national wealth, those who
    care for and protect our people.'' Now, I don't believe that
    anyone here would disagree with this statement. In fact, I have
    heard countless variations on it from law makers on both side
    of the aisle.
        A genuine concern for the healthy development and education
    of our children is one of our clearest shared values as a
    society and it is great to see this reflected by our
    representatives in government. But when it comes to making
    commitments in the federal budget toward evidence based early
    childhood policies, we have fallen short as a nation. The
    United States invests a smaller percentage of our GDP in
    childcare and early education than almost every other developed
    economy in the world.
        While the benefits from high quality childcare have been
    studied for years by economists and other social scientists,
    little public funding has followed. In many places, a year of
    childcare costs more than a year of college tuition, and that
    is if you can find an opening for your child. Across the
    country, waitlists for childcare are longer than ever. And the
    global pandemic has worsened the childcare crisis. Let me be
    clear, one in ten early educators have still not returned to
    the field and turnover is at an all-time high. The numbers just
    don't work for childcare businesses. They can't pay their
    teachers any less and they can't charge parents any more. This
    funding gap is begging for a public investment so that supply
    can meet demand. Without it we will continue to have educator
    shortages, diminished maternal labor force attachment, and ever
    widening inequality of child outcomes.
        The silver lining in all this is that these conditions
    present us with a historic opportunity to dramatically improve
    conditions for children, their families, and early childhood
    educators. When we put public dollars behind early childhood
    programs, we are investing in long-term cost savers that help
    pay for themselves in the form of higher tax revenues and
    increased productivity.
        Investments in the childcare sector both create jobs and
    enable job growth in other sectors of the economy. It is why
    now more than ever business leaders are pointing to childcare
    as key to hiring and retaining working mothers.
        Now, recently Harvard University economist, Nathaniel
    Hendren and his colleague, Ben Sprung-Keyser, undertook a
    comparative analysis of more than 130 public policy
    interventions, all conducted over the last 50 years in the
    United States. And the question they sought to answer was
    deceptively simple, which policies improve social well-being
    the most. By looking at the benefits of each policy toward its
    intended audience, as well as the policy's net cost, these
    scholars have published a groundbreaking study that answers
    that very question. The metric they have developed to compare
    various policies is called ``marginal value of public funds.''
    It is just the kind of thing that responsible policymakers have
    been asking for. And what policies improve social well-being
    the most? What is the best use of public funds? Direct
    investments in the health and well-being of low-income
    children.
        According to their math, several of the early childhood
    policies they looked at had the highest possible score, meaning
    that the policy didn't even have a net cost to the government.
    Put another way, on top of the benefits received by the
    children that were targeted, these programs literally paid for
    themselves through increased tax revenue and reduced transfer
    payments.
        Now, as Dr. Hoynes has written about extensively, the body
    of policy research has historically been focused on short run
    benefits. This has discounted and shortchanged children, their
    families, and those who care for and educate our youngest
    babies and children. The work of educating and caring for young
    children has been systematically undervalued for far too long
    because of this bias in our analytical framework. This
    Committee is taking an important first step today by
    acknowledging these historical misconceptions and in the future
    I hope that Congress will move away from shortsighted policy
    concerns.
        President Biden likes to say don't tell me what you value,
    show me your budget and I will tell you what you value. And for
    a long time in this country, there has been a significant
    divergence between our stated values and our public budgets. It
    is my hope that this hearing can be a step in the direction of
    reconciling that imbalance.
        Thank you again for inviting me to this hearing and I look
    forward to answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Rasheed Malik follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Malik, for your testimony.
        I now have an honor of introducing Former Speaker of the
    House, Newt Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich, you have five minutes.
    Begin when you are ready.

                       STATEMENT OF NEWT GINGRICH

        Mr. Gingrich. Chairman Yarmuth and Ranking Member Smith and
    Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to speak
    with you. I am honored to return even virtually to the People's
    House.
        This Committee is dealing with some of the most important
    issues facing our country and it has the great opportunity to
    begin restoring an America that works for all Americans. Your
    topic today, however, raises two questions. One, does more
    spending in a period of rampant inflation actually make the
    inflation worse and cost more to the American families you are
    trying to help. And, two, is government an effective delivery
    system.
        You know, it is a great irony to have the government, which
    has been the largest single abuser of children over the last
    two years, suggest that Americans should trust the government
    to improve their children's lives and futures. The government
    led efforts to isolate and mistreat children in response to
    COVID-19 to trap them in schools that don't teach, and to
    eliminate the culture of work, productivity, and hope for a
    better future, have contributed to widespread psychological and
    academic trauma to the children that we have never really seen
    before. The government's failure to deal with mental health
    issues in a serious way that prioritizes patient and community
    welfare has led to a record number of people who are homeless.
    The government's failure to stop the illegal drug trade and
    explosion of overdoses and deaths and suicides has led to more
    American deaths than the last several wars combined. It has
    also been the largest single destructive force undermining and
    weakening children in American history.
        But there are several things your Committee could be doing
    to repair some of the damage. As President Ronald Reagan said,
    the greatest social program is a job. Work is good for the
    family, it is good for income, and it is good for teaching
    young people that when they grow up they should expect to work.
        Second, we balanced the federal budget for four straight
    years through a bipartisan effort. And the fact is that the
    Clinton-Gingrich budgets worked, they reduced the inflation
    rate, they reduced the tax rate, they created jobs, because we
    cared about America's future enough to make tough choices now.
        Third, given the current rate of inflation, the idea we
    ought to pile more money into the system is an almost suicidal
    act of hubris.
        Fourth, when we passed welfare reform it was principled,
    work-oriented, a system wide overhaul, and it worked. It worked
    because people went to work. Because Americans were going to
    work, we saw the largest single reduction of childhood poverty
    in American history. And the reforms were bipartisan. Perhaps
    most importantly, the ideas and work that led to successful
    welfare reform didn't come solely out of Washington, DC, we
    reached out to Governors and state officials who actually ran
    the welfare programs. They told us what needed to be fixed and
    what needed to be completely reworked, we didn't tell them.
    This of course drove the Washington, DC. staff members crazy,
    but it worked. We needed to hear from the people who actually
    worked in these programs on a day-to-day basis to understand
    how the system needed to change.
        The greatest problem Washington has today is its inability
    to learn what works and what fails in the real world. This city
    has a passion for skipping over reality and focusing on
    ideology. And we are seeing it happen today as we grapple with
    high inflation and stumble toward a recession. We don't have to
    reinvent the world of Jimmy Carter, we know what works. What
    works is balancing the budget, what works is having a maximum
    number of able-bodied Americans going to work. We should be
    connecting all government aid to work, except for the most
    severely challenged. Further, given advances in technology and
    communication, we should reassess and update what able bodied
    means.
        What works is cutting out corruption and incompetence.
    Consider the $20 billion stolen from the California
    unemployment fund. Some estimates suggest that nearly half of
    all pandemic aid was stolen. Simply having the committee figure
    out how to eliminate the theft would give you more than enough
    money for virtually every program you favor.
        What works is having strong families who have enough take
    home pay to make their own decisions about how their children
    are educated and who is taking care of them. Just as we need
    education freedom, which Former Secretary Betsy DeVos is
    championing, we need childcare freedom.
        Let me say in closing, I don't believe a unionized,
    bureaucratic, anti-religious, one size fits all government
    system is the answer to the future. I think what we need is to
    liberate the American people, to increase their take home pay,
    to have an economy that is working, to control inflation so
    people can afford to do things, and to maximize the range of
    choices people have, whether it is relatives taking care of
    children, communities taking care of children, religious
    organizations taking care of children, or professional
    institutions taking care of children. What we don't need is a
    government dominated, Washington centered system of once again
    trying to impose big government socialism on the whole country,
    this time in the name of taking over our children.
        Thank you very much for letting me comment.
        [The prepared statement of Newt Gingrich follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Speaker Gingrich, for your
    testimony.
        We will now begin our question and answer session. As a
    reminder, Members may submit written questions to be answered
    later in writing. Those questions and responses will be made
    part of the formal hearing record. Any Members who wish to
    submit questions for the record may do so by sending them
    electronically to the email inbox we have established within
    seven days of the hearing.
        I will defer my questioning to the end, as is my habit, and
    I will now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Higgins,
    for five minutes.
        Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
    panelists for being here.
        First of all, let me say that, you know, infants had
    nothing to do with the rate of inflation in America today.
    Every advanced economy shows that with the expansion of its
    population economies are stronger and more stable, creating
    more opportunities for people.
        What is true in America today is that 10,000 kids are born
    every single day. That is 3,650,000 kids each year. Sadly,
    22,000 infants die from birth to age one in America each year.
    America ranks 33--33 out of 36 advanced economies in infant
    deaths. Where is the pro-life outrage? Where is the pro-life
    outrage? Maternal morality, pregnancy related to death, death
    of a woman during pregnancy or within one year of the end of
    that pregnancy, the United States is the only industrialized
    nation in the word where maternal mortality, maternal deaths,
    maternal morbidity is rising, not declining. The United States
    has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
    Each year 900 American women die during pregnancy, from the
    child being born to one year, attributed to complications from.
    Where is the pro-life outrage in the face of these statistics?
        States with the strongest anti-abortion laws have the
    highest--highest maternal and infant mortality rates. The
    strictest abortion law, the highest the mom and infant deaths.
    Where is the pro-life outrage?
        Louisiana has the highest maternal deaths in America during
    pregnancy. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma,
    Indiana, Ohio are among the top ten states with the most
    restrictive reproductive policies in America and are among the
    highest in terms of infant and maternal morbidity. Where is the
    pro-life outrage?
        Dr. Black, can you answer the question, where is the pro-
    life outrage in the face of these statistics that are
    verifiable empirically by reliable sources, as it relates
    infant and maternal morbidity in America?
        Dr. Black. Thank you, representative, for your question.
        What I would say is that we know that programs such as WIC
    are very effective in reducing pre-term births, in reducing low
    birth weight, and ensuring that mothers and infants are healthy
    at delivery, and also in reducing infant mortality. So having
    the services that WIC provides--and they provide nutrition
    services, which are targeted toward women during pregnancy and
    toward infants early in life--enable infants to develop well
    and prevent the catastrophes that you have described, which are
    clearly an American tragedy.
        So what we would like is increased availability of WIC to
    ensure that the women and infants who are eligible for WIC, and
    those are low-income families throughout our country, to ensure
    that those who are eligible have access to services.
        The other thing that WIC provides is not just food, but
    they also provide counseling. So they provide education. It is
    very complicated what are the proper foods during the times of
    pregnancy and very, very early in infancy. And so WIC helps
    families build healthy habits, the kinds of habits that they
    help families build remain with children throughout life. And
    so they are habit not only what food to eat, but how to eat,
    when to eat, so we don't eat in terms of stress, but we eat to
    keep us healthy.
        They also provide referrals so that when--related to lead
    or iron deficiency, they provide referrals.
        So thank you very much.
        Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Dr. Black.
        I will yield back.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Now I will yield 10 minutes to the Ranking Member, Mr.
    Smith.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        These questions are for Speaker Gingrich.
        Inflation is up 13.8 percent since Biden took office, real
    wages are down 5.1 percent, the economy shrank by 1.6 percent
    last quarter, and economists are predicting a recession. The
    Federal Reserve has raised interest rates at the fastest pace
    in 40 years to combat Biden's inflation crisis. The rate on a
    30-year mortgage has doubled since Biden became President and
    we expect the Fed will raise rates again at the end of this
    month.
        How is the current economy and Democrats' failure to
    address affecting American families?
        Mr. Gingrich. You know, thank you, first of all, both for
    the invitation to be here and for that very important question.
        I think the thing which most surprises me--and as all of
    you know I have been around a long time and have been involved
    in this process of self-government going back to the 1970's--
    and as a Georgian I had watched Jimmy Carter as Governor and
    then I worked with him when he was President and I finally
    became a Congressman--what amazes me is the inability of some
    people, mostly on the left, to learn any lessons of history.
    Now, maybe that is because I am a historian. But we know what
    causes inflation. Inflation is too much paper money chasing too
    few goods and services. We have been down this road before. The
    Carter years were a nightmare.
        We also know, by the way, what that does to families, what
    it does to children. It is one of the most deadly things that
    can happen, because when the Federal Reserve tries to stop
    inflation using a demand side approach, which is punishing
    people by cutting demand, you end up in a recession. So now you
    have families who don't have a job, are using up all their
    savings--and as one woman said, she couldn't afford to pay for
    the gasoline to go to the four or five stores to find the
    infant formula. Now, that is sort of a multiple whammy and I
    think your point is exactly right. The Budget Committee should
    be looking at how to control spending, it should be looking at
    how to get--the level of corruption in federal government
    spending is so breathtaking that it would fund every single
    dream that the left has if they just could rid of the
    corruption. And yet there are no serious efforts to do that.
        At the same time, you have to set priorities. When we
    worked with President Clinton, and it was bipartisan effort, he
    and I met I think for 35 days hammering out a real balanced
    budget. The only four real balanced budgets in your lifetime.
    We understood we had to make tough choices. But here is a
    simple formula, you either force the American family to make
    tough choices because their politicians don't have the guts to
    solve problems, or you make the government have tough choices
    to liberate the American family.
        I think you are exactly on target. I can't imagine a dumber
    moment to increase federal spending than in the middle of an
    inflationary crisis.
        Mr. Smith. Mr. Speaker, to follow on that, the Build Back
    Better bill that sits over in the Senate right now was green
    lit by Democrats on this Committee. It spent over $5 trillion
    and would have increased taxes by $1.5 trillion and it would
    have added $3 trillion to the debt. And while the Democrats
    continue to try and bring this bill back from the dead, where
    would the country and the economy be right now had Democrats
    succeeded in enacting that additional level of $5 trillion in
    spending.
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, let me go back to this idea that it is
    so hard to get some people to learn anything. We were at 1.4
    percent inflation at the end of the Trump Administration. We
    were at a dramatically lower price of gas, and in fact a lower
    price than President Obama had said that was possible, we were
    energy independent. These things were not accidents. We were
    also locking up criminals and we were controlling the Southern
    Border. None of these things were accidents.
        So to your point, I have always said that ``build back
    poorer'' would be a much more accurate title for that bill,
    because what it is going to do is it is going to lower the net
    take home pay of individuals.
        And, by the way, one of the groups--this is a hearing about
    children, but one of the groups that is really being hammered
    by inflation are senior citizens. If you are on a fixed income
    and you are going to get say a 4 or 5 percent cost of living
    increase, but the real cost of living, as you pointed out, has
    gone up over 13 percent while Biden was president, you are
    losing ground if you are also in the middle of a declining
    stock market, you are watching your 401K shrink at the very
    time that you need because you can't afford the inflation. In a
    lot of cases, people can't afford to buy the necessities.
        And I think we really undervalue how big a threat inflation
    is to every single working American and every retired American.
    And that is one of the things that your Committee should be
    really heavily focused on.
        Mr. Smith. You know, during your speakership, Congress
    enacted welfare reforms that encouraged adults receiving
    assistance to seek or find gainful employment. Similarly, the
    1997 Taxpayer Relief Act established a child tax credit. In the
    American Rescue Plan Act Democrats dismantled the child tax
    credit, they removed work requirements, and turned the credit
    into a monthly stipend. As a consequence, the labor force
    recovered just 1.6 million workers in 2021. After the Democrat
    child tax credit plan went away, 1.7 million Americans returned
    to the labor force in just the first two months--just the first
    two months of 2022.
        What does the success of efforts you helped initiate, as
    well as the fallout from policies our Democrat colleagues
    initiated, tell us about what sort of policies are and are not
    successful in helping families? And why when enacting these
    sorts of family supports did you tie them to income and work?
        Mr. Gingrich. You know, Art Laffer, the great economist who
    helped develop supply side economics, always said you get more
    of what you pay for and you get less of what you tax. So if you
    really want to give people money to do nothing, a lot of people
    will learn to do nothing. If you really want to tax people
    because they go to work, a lot of people will learn not to go
    to work.
        Again, these are simple lessons of historical fact. It is a
    fact that if you have--and I think you should go through the
    entire federal program and every place where somebody gets
    money, they should work for it. There is no reason why people
    who are able bodied should be indolent and should be handed a
    check to do nothing or given food stamps to do nothing. And I
    think it is very important to reestablish a work ethic.
        When we worked on the welfare reform bill, and again it was
    a bipartisan program, President Clinton signed it. And I think
    people forget that the Clinton-Gingrich reforms, every single
    one of them, was bipartisan. It had to be. He had a Republican
    Congress, a Democratic President. And when we worked on it, we
    were very close to the Governors, particularly Governor
    Thompson in Wisconsin and Governor Engler in Michigan, and
    Governor Allen in Virginia. They had been experimenting on
    limited approvals with getting people to go back to work. And
    what we did was we looked at a firm America Works, which is a
    remarkable firm in New York City, actually created by Mario
    Cuomo when he was Governor. And America Works had a program of
    helping hardcore unemployed learn the basics, how to get up in
    the morning, how do you get dressed, how do you get to the bus
    stop--all these things that people don't automatically know.
    Well, we took the lessons of America Works and we applied it
    to--every welfare office in America became an employment office
    and people followed the incentives. You would have a shocking
    improvement in the economy and a shocking improvement in small
    businesses almost overnight by simply requiring that people had
    to work to get resources from the federal government--almost
    instantaneous turnaround.
        Mr. Smith. Mr. Speaker, our Democrat colleagues, they argue
    their child tax credit plan cut child poverty in half. Yet
    researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of
    Notre Dame have determined that child poverty in fact declined
    by just 9 percent from its peak but--in October 2021 to
    December 2021. Further the average child poverty rate since the
    expiration of the monthly child tax credit payments is lower
    than the average child poverty rate while the monthly payments
    were in place.
        So, based on your time and work on welfare reform, what do
    you think is the best way for government to address child
    poverty?
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, I think first of all, to re-bond the
    family, to help the mother and father get jobs, to take out all
    of the anti-family provisions that are in welfare, and to take
    out the anti-work provisions. The key is to find a way for
    people to rise so they never go off a cliff of losing so many
    government subsidies that it is now worth their while to go to
    work. If you do that--I will just close with this, the reason
    it matters to get people to go to work is in the long run. You
    know, every child can learn that work is legitimate, it is
    authentic, and it is a key part of their life if they are going
    to rise into a better future.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lee,
    for five minutes.
        Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        First of all, let me take a moment of personal privilege
    and to say to Speaker Gingrich, I don't know if you remember,
    but you swore me in 1998. My predecessor was Ron Dellums and
    you and Ron were very close friends, even though he totally
    disagreed with you on every issue, including welfare reform.
    But it is good to see you and thank you for being here.
        A couple of questions I would like to ask yourself and Dr.
    Hoynes.
        You know, I lived in Great Britain for two years. I lived
    in London--well, I lived outside of London but my son was born
    in London and what I learned then--and this was in the day--was
    that there was much more support for children and families than
    in the United States in Great Britain. Even myself as someone
    who was not a citizen of Great Britain, I found it more
    supportive of myself and my family. So some other countries,
    especially in Europe, have more comprehensive policies that
    support children from birth through early life.
        What do we see in terms of the differences between the
    United States and countries with those kinds of systems in
    terms of long-term economic outcome? And are there any policies
    that--I will use Great Britain for example, but any country in
    Europe that are more pro-life than ours?
        Dr. Hoynes, maybe I will ask you first and then Speaker
    Gingrich.
        Dr. Hoynes. Thank you very much, Representative Lee, for
    that question.
        So if you would look at my testimony that I submitted in
    advance of the hearing, you will see some data to kind of
    illustrate the point that you make and to show the United
    Kingdom compared to the United States and also more broadly
    across many dozens of advanced economies. And what you see from
    that data is that the United States, as a share of GDP, spends
    a very small amount on benefits for families with children. I
    think there is one or two countries that spend less than we do
    in this comparison of advanced economies.
        And what you also see is that we have kind of perpetually a
    much higher rate of child poverty. And interestingly, though
    not part of your question, this not true across the board in
    terms of spending in all categories in the United States. If
    you look at spending on elders, for example, the United States
    is kind of on par with other industrialized countries. And, in
    fact, in some cases spends quite a bit more as a share of GDP,
    mostly because of our very high health expenditures.
        So we spend less and we get less. We have higher poverty
    rates and child poverty rates in particular. And the research
    that I summarized shows that that has profound implications on
    the trajectory of that generation of children.
        And so what we see is greater rates of poverty and greater
    rates of inequality more generally in our society because of
    spending less, particularly focused on children, and even more
    particularly on children before school years is where we are
    really an outlier in terms of less investment in the face of
    very high rates of return on that investment that we have seen
    in many studies.
        Ms. Lee. Thank you.
        Speaker Gingrich, of course the pro-life policies that I
    have experienced in England versus here in the United States.
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, look, I think the British coming out of
    World War II, did a pretty decent job of organizing entry level
    healthcare. And, you know, for example, I favor community
    health centers, I favor enabling doctors who are willing to
    provide all sorts of services voluntarily. There are a number
    of voluntary clinics around the country that do a good job.
    What the British couldn't do was manage both that entry level
    and then manage the more sophisticated and more difficult so
    that, for example, women who have breast cancer have a much
    worse future in Britain than they do in the United States.
        But I do think there are things you can learn. One of the
    challenges is cultural. How do we get everybody--if you make it
    available, how do we get people to take advantage of it? And
    there was a center in Memphis that was totally free but
    couldn't get people to come to it. They didn't fit who they
    were and how they operated for what they wanted to do.
        So part of this is understanding we have a very deep
    challenge in America with cultures of poverty which is now
    compounded because they are also become cultures of drug use
    and cultures of suicide. I mean I think it is a huge problem
    for this country.
        Ms. Lee. As well as racism and racial inequities.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I might have a second question
    when we finish.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
        I now welcome our newest Member, Mr. Moore, and recognize
    him for five minutes.
        Mr. Moore. Thank you, chair, and ranking member for the
    very warm welcome. I appreciate that. I am thrilled to be here
    for my first Budget Committee meeting.
        And, as mentioned too, I am the father of four boys, nine
    and under. So my wife and I are very much in the thick of early
    childhood development.
        And I want to give an example to try to put a little bit of
    context to what we are talking about today. While I would never
    admit to which one is my favorite, especially on the
    congressional record, we have put an enormous amount of extra
    special attention on Winnie. Winnie is a 6-year old with autism
    spectrum disorder. And he just finished his first year of
    kindergarten at a traditional kindergarten where he was allowed
    to have an aid come in and help. And we have been giving him
    gobs and gobs of resources from the very start when we
    recognized that there was going to be a developmental delay.
    And I come from one of the most conservative states in the
    nation. I come from the state with the strongest economy, and I
    come from the state that gets criticized for what are they
    doing, not spending enough on education and early childhood. We
    have been so fortunate to take advantage of many programs that
    my state, my very conservative state, does have a part of. And
    I laud and I am very appreciative of our state legislature for
    always being able to balance where we would--you know, how we
    handle this. I look at the success that we have had, and we are
    very excited about the future holds for Winnie.
        But the point that I am trying to make, and I want to do it
    in the most sincere way possible, is that there are times where
    we need flexible spending our family finances to be able to go
    and address issues that come up. And my siblings, none of them
    have this issue, none of them has a child that had these
    particular types of needs. They had other issues. We have to
    have flexible spending and an opportunity--when you want to
    call it disposable income, whatever you want to call it, we
    need to be able to have that in our individual families.
        So we empower families. I love what Speaker Gingrich said
    about empowering families over empowering government. And that
    is the part that I am most frustrated with. I voted against the
    $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan because for that exact
    reason, is I don't believe that it empowers families and it
    empowers us to be able to make decisions.
        And as I look at what the outcomes have come in the last 18
    months where we have seen record inflation and decreasing real
    wages, that will limit the family's ability to address some of
    these issues. And, again--and I am admitting that there are
    many programs that my very conservative state has put in place
    that have helped. And I have been a part of it. But there is a
    balance here and we cannot allow our economy to get to a point
    where we are having runaway inflation that will limit
    individual families being able to go and address this issue.
        Speaker Gingrich, you have already talked about how family
    finances, federal deficit spending, and everything can be a
    problem. There are two other things that I wanted to get a
    chance to ask you about. And that is the work requirements in
    welfare programs and then the budget process in Congress. And I
    just wanted to give the time to you for the next couple of
    minutes. Do you have any thoughts--I am a big fan of what you
    accomplished when you were--in the 1990's and what you were
    able to do in a bipartisan way. I have put together a task
    force that provides some of these recommendations. Would you
    offer any other ideas to this group on fixing our budget
    process and/or addressing how important is the work requirement
    into welfare programs?
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, first of all, let me thank you for your
    very personal testimony, which I found very moving. And I think
    it is important that people realize that we are not just
    talking about abstract public policy, but we are talking about
    real families and real children and real situations. And I
    think you helped with that comment.
        I will just stay two quick things in the time that we have
    available. One, and this will shock some of you, but I actually
    agree with the approach of listen, learn, help, and lead. If I
    could get any one thing across the Congress--because remember,
    every single reform that we passed in 4 years had to be signed
    by Bill Clinton. We had to be bipartisan. And every single
    reform Bill Clinton was going to get to sign had to be passed
    by a Republican Congress. So we had a vested interest in
    listening to each other. And I would start there. There is more
    than enough ground I think for people to find an opportunity to
    be positive in creating in way that is good for America.
        Second, I really do believe--and I can't say this too
    strongly--you need to look at balancing the federal budget as a
    big project, not a series of little projects. The corruption
    opportunity is so staggering, there is so much out there. And
    that money could all be either going back to the taxpayer as a
    tax cut or it could be going to new programs or there could be
    some way to divide it. But the fact that the Congress doesn't
    take seriously the theft--literally theft of billions and
    billions of dollars I think is a major lost opportunity, both
    in funding programs that matter and in getting back toward a
    balanced budget.
        Thank you for your question.
        Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chair.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, for
    five minutes.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And appreciate the
    opportunity to participate.
        I just want to make one quick comment about the problem of
    inflation. This is a global problem. They expect--if you look
    at the Euro Zone, they have worse inflation than we do. They
    expect 11 percent inflation in Great Britain by October. There
    is nothing we did here in America to create global inflation.
    It exists and we have to deal with it.
        What we are doing is a three-prong approach. One, putting
    money into people's pockets so that they can pay the higher
    prices. We did that with the Rescue Plan with the stimulus
    checks, earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, and
    others. We are improving the supply chain to get more goods to
    the shelves to make sure they are not stuck out in the Long
    Beach Harbor. We have made investments to Hampton Roads Harbor.
    Hampton Roads ports have gotten funds from the infrastructure
    bill. And we are putting more people to work in training them,
    childcare, job training to make sure that we can more
    productive. We are dealing with inflation.
        My fear is that if we do some of the things that are
    suggested to squeeze the American economy with much higher
    interest rates, we may put us into a recession and still not do
    anything about the global inflation.
        Dr. Black, you mentioned that WIC was based on science. You
    know, you suggest that like there was some other way to make
    decisions on WIC. Can you just make a quick comment about why
    science is important and not slogans and sound bites?
        Dr. Black. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you,
    representative, I appreciate your question.
        Yes, WIC is very clearly based on science. It is based on
    the science that we know that during their pregnancy women need
    to have healthy food and they need to have their healthcare
    looked after. And the benefit of that is not only to the women,
    but it is to the infant. And we know that infants who are born
    healthy, who are born at term, who are born at an appropriate
    birth weight have the best chance to not only live during the
    first year of life, but they have the best chance to prosper
    and live throughout life. So WIC is----
        Mr. Scott. And these benefits are not just healthcare costs
    but also education and other measurable outcomes?
        Dr. Black. Thank you. Absolutely. They are comprehensive.
    So they benefit children's education and actually followed
    through you can find benefits that prevent non communicable
    diseases, as WIC helps children build healthy habits. So the
    healthy habits include dietary habits and, for those who go to
    early childcare, they are also physical activity habits. The
    habits that we build very early in life stay with us and that
    is why WIC is laser focused on those very early years.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        Mr. Malik, one of the problems with some of these good cost
    effective programs is that the costs are paid by one agency,
    like a city doing a city jobs program, and the benefits accrue
    to other agencies, like a state department of corrections, in
    lower costs. Do you have a way of dealing with that?
        Mr. Malik. Thank you, Congressman.
        I think your bottom point is worth echoing, which is we
    know we have a lot of fantastic educational and health benefits
    that derive from investments in early childcare and early
    education. The thing that it is worth stating for the record
    here is that we all benefit from the investments in education,
    as we know through our long standing public education system.
    And when those services are extended to more families with
    babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, they are even compounding
    and rippling benefits through the economy in the near-term, in
    terms of parents being able to work, go and get further
    education, pursue opportunities that they might not have if
    they didn't have the stable, reliable childcare.
        But there is also of course long-term, long run benefits
    for those kids as they are more likely to graduate high school,
    go on to college, have less contact with the criminal justice
    system.
        Mr. Scott. I don't mean to cut you off, but I am trying to
    get another comment in quickly about the deficit, because the
    Speaker has talked about the importance of the deficit.
        The fact is that every Democratic administration since
    Kennedy has improved the deficit under their administration.
    Every Republican president has left office with a worse deficit
    situation. And my recollection on the Clinton-Gingrich budget
    was that when the vote was taken, when Marjorie Margolies-
    Mezvinsky cast the 218th vote, the Republicans waved bye-bye
    Marjorie, did not produce a single Republican vote on that
    bill. And, in fact, two years later when the bill--when Speaker
    became Speaker, the government was shut down because President
    Clinton didn't want to dismantle his budget. And when the
    bipartisan vote finally occurred, the deficit had essentially
    been eliminated.
        So I think we need to talk about the importance of the
    deficit and give credit where credit is due.
        Thank you.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. I hate to cutoff the other
    chairman, but I need to do it. The gentleman's time has
    expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman,
    for five minutes.
        Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I have a lot of comments here.
        First of all, the Chairman says that over the last three
    decades things have gotten worse. I will point out that at
    least in Wisconsin in the last three decades the age at which
    children are cared for by the state continually drops. And I am
    assuming--I mean half the five year old kindergarten was the
    norm 30 years ago, now I think it is like four year old is the
    norm. I am sure we have more childcare subsidies as well. So if
    the answer is more early childhood, I mean these test scores of
    American education would not have been falling for the last
    three decades.
        Second, I am somewhat stunned that we have three experts
    here talking about what we can do to help children in their
    early childhood years and they don't address any of their
    speaking to the fact that the easiest way to stay out of
    poverty is to encourage marriage. Instead they cite the same
    old programs, which if anything discourage marriage because
    things like the earned income tax credit--you know, if you are
    not married, you are going to get more money. I don't think
    that is a particularly good thing. I think the best thing to do
    would be to change the culture and go back to the pre-Great
    Society years when presumably we had better test scores and we
    would have better outcome for the children. Lately we have
    politicians standing with groups like Black Lives Matter. And I
    realize this is a diverse group, but their founders claim to
    want to get rid of the traditional nuclear family, you know.
    And I think you should, rather than support that type of
    thinking, I think you would do a better job of spending some of
    your time encouraging people to get involved in a traditional
    families.
        Third, the Chairman here talks about the poor moms who are
    sitting at home and wishing they would go to work. That is not
    true. I am looking at the study that you cite and I see group
    in things like women who don't have kids at home, many of them
    want to work, but despite the overwhelming social pressure to
    answer the questions that I wish I was working, the majority of
    women with children under age 18 would prefer to be homemakers,
    they would prefer to stay at home. And that is before you--and
    that is children under age 18. I wonder what would happen if
    Gallup included that question for children under age five. I
    mean then I bet it would be overwhelmingly that women would
    rather be staying at home.
        And I will point out that I think whenever you question
    Gallup or other things, there is a temptation to act
    politically correctly. I am sure if you were a mom and asked
    these questions living, let us say, in a hotbed of intolerance,
    like Berkeley, California or Madison, Wisconsin, the pressure
    must be overwhelming to say I would rather work. But despite
    the pressure, the society pressures they would rather be
    working, the majority of women still say they would rather be
    at home.
        Next, if we look at studies on preschool, look at the
    famous Brookings Institution study, a liberal group, they could
    find no discernible benefit for Head Start. Now, of course,
    being a liberal group I think they felt the answer is to spend
    more money on Head Start, you know, things to that degree. But
    that is interesting, which--and also look at the studies put
    out by a conservative group, like Heritage Foundation, that
    would indicate that early childhood is not a benefit.
        Next thing I would point out is that when you increase
    these early childhood programs, sometimes what you do is you
    take children away from a family type situation which they are
    cared for by the aunt or by the grandparents and again shift
    them to strangers. I don't think there is anything wrong with
    having children raised by a grandparent or an aunt, or
    something like that. But that is inevitably what will happen as
    you flood more money into these so called free childcare
    programs.
        And I guess my final comment, I in general don't quote
    communists. But I guess that is it. I will give back my final
    45 seconds to my Chairman.
        But there are some----
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back the balance of
    his time. We appreciate that.
        I now recognize the gentlewoman from the U.S. Virgin
    Islands, Ms. Plaskett, for five minutes.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to you
    and the Ranking Member for convening this hearing.
        I wanted to ask some questions because I do believe that
    supporting children and making the appropriate investment
    yields outcomes that are economic and financial in nature for
    our country, saves us money over a protracted period of time.
        In the Virgin Islands, according to Kids Count, which is a
    survey that is done, childhood poverty in my district of the
    U.S. Virgin Islands is approximately 30 percent, which is
    significantly higher than the national average of 16 percent.
        I wanted to ask the witnesses that are here, in their
    expert opinion and their learned opinion, what policy should
    the federal government be pursuing to tackle childhood poverty
    in areas with extremely high rates, such as the U.S. Virgin
    Islands. Are there mechanisms that the federal government can
    use to jump start and eliminate child poverty in those areas to
    bring it at least in parity with the rest of the United States?
        Anyone?
        Dr. Hoynes. I would be happy to take that on. If you will
    indulge me a very small personal note. I happen to have a
    connection to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I am
    delighted to be able to have this----
        Ms. Plaskett. Love City, as we call it.
        Dr. Hoynes. Exactly. So it is great to see you,
    Representative Plaskett.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
        Dr. Hoynes. So the numbers for the U.S. Virgin Islands in
    your district, that is very high and much higher than the
    national average. And your point that we have demonstrated
    evidence that spending more in terms of these programs targeted
    at children are going to yield important returns in the long
    run that will then transform those poverty rates in the next
    generation to be lower, that is the operating premise that
    comes out of what is now an extensive body of research.
        So if I were to start to say what should we do more of in
    order to get that 30 percent down, I think I would turn to what
    we saw in 2021. And I would be interested to see what the
    projections are for the reductions in child poverty in your
    district from the expansion of the child tax credit in 2021.
    Because what we saw from that expansion was essentially the
    largest reduction in child poverty--the numbers for 2021 are
    not out yet, so we are still in the world of doing more
    predictions than having the full census data, which will be
    released in the fall. But what we know from the available
    evidence thus far is that that reduction in poverty is greater
    than anything, any single act, any single policy change that we
    have engaged in in the United States since we started measuring
    poverty in the early 1960's.
        And to get back to some of the comments that have been
    raised in the earlier conversation, a critical thing about the
    child tax credit, it ticks a couple of boxes that have come up.
    Representative Moore talked about the importance of flexible
    spending. The tax child tax credit provided resources that were
    very flexible for families.
        No. 2, what we know about--you know, I am an economist, we
    study both the benefits of programs and the costs of programs
    and we talk about tradeoffs of benefits and costs. And when we
    provide assistance to families we need to quantify, we need to
    build into the costs, the effects that they might have on
    employment and earnings decisions. And the powerful thing about
    the 2021 expansion of the child tax credit is it made work
    versus no work on parity. If you were working, you got the
    child tax credit, if your hours were cut, you still got the
    child tax credit, until your earnings were, you know, up to way
    beyond the median in the United States, you still got the child
    tax credit. That is the power of a safety net.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
        Another question I had related to children is with regard
    to schools. In July the Virgin Islands board of education
    released a report on schools in the Virgin Islands, which found
    significant environmental, health, and fire deficiencies.
    Indeed, the Virgin Islands fire service even stated that
    numerous schools are so unfit for the purpose that they should
    be demolished.
        Can any of the witnesses speak to the impact of unsafe,
    unhealthy, or unfit schools have on childhood education or
    child development? And what the protracted outcome of that is
    on society?
        Dr. Black. Thank you very much for your question.
        Children benefit by having an environment that is safe,
    that is predictable. Having a school as you described would be
    frightening not only to children, but also to their families.
    Families look to schools to protect children, to help children
    learn, and to ensure their safety. So investing not only in the
    structure of schools, but the hygienic aspect of schools, along
    with ensuring that the teachers are supported in schools. It is
    unhealthy for teachers to be surrounded by an environment that
    is not respectful. So I would think that a more comprehensive
    approach to education that looked at the environment, that
    looked at the security, looked at the safety, looked at the
    support teachers, and of course had a curriculum that was
    designed for the children, would ensure confidence in the
    education system for all involved.
        Thank you.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
        Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the ability to
    question the witnesses for this really important discussion on
    investing in our future through our children.
        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you.
        The gentlewoman's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess, for
    five minutes.
        Dr. Burgess. I thank the Chair. And, Speaker Gingrich, it
    is good to have you in Committee again, even if it is only
    virtually. We always appreciate what you have to say. And this
    time you did not disappoint. You gave me a new term, ``suicide
    by hubris'', and I think that is one that we all ought to
    incorporate into our discussion.
        You know, I am struck by the fact that it is probably too
    late to do anything to save this Congress. I hope it is not too
    late to do anything to save this Administration. But Speaker
    Gingrich gives us some important food for thought as we
    approach the next Congress that if nothing else we shouldn't be
    wasting money.
        Now, Dr. Hoynes has pointed out the earned income tax
    credit is of value. You lower the incidents of low birth weight
    infants with the earned income tax credit, you improve test
    scores of children, and the increased probability of someone
    completing high school. All of those are good things. But then
    according to the IRS's own website, 21 to 26 percent of EITC
    payments are improper payments. Now, it is not to say fraud,
    but improper payments. They even suggest that maybe it is the
    complexity of filing for EITC that leads to those improper
    payments.
        But I guess, Mr. Speaker, my question to you is do you
    think in the next Congress the type of oversight from this
    Budget Committee to really drill down on where these improper
    payments are and why they are occurring--and, look, we could
    boost the EITC budget by 25 percent if we just paid for things
    that actually mattered.
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, Congressman Burgess, first of all,
    thank you. It is always good to be here and I appreciate the
    question.
        Let me go back to what I thought was the very heartfelt
    questions of the representative from the Virgin Islands,
    because if you have a community of poverty, it is very hard to
    help the children get out of poverty since by the time they
    become adults they are still trapped in a community of poverty.
    And we know there are steps you can take that can dramatically
    transform it, but it has to be holistic. It has to approach the
    safety issue, it has to approach infrastructure, it has to
    approach the kind of incentives needed to create jobs so that a
    community of poverty ends up as a community of opportunity.
        Now, let me apply that to your question. Now, I am
    fascinated that California lost $20 billion in unemployment
    allocation, apparently, from the district attorney who I
    interviewed for one of my podcasts, largely to criminals in the
    California prisons using the California prison computers for
    identity theft. Now, north of California, Washington State lost
    about $600 million, apparently largely to Nigerians who were
    operating out of places like Lagos, using again identity theft.
        If you take every requirement that makes the Virgin Islands
    a flourishing paradise in the Caribbean, it is probably less
    than 10 percent of what was stolen by criminals in California,
    let alone across the whole country.
        So I would hope that the process of looking at fraud,
    theft, which by the way really affects Medicaid and Medicare in
    some states, the process of looking at why does the system not
    work correctly, I would hope that this would be a major part of
    this Committee's assignment next year. And I think you will be
    shocked at how much money you can liberate and you can take
    away from criminals and return back to the purposes they are
    for, either to cut taxes or to pay for necessary programs.
        Dr. Burgess. So, Mr. Speaker, when you have the Center for
    Health Transformation--one of your scholars there, Jim Frogue,
    has written what I consider the basic book that ever Member of
    Congress ought to become familiar with, ``Stop Paying the
    Crooks'', which dealt with the inappropriate, improper payments
    in Medicaid. And I think you are exactly right. And the
    oversight functions of, yes, our committees on energy and
    commerce, but in particular our Budget Committees. And pay
    attention to the Chief Financial Officers' Act that was passed
    back in 1990. We need to use those parameters to be able to
    stop paying for things that we shouldn't pay for and allow
    those dollars to be used for what they were intended, what
    Congress passed the laws in the first place.
        So I thank the Speaker for participating in our hearing. I
    look forward to working with you next year when we actually
    have a chance to perhaps positively affect some of these
    things.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson
    Lee, for five minutes.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this very
    important hearing. And certainly it is a pleasure to be able to
    see the Former Speaker, who I had the privilege of working
    with. And, as the Speaker knows, we certainly had
    disagreements, but it is appropriate to show respect. And to
    the other witnesses that are here, thank you for your presence
    as well.
        We understand that this hearing is important because we are
    examining the practical impact of our budgetary actions on
    children and families who must always remain a top priority in
    everything that the Congress does. The Supreme Court's recent
    ruling in Dobbs amplifies the urgency of these issues. The
    Court and my colleagues across the aisle who are supposed to be
    pro-life must now show Americans and support Americans through
    every stage of life.
        But let me wake them up. In the year 2020 the United States
    census released an official supplemental poverty measure report
    showing that 11.6 million American children were living in
    poverty. These 11.6 million children constituted roughly 16
    percent of American children. There is no real desire among my
    friends on the other side of aisle to make real on their
    commitment and thought about our children. And so it begs the
    question as to whether or not we could even have a serious
    discussion.
        I want to make sure that we do have a serious discussion
    and for that reason I want to pose these questions to our
    witnesses that we have here today.
        Let me ask Dr. Hoynes about this whole idea of how we can
    save children when we embrace family support programs in our
    budget, including childcare, school nutrition programs, and how
    much investment really turns out into because we are actively
    investing, if you will, in a future life for these children.
        Dr. Hoynes, can you help us with that?
        Dr. Hoynes. Yes. Thank you very much for this important
    question.
        So what we know, which has now really emerged in a decade
    of broad based research and social science, is that providing
    more food nutrition programs, both from WIC, as Dr. Black has
    talked about, as well as through SNAP, which I have studied
    extensively, as well as school meals, that these programs are
    extremely important in building a foundation for future
    economic and health success among our children.
        And in particular the work that I have done on SNAP shows
    that the years in particular up to age five, perhaps because
    school meals kick in once kids are in kindergarten--we don't
    really know for sure--but that those years are particularly
    sensitive years for generating a good foundation for children
    and a good foundation that yields a broad range of improved
    outcomes into adulthood. And these outcomes take some time to
    emerge. You now, we have got a little bit of data when the kids
    are in school on test scores, but really the data starts to
    become much more available once we have completed education,
    high school, college going, labor market connections, as well
    as kind of health in adulthood.
        So that is sort of the basic formula that we see emerging
    from the research on food and nutrition programs.
        We also find that programs that are a bit less targeted,
    not in kind, so the earned income tax credit, as well as some
    evidence on the available----
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I want to thank you, Doctor. I would like
    to pursue that with our other witness, Dr. Black. Thank you so
    very much.
        We know that there are millions of Americans who face food
    insecurity every day. Dr. Black, you deal with nutritious food,
    but I also want you to stretch a little bit to give the impact
    of the child tax credit that the American Rescue Plan provided
    a lifeline during the pandemic when really there was a mountain
    of unemployment frustration, depression, what to do with our
    children. Can you just quickly respond to the importance of
    fighting against food insecurity? Remember the backdrop of
    President Reagan, who made ketchup a vegetable. Can you quickly
    do that? I know our time is short.
        Dr. Black. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate the question. It is
    such an important issue.
        Food insecurity beats at the heart of American children.
    What families do in order to assuage hunger is that they give
    children low-cost food that is very low in vitamins and
    minerals and very, very unhealthy for children. So these are
    food like--without naming a product--things like noodles. So
    they fill you up, but they eat away really at your health. I am
    part of a group called Children's HealthWatch that studies food
    insecurity and strategies to reduce food insecurity throughout
    the country. This is a major, major problem in our country that
    during the time of early brain development that we really
    cannot afford not to invest. The cost of not investing in these
    children we will all as a country pay for.
        Thank you.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And I
    am glad we are on the side of investing in our children.
        I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you so very much.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Good, for
    five minutes.
        Mr. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Speaker
    Gingrich, for joining us. I would like you to take my whole
    five minutes and just tell us everything we are doing wrong in
    Congress and everything you would do differently if you were
    still the Speaker.
        And I am only half kidding, so I will give you a few
    moments to expound upon that, but thank you for joining us.
        You know, we have spent, as you know better than anybody,
    trillions of dollars--trillions of dollars over the last 60
    years in the name of the great war on poverty with very little
    to show for it in terms of tangible results in making a
    difference in the lives of those some would report to desire to
    help. And this is coming from someone who--I grew up on food
    stamps, I grew up with free school lunch back when you were one
    of few in your school. I grew up in an inner city school system
    where I was one of the few kids on school lunch. I grew up with
    groceries left on my porch from other families who took a
    benevolent interest in my family. I grew up without a car and
    had to walk everywhere--you know, our family did. I had to work
    and pay my own way through school. But what we have done, as
    you know, with all the spending is very little to show for it
    other than hiring bureaucrats, growing the national debt,
    expanding the culture of dependency.
        But a shining moment for us, as you well know, was the 1996
    welfare reform law that you spearheaded, which replaced the
    open ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children with the
    Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. Can you tell
    us about the work on that and the results of that? Can you hear
    me, Mr. Speaker?
        Mr. Gingrich. First of all, thank you very much for the
    opportunity.
        Welfare reform began in 1965 when Governor--then candidate
    Ronald Reagan running for Governor first came up with the idea
    that we ought to return to a work oriented welfare system.
    There were various experiments, the efforts to get things done.
    It was very, very hard to get it through the Congress, as it
    was organized prior to 1994. But there were occasional
    opportunities--exemptions offered by mostly HHS, the Health and
    Human Services. And people like Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin and
    John Engler in Michigan and George Allen in Virginia began to
    take advantage of that and they began to notice that if you
    emphasized work, to pull your program around work, that you had
    all sorts of second and third order effects. At the same time
    we went and studied--I personally went to New York and studied
    America Works, which was a long-term recovery program sponsored
    by Mario Cuomo in the 1980's and which had developed a very
    specific program for taking people who were very long-term
    welfare recipients and basically taking them by the hand for
    six months to a year until they thoroughly understood the work
    ethic, thoroughly understood how to go to work, et cetera.
    Because there are a lot of complexities that those of us who
    grow up in a work oriented family learn from showing up on
    time, to dressing correctly, to making sure you are accurate in
    giving change. I mean there are all sorts of stuff.
        And so the America Works model and we took the lessons
    learned at the state level--we actually asked the states to
    send us their top welfare people who had been running the
    programs, and then we worked with President Clinton and we
    gradually hammered out a bill which got--basically got about
    half the Democrats. I think it was split like 98 yes and 98 no.
        Mr. Good. If only we could do that today.
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, I think you can. You know, they didn't
    vote because they liked me, they voted because when they went
    back home people back home said, yes, that is what I want.
    Well, every study we had done--we were on a project called the
    American Majority Project, which you can see at
    Americanmajorityproject.com, and the work ethic, very, very
    high value for the American people. So a program that
    reestablished the work ethic would be important. And that has a
    psychological impact on the children. I mean if your parents do
    nothing all day, if they sit around waiting for the next
    government check to come in, if they are totally dependent, you
    are learning a set of habits that cripple you for the rest of
    your life. And so it is very important, one, to go through the
    system and take out everything which is anti-marriage, every
    single incentive that encourages people not to get married and
    not to stay married. And, two, to take out everything which
    discourages work. You make those two changes, in the matter of
    a very short time, you will have a much healthier country and
    you will have children who are growing up in much healthier
    environments.
        Mr. Good. Thank you so much. That was the case for me. I
    was taught to work hard and the value of work. And you are
    right, the work ethic and supporting intact family units. Great
    deterrent to poverty.
        Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Horsford,
    for five minutes.
        Mr. Horsford. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
    this hearing and thank you to our witnesses for appearing
    before the Committee.
        I am also glad that we are here to emphasize the
    overwhelming differences in outcomes that early childhood
    interventions can create. And I want to start by saying
    Americans are hardworking. I really take offense to the
    narrative that some are trying to frame Americans as somehow
    not hardworking. This last two years has shown that the
    American people are resilient, they don't give up, they
    overcome great obstacles, and they are focused on returning to
    work.
        I represent Nevada's Fourth congressional District, which
    was one of the most hard hit sectors with hospitality, tourism,
    and my folks are going back to work. But unfortunately
    childcare is one of the barriers that many people, particularly
    women and families indicate they need more affordable quality
    childcare. I haven't heard a whole lot of emphasis around what
    we need to have around quality.
        So I would like to talk about how these are investments. We
    spent a lot of time on how much expenditures are being made.
    Childcare is an investment. And, yes, I voted for the American
    Rescue Plan because it supported funding for essential support,
    including childcare. Now, when the Republicans were in charge
    and the former Administration was in charge, they chose to give
    tax cuts to the very wealthy. That was their choice. Our choice
    was to invest in the American people during a pandemic.
        Dr. Hoynes, you made the case better than anyone that we
    see benefits not only paid back over the long-term, but they
    are paid back to society with significant interest. Child
    poverty affects all of us, regardless of our income. Even by
    conservative efforts, we are leaving $800 billion a year of
    economic activity on the table by allowing children to continue
    to languish below the poverty line.
        So since you discussed how the expanded child tax credit
    more than pays for itself in increased economic activity,
    including to the private sector, that is money that is
    reinvested back into local small businesses, which we
    desperately support, would you be able to explain how some of
    the non-direct costs society incurs by not dealing with child
    poverty, such as lower potential future earnings or shortened
    life expectancy?
        Dr. Hoynes. Thank you for that question.
        So we know that providing more resources when children are
    young translates to a broad set of improvements in adulthood.
    And I think the key across the studies, there is one outcome
    that shows up in almost every study, and this is human capital,
    educational attainment. And educational attainment is like the
    turnkey to getting higher earnings in the labor market, which
    has of course direct effects on the family, on the child, but
    as you point out, pays back returns to the society at large.
    Higher earnings mean more tax payments, higher earnings mean
    less transfer payments. And so there is very direct effects
    that show improvements for the child and the family, but also
    important dividends, if you will, that pays back to the society
    in the long run.
        And I think really the one thing that we see very
    consistently is human capital.
        Mr. Horsford. Human capital. Investing in the human needs
    that all of us have, and childcare is one of those needs.
        Now, in 2020 the adult to child ratio in Nevada preschools
    was one to 15, which means our teachers have to look after 50
    percent more children than what is recommended. This includes
    many of our brave service members who are stationed in my
    district. This story is far too common. Just ask some of the
    local constituents in Tonopah, Nevada, where the situation has
    become so dire that they have no remaining licensed childcare
    providers. It is one of the reasons that I submitted a
    community project funding for a child development center in
    that rural community.
        Mr. Malik, could you discuss how childcare deserts are
    detrimental to child development? And what resources could be
    made available to reduce the prevalence of childcare deserts?
        Mr. Malik. Yes. Thank you, Congressman.
        Childcare deserts are unfortunately ubiquitous throughout
    this country. The number once source of revenue for a childcare
    business or a childcare provider is parental fees. And that
    kind of limits what you can pay your teachers based on what are
    safe and appropriate--developmentally appropriate ratios of
    teachers to children. It is not safe to have one teacher trying
    to watch over ten or 12 toddlers. If you have ever been around
    three toddlers, you know that that is, you know, pushing it.
        So, you know, what we need are--you know, the result is
    lower and little income communities are vastly under supplied
    in the types of--the variety of childcare options that we want
    to see. We want families to have lots of choices, have lots of,
    you know, ways to meet their preferences and to find quality
    options.
        And, unfortunately, as I said in my opening statement, the
    numbers don't work for childcare in America. We need some kind
    of public investment for something that many people consider a
    public good in the way that we talk about public education.
        Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know my time has
    expired.
        That is the type of investment I am willing to make. I wish
    my colleagues would do the same.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Jacobs,
    for five minutes.
        Mr. Jacobs. Thank you very much. And thank you to all the
    panelists and to Speaker Gingrich for being here today. This is
    a very critical issue for the future of our nation and our
    young people.
        I served for over seven years on the Buffalo school board,
    so kind of a lot of my tone here will be with that experience,
    but certainly it highlighted for me the significance of what
    you are talking about today. I can't recall exact statistics,
    but I do remember, you know, our kindergartners and our pre-K
    kids coming in with a significant number of them already
    needing remedial help because of the fact that they had poor
    language deficiencies and the other basic building blocks that
    are required for them to be able to learn to read. And so this
    is a very important issue.
        Mr. Malik, I just wanted to ask one question. Your
    testimony about the--that the U.S. invests a small percentage
    of GDP in childcare and early education, is that federal
    funding or in total funding?
        Mr. Malik. I believe that is combined federal, state, and
    local funding.
        Mr. Jacobs. OK. Because I know, you know, we are different
    than many other places in terms of the majority of our
    education funding comes from state and local governments, or
    mostly local governments.
        And I go back to my Buffalo experience that I really
    disinclined to just look at expenditures as a barometer because
    the Buffalo public school system spends an awful lot of money
    with not very impressive results. We spend right now probably
    about $30,000 per student, and that is the public governmental
    funding of it. That doesn't touch on any of the additional
    outside money in terms of nonprofit charitable work, which we
    have an incredible amount.
        I remember vividly when I first came on the Buffalo school
    board, we had recruited a new superintendent who came from
    Ohio. After a couple of weeks he briefed us on his impression
    of the school district and he said, you know, you really aren't
    running a school district, you are running a jobs program for
    adults that happens to educate every once in a while. So I
    think it is very, very important on how we spend the money,
    that we responsibly spend the money.
        And I just wanted to leave time for Speaker Gingrich, if
    you could comment a little bit more on what Congressman Good
    talked about. We talk about the indicators here, the difference
    that certain expenditures, certain programs have on outcomes.
    You talk a lot, Mr. Speaker, on incentivizing family formation,
    removing the disincentives to family formation. From your
    research, could you just talk a little bit about specifically
    the impact of not having a two parent household, the impact of
    fatherlessness in communities. And if we could work toward
    strengthening our families and two parent households, what your
    research and experience has shown that that--the difference
    that would have on outcomes and alleviating long-term cyclical
    poverty.
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, thank you for the question.
        I must say hearing from someone in the Buffalo area
    automatically for me brings back memories of Jack Kemp, who was
    probably the greatest Republican advocate of rethinking how we
    help the poor and how we get people to be prosperous of anybody
    I ever served with. So I am delighted to have that question.
        A couple of quick comments. One, if the government would
    simply measure outcomes rather than inputs, you would have a
    much better sense of what is working and what is not working
    and you would have some really troubling problems, because
    there are whole programs that don't work. It is not a function
    of money, they just don't work. And there I would say I helped
    launch A Nation at Risk at 1983, which was the Reagan reform on
    education which said if a foreign power did to our children
    what we are doing to them, we would consider it an act of war.
    And it hasn't improved. You look at the Baltimore school
    system. I can't speak to Buffalo, but I spent a lot of time
    looking at the Baltimore school system. It is tragic how much
    we spend and how little we get done and how the children are
    the ones who suffer. So I think that is a key part of this.
        I would also say if you look at Marvin Olasky's great book,
    ``The Tragedy of American Compassion'', and Charles Murray's
    book, ``Losing Ground'', you will get the framework of
    everything you need to know. You want to make sure somebody
    does not end up in poverty, have them complete high school,
    have them not get married until they are out of high school,
    and have them get a first job. They were almost guaranteed they
    will never be in poverty. Notice the changes in culture that it
    requires and the fact that we are now talking about personal
    responsibility and personal engagement.
        So thank you very much for the question.
        Mr. Jacobs. Thank you.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr.
    Mouton, for five minutes.
        Mr. Moulton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Eradicating lead in water is one of the most critical ways
    that we can improve the health outcomes of our children who,
    when even exposed to low levels of lead, can have permanent
    damage to their central and peripheral nervous systems,
    learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing, and
    impaired formation and function of blood cells. This can cause
    lower IQ, decreased ability to pay attention, under performance
    in school.
        An estimated 3.6 million American homes with at least one
    child have significant lead hazards. One in 40 children--one in
    40 have lead levels that are considered unsafe. Each lead
    exposed child costs an estimated $5,600 in medical and special
    education services. And that is just for the times that they
    are a child. We are not even talking about the lost
    productivity of these poor kids throughout their entire lives.
        Democrats worked to pass the bipartisan infrastructure
    deal, which included more than about $40 billion to support
    safe drinking water, including about $20 billion for safe
    drinking water, $15 billion for dedicated funding to replace
    lead pipes. Think about that. $15 billion just to replace the
    pipes that are still full of lead in our country. $12 billion
    to ensure clean water for communities, $1.8 billion to protect
    regional waters, $135 million for additional water
    improvements.
        Now, Speaker Gingrich, you were in the House for 20 years.
    House leadership for 10 years, a Speaker of the House for four
    years, why didn't you do anything to decrease the amount of
    lead children are exposed to in their water.
        Mr. Gingrich. I think that is a great question and I think
    most of us didn't realize until Flint, Michigan what a disaster
    so many of our structure systems have been and how much they
    need to be replaced. And I think the information you just laid
    out is very powerful and I agree with you. And I think one of
    the reasons I am for measuring outcomes rather than inputs, and
    one of the reasons I think we need, for example, that blocking
    corruption and returning that money to infrastructure, we
    clearly have public health infrastructure requirements that are
    real.
        I think you will also find if you go back that we invested
    a lot in trying to improve things. And, in fact, without our
    investments the situation would be worse today. But I agree
    with your concern and I think lead is one of those things that
    is so obvious and so clear that starting with the disaster in
    Flint, it is surprising to me we have not been more effective
    in identifying every hot spot that needs to be fixed and having
    some practical, efficient way--and I want to emphasize,
    practical, efficient way of getting it done, not bureaucratic,
    not unionized work rules now, whatever triples the cost. But
    this is a public health crisis and you are exactly right. And I
    thought your statement was very powerful.
        Mr. Moulton. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back.
        I now recognize the gentlewoman from Colorado, Ms. Boebert,
    for five minutes.
        Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Let us just come out swinging. Democrats in Congress are a
    joke. Leftist policies have led to an invasion at our Southern
    Border, massive inflation, historically high gas prices, and so
    much more.
        I serve on the Natural Resources Committee. We can't even
    talk about energy production in the Natural Resources Committee
    when we have jurisdiction over this self-imposed crisis from
    the Biden regime and, frankly, from the Natural Resources
    Committee for not taking up issues on that.
        But what do these politicians turn to when they realize
    November is looking like a massive red wave? They turn to the
    children. Let us ignore our failed policies and talk about
    spending more money and let us say it is for children so people
    will be OK with it. This is disingenuous and the American
    people see right through this.
        You want to support American children? How about we reduce
    spending and curb inflation so our families can afford new
    shoes for when our children go to school? Let us implement
    school choice. Teach our children to love America. Teach them
    our values that we were founded on instead of squashing those
    and lying about them. Let us empower parents instead of calling
    them domestic terrorists when they show up and have an opinion
    or question about what their child is being taught in our
    schools?
        But this hearing is about Democrats' desire to spend more
    money that we don't have. Frankly, just printing money at this
    point. Let us take a look at the track record of how their
    spending agenda has worked so far--9.1 percent inflation and
    one of my most favorite seemingly prophetic publications, the
    Babylon Bee, says that decimal point may be in the wrong place,
    it might be actually 91 percent inflation. Energy is at 60.6
    percent inflation and fuel is at 98.5 percent inflation. The
    average American family with two working parents has lost
    $6,800 in annual income since Joe Biden took office. And yet
    all leftists on this Committee and throughout Congress want to
    do is spend money and pretend to be handcuffed for attention.
        Speaker Gingrich, I have a question for you.
        Under your leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, the
    first balanced budget amendment in a generation, and the first
    tax cut in 16 years. Under Pelosi and Joe Biden inflation and
    interest rates are up while wages are down. Now, Mr. Speaker,
    do you believe that these Democrat policies will make it more
    or less likely for our children and families to experience a
    recession in the near future?
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, look, I think it is pretty clear that--
    and it is sort of an irony according to this particular hearing
    that the very policies of inflation, extraordinarily high
    gasoline and diesel fuel prices, rising cost of food, all of
    these policies are going to drive more children into poverty.
    The objective fact is that the policies that the Biden-Pelosi-
    Schumer team have followed don't work. I just recently wrote a
    book called ``Defeating Big Government Socialism'' in which I
    outline that these aren't accidents, these are policies. They
    believe in high gasoline prices, they believe in high diesel
    fuel prices, high heating oil prices, they oppose the American
    oil industry and the American gas industry. That is why Biden
    won't go to Texas or Oklahoma or your state of Colorado or
    western Pennsylvania, but he will go to Saudi Arabia. It is
    crazy.
        So if you really want to deal with children in poverty, get
    the economy growing, stop the inflation, cut taxes, make sure
    people have take home pay.
        I mean you are exactly right. I thought actually you were
    being pretty darn effective just now. This is an impossible
    situation for the left to deal with and I can tell you, having
    lived through the Carter years and watched Carter's presidency
    disintegrate under the combination of a recession and inflation
    and energy crisis, you know, Reagan beat Carter by the biggest
    electoral vote margin of any incumbent president in modern
    history. And in the process we won the Senate for the first
    time since 1954.
        This year I think the American people are going to walk in
    that ballot box and they are going to think, I really want more
    of this. And if you really want to care about children, you
    have to make sure that children's families have enough money
    that they can afford to have a decent life, that they can
    afford to do the things necessary. And, frankly, it is
    disappointing to have a hearing like this and not confront how
    much government itself has been the problem.
        But thank you for asking me.
        Ms. Boebert. Yes, Mr. Speaker. My time has expired. Thank
    you so much.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Feenstra, for
    five minutes.
        Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, and Ranking
    Member Smith.
        It is an interesting time to be here today to talk about
    this topic. And I will tell you what, this topic is very
    important. When you talk about access to childcare where
    parents are struggling right now to find a place to bring their
    child, to have parents, as we just talked about, where they
    don't have the dollars to pay for childcare.
        In Iowa this is real. I mean this is extremely real. And
    the problem is that we need workers in Iowa. We desperately
    need workers in Iowa, but what is happening is we have a parent
    staying at home because they can't afford childcare. So they
    have got to make a decision, and the decision is also this,
    they are sitting around the kitchen table trying to figure out
    how they are going to make ends meet. Pay childcare? How do I
    pay for groceries, how do I pay for gas in the car to get from
    point A to point B? And then we have the situation that is not
    going to end. Inflation. And the family, the parents are
    saying, wait a minute, how do I look at a future when groceries
    are going up, when the things I need to buy are going up, how I
    need to put gas in my vehicle, and there is no end in sight.
    And now we have this bill, we have the Democrats continuing to
    talk about more spending and more spending. They are going to
    only cripple the problem that is occurring.
        Now, the solution to inflation is raising interest rates.
    We saw that. The Federal Reserve has done that. They increased
    75 basis points--what was it now, 5-6 weeks ago. And now they
    are talking about it again, right. They are talking about it
    again, saying, hey, we have to raise another 75 basis points or
    maybe even a full point.
        So my question--and I would like to ask Speaker Gingrich
    about this--so when you start increasing your interest rate,
    that has a direct effect on the family budget. How does that
    have a direct effect? Because if they have a car payment, if
    they have a house payment and it is a variable interest rate,
    all of the sudden they are going to be paying more.
        But I want to know from the Speaker, when we have interest
    that are going to continue to rise, what happens to our $30
    trillion of debt? So we have $30 trillion of debt and we have
    interest rates increasing. That means the short-term and long-
    term interest rates are--or I should say bond yields are going
    to go up, how does that affect the American household? Speaker
    Gingrich, if I could ask you that?
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, thank you for putting your finger on I
    think one of the great hidden threats in Washington and where
    the Budget Committee ought to be demanding that the
    Congressional Budget Office lay out what this is going to do to
    the federal budget.
        As the largest debt holder in the world, the U.S.
    Government--if we end up in very high interest rates on the
    federal debt, it is going to eat up the budget.
        Mr. Feenstra. That is right.
        Mr. Gingrich. I mean people are not looking at--this is
    part of why we were so adamant in the 1990's about balancing
    the federal budget, which we did for four straight years with
    Bill Clinton on a bipartisan basis. But we had a program, cut
    regulations, cut taxes. All the supply side economics that
    Ronald Reagan implemented in the 1980's turned out to work. We
    went back and got them to work again. And inflation came down,
    interest rates came down, jobs grew, children came out of
    poverty because their parents were coming out of poverty.
        So you put your finger on a huge issue. I don't know the
    exact numbers. I have my folks at Gingrich 360 the other week
    run a sort of a--but we are not the budget office, we don't
    have their data, but I think if we get a significant increase
    in interest rates from the Federal Reserve, the effect of that
    on the federal budget is going to be staggering. And it may
    well mean that the--I am not certain of this, double check me--
    but it may well mean with a high enough interest rate that you
    are actually going to end up with the def payment being equal
    to the defense budget. Now that is insane. If that was
    happening to an individual or that was happening to a business,
    you would counsel them they need to get their spending under
    control and they need to get their debt down.
        When you put--I want to commend you. You put your finger on
    one of the greatest threats that is about to hit us and I think
    we are totally unprepared in Washington for thinking through
    the implications of the largest debt holder in the world
    suddenly deliberately raising interest rates.
        Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Speaker. You hit it on the head.
    That is exactly what I thought. That is how serious and
    dangerous this is. And what we are talking about right now, we
    have got to help families, we have got to get our inflation
    under control, but we also have to understand we have got to
    quit spending for our families, for our children.
        Thank you.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
        And by the way the Congressional Budget Office does that on
    a regular basis. They make that estimate at least every six
    months. So that information is pretty widely available.
        I am going to yield myself 10 minutes for my questioning.
        And I am going to start by saying that it has been
    fascinating to listen to my Republican colleagues and to
    Speaker Gingrich when talking about the future of children in
    this country. And I think we can all stipulate that it would be
    great if everybody had a job that was well paying and was--that
    they were qualified for and that they enjoyed and that was
    convenient to do and that they could afford to work in. It
    would be great if every child grew up in a stable family with
    two parents, whether they are male and male, male and female,
    or female and female. That would be a wonderful thing. And we
    can wish that that were the case, but it sadly not the case
    throughout this country and probably nothing that we could do
    in this body is going to change the fact that there are going
    to be millions of children, innocent children who did not
    choose the circumstances into which they were born, that will
    be suffering with--if we don't act and somebody else doesn't
    act, they are going to be suffering and diminishing their
    prospects for a future.
        And when I look at--I have a three year old grandson, I
    have a one month old grandson, they are going to have every
    opportunity that they could possibly want. But they aren't
    typical. And when you look a generation or two into the future,
    the American tax base is going to be composed of a lot of
    children who come from very unfortunate circumstances, very
    unlucky circumstances. And that is really what we are talking
    about today. We are talking about those children, again who
    don't choose the circumstances into which they were born, who
    are going to need some help from somewhere whose families most
    frequently can't provide it, and who represent not just a
    challenge for our society and our government, but also a huge
    opportunity.
        We are not going to convince people to appropriate more
    than they are doing now. As a matter of fact, I heard a new
    story today that because of the Dobbs decision that the
    incidents of sterilization among women is dramatically rising.
    Parents are choosing not to have children. So where is that tax
    base going to come from? We need to make sure that every child
    born in this country or who immigrates to this country has
    every opportunity to thrive.
        I want to give Mr. Malik an opportunity. I am going to
    comment on some other things. But Mr. Grothman talked about
    Head Start, a Brookings report on Head Start. And that seems to
    be the one report that has been brought up at least for the
    last 10 to 15 years to undermine efforts to have universal
    early childhood education in the country.
        Would you care to comment on that study and generally on
    the benefits of early childhood education?
        Mr. Malik. Yes. I don't have in front of me the specific
    report that Congressman Grothman is referring to. I do know
    that there was a Brookings AEI consensus report around pre-K
    and early education, including mentions of Head Start, that
    found, you know, a wide range of benefits to children, to their
    families. It is important to note that Head Start doesn't just,
    you know, provide educational services, but it decreases
    children's food insecurity, promoted healthier eating habits
    and physical activity. There are a variety of family services
    that are attached to Head Start that also have tremendous
    benefits to the family.
        So, you know, there are also inter-generational benefits to
    Head Start. There are studies that have found that the children
    of Head Start recipients actually do better than those of
    similar background but whose parents weren't able to access
    Head Start.
        Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you.
        One of the things--we all come to this job and this role
    with different experiences and from different--very different
    areas. And on many--the ranking member's district is a lot
    different than my district. My district is 30 miles across, it
    is totally urban, we have one school system, it has almost
    100,000 kids in it. In that school system, more than 50 percent
    of those kids are on free or reduced lunch, 50 percent of them
    at least change schools at least once during the school year
    because they have been shuffled around between family members
    or they are homeless and so forth. And one of the things that
    was probably one of the most impactful things I have heard once
    was I was in a luncheon on a Friday and I was sitting next to
    our school superintendent at the time. And they had just--it
    had snowed and they just called off school on Friday. She said
    you don't know how much it breaks my heart to have to cancel
    school on Friday because that is when kids get their blessings
    in a backpack. They take home their food and that will be all
    they eat all weekend. This is the type of situation for which
    WIC and SNAP are critical, don't you think, Dr. Black?
        Dr. Black. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. They certainly are
    critical.
        Chairman Yarmuth. And I could go on at length about the
    American Rescue Plan and I have defended it a number of times
    before this Committee. My name is on it as the author, even
    though I didn't write one word of it. But it came through our
    Committee, so it says Mr. Yarmuth on it and I am very proud of
    that.
        And I think we have to go back to that because there is no
    question that there were incredible problems in the
    implementation of the American Rescue Plan. But what were we
    facing? We were facing a crisis that hit us almost
    spontaneously. Nobody saw it coming. All the sudden 20 million
    people are out of work, businesses are closing right and left,
    the economy basically shut down. We faced unfortunately--blame
    it on whoever going back a long time--we were not prepared for
    a pandemic. So we are learning as we go along, people were
    justifiably critical at the time, but the fact is we didn't
    know how bad it was going to be. We shut down everything. We
    didn't know that kids were less vulnerable, more vulnerable. We
    knew if they caught the disease they would give it to their
    colleagues, their colleagues would take it home, and it would
    be disastrous.
        So when Mr. Gingrich says things like we committed almost
    child abuse over the last two years, we did not commit child
    abuse. That is an absurd statement. Forgive me, Speaker
    Gingrich. We were trying to do the best we could to maintain
    the safety and health of our kids and our families. And in my
    particular state, comments have been made about unemployment.
    And, yes, there is a lot of money who went to people who
    probably didn't warrant it. In my state unemployment
    applications went from about 200 a week to several thousand a
    week. That Department of Unemployment in Kentucky was not
    equipped to handle the deluge of unemployment applications that
    they were faced with. So, yes, they were trying to get money
    out the door. That is what we were all trying to do because we
    were facing an economy that was on the verge of collapse. So we
    were trying to get money to businesses, we were trying to get
    money to state and local governments, we were trying to shore
    up a sinking ship.
        And, yes, in those circumstances, which were unique, at
    least in my lifetime, we were doing the best we could. And
    hopefully we have learned lessons about that. And one thing I
    will agree with Speaker Gingrich on, and some of my Republican
    colleagues, we rarely think about the implementation of the
    programs that we put into place. We need to be much better at
    that.
        And, you know, I stressed with the Administration when we
    were trying to do the Build Back Better plan that--and talking
    about childcare, that we can't just say we are going to spend
    $300 billion on childcare unless we think about how we are
    going to build the capacity to do it. In my district, my school
    superintendent said if we have universal pre-K for three and
    four year olds, something that I am passionately in favor of,
    that we would need to hire 400 new teachers and build two new
    schools. We are already 200 teachers short in our existing
    classrooms. Where are those teachers going to come from? But
    meanwhile we would hold out a promise to people who say, oh
    god, next month I am going to get affordable childcare, and it
    would happen. So we need to be thinking about that much more.
        So I think Speaker Gingrich might agree with me on that
    point.
        But, you know, so much of this returns to what I see as a
    total difference in perspective that some people believe that,
    in kind of a Darwinian theory, that everybody can pull
    themselves up by their bootstraps, and that is not our party.
    The Democratic Party believes government can be a force for
    good and that in a capitalistic society, where there are
    invariably winners and losers that don't necessarily have
    anything to do with who works harder or who tries harder. It is
    nice to talk about the late 1990's when there was the internet
    boom and the economy was sailing, but what that internet boom
    did was for the next 20 years made it impossible for a lot of
    people to find work, because a lot of jobs disappeared because
    of it and continue to disappear. And people are not prepared
    for that.
        So we can have great discussions about this, but in the
    general economic situation. I think what we are talking about
    today is how can we best ensure that the children of this
    country, the ones who, again, have no decision in, first of
    all, being born and, second, how they are living, get the most
    support so that they can become productive members of society
    and have the kind of life that we want for our own kids and
    everybody else.
        So with that, I am going to yield back, but I am going to
    be--I am going to ask for some things to be submitted into the
    record. There has been some discussion today claiming that work
    requirements make children better off. In fact, CBO recently
    found that work requirements inflict unnecessary suffering and
    do little to actually boost employment and children's well-
    being. I ask unanimous consent to enter the report from CBO on
    work requirements into the record.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        [Report submitted for the record follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        This hearing has also highlighted the various ways that
    more investments in children make them better off across the
    course of their lives. I ask unanimous consent to enter a
    letter from the Children's Budget Coalition into the record.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        We received a letter from over 1,000 law enforcement
    officers highlighting how important affordable high quality
    childcare and pre-K are to crime reduction. I ask unanimous
    consent to enter a letter from Council for a Strong America
    into the record.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        And I ask unanimous consent to enter a letter from Child
    Care Aware into the record.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        [Letters submitted for the record follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        So with that, I thank the witnesses again for their
    responses. Thank you, Speaker Gingrich, for joining us
    remotely.
        And without any further business, this hearing is
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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