[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]
    
                         [all]