[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 6 (Wednesday, February 4, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S388-S393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DODD (for himself, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Inouye, 
        Mr. Akaka, Mr. Biden, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Durbin, 
        Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Graham, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Kerrey, Ms. 
        Landrieu, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Levin, Ms. Mikulski, Ms. Moseley-
        Braun, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Reed, Mr. Reid, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. 
        Wellstone, Mr. Bumpers, Mrs. Boxer, and Mr. Kerry):
  S. 1610. A bill to increase the availability, affordability, and 
quality of child care; to the Committee on Finance.


                    the child care a.c.c.e.s.s. act

  Mr. DODD. Madam President, the bill I send to the desk I send on 
behalf of myself and 24 of my colleagues whose names are included on 
the introduction of the legislation. The bill I have sent to the desk 
is called the Child Care and ACCESS bill, ``ACCESS'' standing for 
Affordable Child Care for Early Success and Security. As I said, I am 
pleased to be joined by 24 of my colleagues. There may be others in the 
coming days who care to join us in presenting what we believe is a 
comprehensive approach to dealing with an issue that I think all 
Americans--certainly I hope all in this Chamber--will recognize as a 
crisis: That is the crisis of child care.

  Almost on a daily basis, we read stories of children in child care 
settings who are left alone and then are discovered either with serious 
injury or worse. Many of them are left in certified and accredited 
child care centers. These stories highlight the critical importance of 
this issue. This is an issue that now affects 13 million children, the 
overwhelming majority of whom come from families where there is either 
a single parent or both parents must work in order to provide for the 
basic needs of their families.
  We have often felt in this country that we should not ask parents to 
make a choice between the job they need and the children they love, so 
child care has become a necessity. The question now is can we make it 
affordable for families? At a cost of $4,000 to $10,000 a year per 
child, is care accessible for parents who need it? Is the care they 
find going to be in a quality setting, where a child is safe? If the 
provider is a qualified parent, obviously her or she can provide for 
the needs of the child. But in this country, we know that too often 
qualified parents, in order to provide for the economic needs of their 
family, must provide a child care setting for their children.
  There's the issue of after-school care. 5 million children are home 
alone in this country. Any chief of police in this Nation will tell you 
that the most dangerous time for these children is not after 11 p.m. at 
night when many of the curfews are invoked, but rather between 3 and 8 
o'clock, in the afternoon, when children are unsupervised. We don't 
have after-school programs for these kids where they can either stay in 
school or be involved in a worthwhile outside academic experience. So, 
there is a need here.
  When we discuss child care, we must also consider recent findings 
concerning early child development. We know how important these first 
36 months of a person's life are, about the development of synapses 
that occur, about the nurturing that must go on in those years. We must 
make sure that parents can find quality care where there children will 
be intellectually stimulated, not simply warehoused.
  What we are doing today is presenting a piece of legislation which 
tries to deal in a comprehensive way with this issue of child care. 
This bill recognizes the needs of parents, working parents, middle-
income families, those who are striving to achieve a middle-income 
status, poorer families in this country, providers who want to provide 
good child care but don't have the resources to do so, businesses that 
want to help their employees either by providing a child care setting, 
and businesses that want to assist their employees with help in 
attaining child care support.
  This legislation also includes an expansion of the Family and Medical 
Leave Act, a piece of legislation that was signed into law 5 years ago 
tomorrow. It has already benefited literally thousands and thousands of 
families across this country.
  Today as part of this legislation we are calling for an expansion of 
the Family and Medical Leave Act by lowering the threshold from 50 
employees to 25. We think by including 13 million more Americans who, 
when faced with the crisis of choosing between their children and their 
jobs, ought not to be asked to make that choice.
  So this legislation includes an expansion of the Family and Medical 
Leave Act.
  At any rate, the challenge before us is certainly a significant one, 
and that is to create a child care system that works for America's 
families. As I said, for far too many families today when it comes to 
child care, they either have no choices or very bad choices. Here are 
some of the appalling statistics. They are incontrovertible, 
undeniable.
  Child care quality: Only one in seven child care centers provides 
care that promotes healthy development; child care at one in eight 
centers actually threatens children's health and safety.
  Infants and toddlers, our youngest and most vulnerable children, fare 
the worst. Almost half of infant and toddler care in our country 
endangers the health and safety of those who are in those centers.
  No State in this Nation has child care regulations in place that can 
be characterized as good quality standards. Two-thirds of the States 
have regulations that don't even address the basics--care giver 
training, safe environments, appropriate provider-child ratios.
  Even though we know that well-paid, educated and trained providers 
make a difference between poor and good quality child care, we pay 
caregivers in this country--almost all of them women--abysmally, some 
of them at well below the poverty levels, even though they're caring 
for our most precious possessions.
  As someone said not too long ago, children represent 27 percent of 
America's population, but they represent 100 percent of our future. 
These are the children that will be asked to be good employees, good 
employers, good citizens, and good parents, making a contribution to 
this Nation in the 21st century.
  Yet, for the 13 million children who are in child care environments 
today, the results are not good at all. We can either recognize that in 
this country and try and do something about it, or we can sit back and 
allow our system to continue to deteriorate and then face the judgment 
of history as to why we didn't stand up and try and put up some of the 
resources that we have to help these families.
  How does a family making $20,000 or $25,000 or $30,000 a year, with 2 
or 3 children, afford care at $7, $8, $9, $10 thousand per year per 
child. The cost of some child care settings is in excess of some 
universities.
  Child care providers and centers workers average only $12,000 a year 
in pay, Madam President. That is just at the poverty level for a family 
of three. Home based providers average $9,000 a year. That is their 
income.
  Those are the people we are asking to provide for our children, 
making several thousand dollars below the poverty level.
  These numbers and statistics, by the way, come from national surveys 
and studies done by child care centers around the Nation. As I 
mentioned earlier, full day child care costs run from $4,000 to $10,000 
per child. Because of a lack of funding, only an estimated one out of 
10 eligible families actually received help in paying for care through 
the child care block grants which Senator Hatch and I authored eight 
years ago in this very Chamber.
  Good quality child care does cost more than mediocre quality, but not 
a lot more. An investment of only an additional 10 percent has a 
significant, positive impact on quality.
  And many types of child care remain unavailable at any cost, Madam 
President. Many new parents are dismayed

[[Page S389]]

to learn that care for infants is virtually nonexistent, and the 
problem is only getting worse. The General Accounting Office estimates 
that by the time the 50-percent work participation goal is reached in 
2002, 88 percent of infants needing child care will not be able to find 
it. This corresponds to 24,000 young children in Chicago alone without 
child care.
  Let me repeat that. The General Accounting Office, not a partisan 
organization, estimates that by the time we reach the 50-percent work 
requirement in 2002, 4 years from now, 88 percent of infants in this 
country that need child care--we are not talking about choices now, it 
is not a question that someone is in an income category where they have 
a choice as to whether or not they are going to put a child in child 
care or stay home. We are talking about people who absolutely have to 
have child care. Eighty-eight percent of them will not be able to find 
it.
  We cannot let that happen, and this ought not to be a partisan debate 
about whether or not we see the facts. We know what is going to occur. 
Do we stand up and try and address it?
  In addition, there is a glaring lack of after-school programs. As I 
mentioned earlier, 5 million children are home alone. Eighth graders 
left home alone after school reported a greater use of cigarettes, 
alcohol, marijuana, the gateway drugs, than those who are in adult-
supervised settings.

  The challenge, again, facing us is a straightforward one: to find a 
way to support families in the choices about how their children are 
cared for. I know that some will argue that child care is a private 
problem, one that families should be left to solve on their own. 
However, we don't expect families to shoulder the financial costs of 
educating their children alone. We provide public schools. We don't 
expect families to shoulder the burden of providing health care for 
their children alone. The vast majority of families have that cost 
subsidized through their employers. And as a nation, we have an 
interest in well-educated and healthy children, and so we accept that 
the Federal Government, States and employers play a role in getting us 
to these laudable goals of public education and health.
  Yet, when it comes to child care, we set families adrift. We tell 
them that it is a private problem, you have to solve it alone. The 
result is a system in which parents have less, not more, choices. The 
result is a nation in which child care is too often unaffordable, 
unavailable and unsafe. I believe that it is a compelling national 
interest in making sure that our children are safe and well cared for.
  I rise today to offer this plan that I have sent to the desk that 
will broadly improve the ability of families to make the right choice 
when it comes to their children's care. Twenty-four of my colleagues 
and myself--25 of us--have offered this bill. There are several main 
parts in our initiative. Let me touch on them briefly.
  One, improving the affordability of child care. Our legislation would 
provide an additional $7.5 billion over 5 years through the child care 
and development block grant, that I mentioned that Senator Hatch and I 
authored some eight years ago, to increase the amount of child care 
subsidies available to working families. This investment will double 
the number of children served by the block grant to 2 million by the 
year 2003.
  Secondly, we enhance the quality of child care in early childhood 
development. This legislation will provide some $3 billion over 5 years 
to encourage States to invest in activities known to produce 
significant improvements in the quality of child care. For example, we 
help the States with this $3 billion to bring provider-child ratios to 
nationally recommended levels.
  Again, I think most people understand this. Even if you have a well-
trained adult, if they have too many children they are watching over, 
it doesn't work well. So we get to these ratios that those who 
understand this issue think are acceptable. With smaller infants, it is 
a very small ratio. As the children get a little older, the ratios can 
be a little broader.
  We improve the enforcement of quality standards by conducting 
unannounced inspections.
  Let me, as an aside, say that we had the head of the Defense 
Department's child care program testify the other day before a group of 
us. This is the best child care program in the world, by the way. Our 
Armed Forces serve 200,000 children all over the world everyday.
  The Defense Department would be the first to tell you not too many 
years ago they had the most dreadful system which was the subject of 
severe criticism as a result of national reports that were done on 
them. They have turned this around and, as I said, have now set up one 
of the best systems, if not the best system certainly, in this country 
if not in the world.
  One of the things they do is they have unannounced inspections of 
child care centers on military bases. Just recently, I went to the 
child care facility at the submarine base in Groton, CT. Really, they 
are doing a magnificent job--the providers, the staff, the children. 
This is a great sense of pride for our military personnel, our men and 
women, who must by necessity have child care.
  In the case of submariners, the men are off on submarines for weeks 
and weeks on end. Their spouses, if they are married with families, are 
working to supplement their incomes, and they need child care. To the 
Defense Department's great credit, they put in place a great system. 
Unannounced inspections make a difference.
  Conducting background checks on child care providers. Today, it is 
hardly done at all. Someone can move from State to State, get a job and 
then we find out there is a long record of abuse and other problems, 
and that goes on every day.
  Improve the compensation, education, and training of child care 
providers. I have already shared the statistics on what the average 
salaries are, $12,000 and $9,000. We pay parking attendants in this 
country higher salaries than we do people who take care of America's 
children. Your car is more likely to have someone with a better salary 
watching over it than your child. That is unacceptable, or should be, 
to all of us in this country.
  Educating parents on how to find good quality child care and ensuring 
that high quality care is available to children with disabilities.
  Those are some of the ways in which we try to help our States in this 
bill.
  Thirdly, we increase the availability and quality of school-age child 
care. This initiative will provide $3 billion over 5 years to increase 
the supply and quantity of school-age care through child care 
development block grants. In addition, we incorporate the model 
developed by Senator Boxer which ensures that schools play a central 
role in these efforts by providing the 21st century community learning 
centers with $1 billion over 5 years to create before- and after-school 
programs.
  Again, as an aside, I think all of us would agree, I hope, that our 
taxpayers build wonderful schools around our country, marvelous 
facilities. In many instances, they open at 8 or 9 in the morning, but 
then close in the afternoon, and are not open in the evening, weekends, 
vacations, summer months. We want to see the school buildings get more 
community use for children in after-school programs, adult education, 
summer programs, when kids are out of school. There ought to be ways in 
which we incorporate the use of these facilities to a larger extent 
than we have been able to.
  Fourthly, we expand the dependent care credit. This initiative would 
also expand the existing dependent care tax credit by nearly $8 billion 
over 5 years, following the model of Senator Harkin's earlier child 
care bill.
  We would adjust the sliding scale to increase the credit for families 
earning under $60,000 and index the credit for inflation to keep pace 
with the rising child care costs.
  We would also make the credit refundable so that families with little 
or no tax liability, those making under $30,000 a year, can receive 
assistance with child care expenses. I hope that this will not be a 
matter that ends up being a significant debate. On refundability, 
again, when people have incomes under $30,000, they don't pay Federal 
taxes or very few taxes, and if we don't make this refundable, then 
they are not going to get the benefit. It is to people at that income 
level struggling to make ends meet, it seems to me, that refundability 
is absolutely critical if they are going to get help.

[[Page S390]]

  No. 5, supporting family choices in child care. Our legislation would 
also provide new support for families who make the difficult choice to 
forgo a second income or career and to stay at home to care for their 
children. We would allow stay-at-home parents with children under the 
age of 1 to claim a portion of the dependent care credit. This credit 
would also be made refundable to allow stay-at-home parents earning 
under $30,000 to benefit, and it is phased out for families earning 
over $70,000.
  There is a bill that has been introduced by our colleague from Rhode 
Island, Senator Chafee. The Presiding Officer may, in fact, be a 
cosponsor of that bill. I know we have worked together on these issues. 
There is a difference here because the proposal being offered, I 
believe, by Senator Chafee treats parents who stay at home exactly the 
same way we treat parents who can't stay at home.
  In our bill, we do it a bit differently. I am very sympathetic of 
providing some help to parents who can make the choice, but if we 
provided it on a totally equal basis, it just becomes far too 
expensive. What we have done here is said, look, we are going to 
provide this assistance to you in the first year of that child's life. 
That cuts the cost by two-thirds. The reason I say that is because 
there are people out here who have no choice. I want to make this case. 
It is one thing to have the choice, that is a wonderful luxury, but for 
the overwhelming majority of the 13 million children who are in child 
care centers, their parents don't have the choice, they have to be 
there.
  It is not a question of ``I would like to stay home, I have another 
spouse that is earning enough.'' It is not a question of ``I want to go 
play golf or go to the club and play cards.'' These are people trying 
very hard on their own or with their spouse to hold their families 
together. So the choice doesn't exist for them.
  So it is not exactly equal in that sense. But I do think we should 
try to recognize and offer help where they do have stay-at-home 
parents, particularly for that first year. So we do provide that 
provision in our bill. I think it is a worthwhile one. I am hopeful we 
can reach some common ground.
  Madam President, we also expand the Family and Medical Leave Act, 
which I have already mentioned at the outset of my remarks. I invite my 
colleagues to go to a children's hospital in your State. Go to the 
waiting room in those hospitals. You will meet the parents who need 
protection under Family and Medical Leave. They will tell you about the 
difficulties. They will tell you, if they work for someone who employs 
25 to 50 people, how difficult it is. There's the problems with health 
care, the insurance benefits.
  You go out to NIH here. Go to the Ronald McDonald House. Talk to 
parents who have children with extended illness problems where they 
can't stay at home, and they have to travel and be with their children. 
Talk to C. Everett Koop, a pediatrician. He will tell you about a 
child's recovery rate when they are with a parent, with a loved one who 
is with them.
  This ought not to be a controversial item, Madam President, to 
provide family and medical leave for working families, to be with their 
parents, to be with their children during a time of crisis. I just do 
not understand when people raise the kind of objections to trying to 
help out people in that situation. It ought to be a sense of national 
mortification that every other nation you can name provides a family 
and medical leave process.
  I can count colleague after colleague in this Chamber who had a 
problem with their children, had a problem with their parents, missed 
votes, did not go to committee hearings, and in fact had they been here 
and not been with their family they probably would have been subjected 
to political attack, that their priorities were wrong, that they were 
down here voting when they should have been with their children or 
parents at a time of illness.
  If we believe that to be the case among ourselves, is it asking too 
much to say, too, to parents who work outside of public life, that when 
they are faced with that crisis, that they ought not to have to choose 
between their job and their families?
  So I hope we can expand this benefit to the 13 million working people 
in this country who do not have the luxury of the Family and Medical 
Leave Act that others have enjoyed for the past 5 years.
  Madam President, No. 6, we encourage private sector involvement, 
which is a very important element in all of this. Child care cannot be 
the sole responsibility of Government, State, local or Federal. So our 
legislation will create a new discretionary program of competitive 
challenge grants in which communities that generate funds from the 
private sector would be eligible for matched Federal grants to improve 
the availability and quality of child care on a communitywide basis.
  This program would be authorized at $1 billion over 5 years. Based on 
the legislation of the Senator from Wisconsin, Senator Kohl, which was 
approved, I might add, by the full Senate during the budget 
reconciliation bill of last year but dropped in conference, we would 
provide a new tax incentive to open high-quality, on-site child care 
centers or to assist employees in finding and paying for child care 
offsite.
  Many businesses, Madam President, understand what their employees are 
going through, and they want to help. But they are not affluent 
businesses. If they could get a little bit of help on paying their 
Federal taxes by providing onsite child care or assisting their 
employees, I think we would do a lot to expand the availability and the 
quality of child care. So we offer that to employers.
  Seventh, Madam President, we ensure the quality of Federal child care 
facilities. We would also ensure that the Federal Government would lead 
by example in providing its workers only the highest quality of child 
care. Many people would be surprised, I think, to hear that currently 
Federal child care facilities are exempt from State quality 
regulations. In this bill we require that all Federal child care 
centers meet all State licensing standards.

  Madam President, this is a comprehensive package. I have run down 
through the major provisions in a brief way. It is a long bill. It 
covers a lot of territory, a lot of ground. But it is a bold agenda, I 
think one that people of common purpose can come to. As the Presiding 
Officer and I see my colleague from Vermont, the chairman of the Labor 
and Human Resources Committee, who is on the floor here, back in 
October, November we convened a group of us here, Democrats and 
Republicans, to try to fashion a compromise bill. We spent long hours, 
I know our staffs did, in trying to hammer out a bill that we could 
have presented to the full Chamber here in January. That was my hope. I 
know it was the hope of the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from 
Maine.
  Well, that did not happen. I am not going to spend time here on why 
things didn't happen. There are various elements. But a new bill was 
introduced by Senator Chafee. I do not agree with all of it. There are 
parts I do agree with. In fact, there are parts that are exactly alike 
in both of these bills.
  I urge the leadership, the distinguished majority leader, Senator 
Lott, the distinguished Democratic leader, the minority leader, Senator 
Daschle, who is a cosponsor, I might add, of this bill, that we try to 
set some time aside for this issue if we are only in session for 70 
days, 100 days out of the 300 days left in this calendar year--at least 
that is what we have been told. I realize this is a big bill. It is not 
small. It is a lot of money over 5 years. A lot of ideas need to be 
thought out carefully. But we ought to be getting about the business, 
Madam President, of doing just that. This issue becomes more of a 
crisis and more of a problem and arguably more costly the longer we 
wait to address it.
  To the President's great credit, he identified this issue during his 
State of the Union Message--after school care, affecting millions of 
working families, early childhood development, that zero to 3 range, 
the brain studies that all of us are now very familiar with, the infant 
care, the provider assistance, the family assistance through the 
credits, the Family and Medical Leave Act. We ought to get about the 
business of trying to get a bipartisan bill that all of us can claim 
credit for. So we can say to the American public in 1998, ``We heard 
your concerns. We recognize the problems coming down the road. We 
stepped up to the plate. We resolved our differences, and we presented 
you with our best efforts in this regard.''

[[Page S391]]

  My sincere hope, Madam President, is that is what exactly will happen 
in these coming days. As I said, it is a bold agenda. It is 
comprehensive. And we must try to work together if we are going to 
succeed in that regard.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    Summary of Dodd Child Care Bill: The Child Care A.C.C.E.S.S. Act

         (Affordable Child Care for Early Success and Security)


               improving the affordability of child care

       Provide an additional $7.5 billion/5 years through the 
     Child Care and Development Block Grant to increase the amount 
     of child care subsidies available to working families. This 
     investment will double the number of children served by the 
     block grant to 2 million by 2003.


  enhancing the quality of child care and early childhood development

       Provide $3 billion/5 years to encourage states to invest in 
     activities known to produce significant improvements in the 
     quality of child care and early childhood development, for 
     example: bring provider-child ratios to nationally 
     recommended levels; improving the enforcement of licensing 
     standards, through unannounced inspections; conducting 
     background checks on child care providers; improving the 
     compensation, education and training of child care providers; 
     educating parents on the availability and quality of child 
     care; creating support networks for family child care 
     providers; establishing links between child care and health 
     care services; and ensuring the availability and quality of 
     child care for children with special health care needs.


     increasing the availability and quality school-age child care

       Provide $3 billion/5 years to increase the supply and 
     quality of school-age care. Through the 21st Century 
     Community Learning Centers, provide $1 billion/5 years to 
     encourage schools to create before and after-school programs.


                expanding the dependent care tax credit

       Adjust the sliding scale to increase the credit for 
     families earning under $60,000 and index the current expense 
     limits for inflation to help the credit keep pace with rising 
     child care costs. Make the credit refundable so that families 
     with little or no tax liability (those making under $30,000) 
     can receive assistance with child care expenses.


                supporting family choices in child care

       Allow stay-at-home parents with children under the age of 1 
     to claim a portion of the department care tax credit. This 
     credit would also be made refundable to allow families 
     earning under $30,000 to benefit and is phased out for 
     families earning over $70,000.
       Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to include 
     businesses with 25-50 employees. This would protect an 
     additional 13 million working Americans and their families 
     and provide coverage for 71% of the private workforce (an 
     additional 14%).


                 encouraging private sector involvement

       Create a new discretionary program of competitive 
     ``challenge grants'' in which communities who generate funds 
     from the private sector would be eligible for matched federal 
     grants to improve the availability and quality of child care 
     on a community-wide basis. Authorize at $1 billion over 5 
     years.
       Provide a 25% tax credit to employers ($500 million/5 
     years) for operating on-site child care centers, contracting 
     for off-site child care, contributing to the costs of 
     accreditation or operating resource and referral systems.


         ensuring the quality of federal child care facilities

       Require federal child career centers to meet all applicable 
     state licensing standards.

  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I am honored to be an original cosponsor 
of Senator Dodd's important initiative to improve the affordability, 
availability and quality of child care in the United States. I believe 
that American families will welcome this legislation.
  We all know that high quality, affordable child care is an important 
concern to working families. The number of working mothers with 
preschool-age children has increased five-fold since 1947. More than 
ten million children of working mothers are in child care--and this 
number will increase as our strong economy enables welfare parents to 
find jobs. Child care belongs on the top of the national agenda.
  This legislation uses a number of strategies to improve child care 
for American families. Most families struggle to cope with the costs of 
child care. Under this legislation, low-income working families will 
benefit from increased subsidies for child care services through the 
Child Care and Development Block Grant. Families who have little or no 
tax liability will receive new assistance through refundability of the 
Dependent Care Tax Credit, while an adjusted sliding scale and indexed 
expense limits will enhance the tax credit for families with incomes 
below $60,000.
  This legislation also provides funds for significant quality 
improvements. Through block grant funds, States will be encouraged to 
invest in meaningful strategies that improve quality of care and 
enhance early childhood development, such as lower provider-to-child 
ratios, new training and education opportunities for child care 
providers, higher wages for child care workers, and greater enforcement 
of state licensing standards. In addition, new funding for school-age 
child care will encourage schools to create before- and after-school 
programs.
  Finally, Senator Dodd has structured this legislation to encourage a 
significant private sector role in child care improvements. By 
expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, establishing competitive 
``challenge grants'' for community-based child care improvements, and 
developing a new tax credit for employers that provide child care 
opportunities to their employees, this legislation recognizes the 
important role that community organizations and private businesses have 
to play in meeting American families' child care needs.
  I am pleased to support such an important investment in American 
families and America's children. We know how important a child's early 
years are to its later intellectual, emotional and physical 
development. All American families have great dreams for their children 
and seek the best care possible during these critical early years. And 
all families deserve a chance at the American dream. Through this 
legislation, Congress will be doing its part to help American families 
work towards a successful future.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join in the introduction 
of the Child Care A.C.C.E.S.S. Act. The initiative is designed to 
improve access, quality and affordability of child care.
  Access to child care is a necessity for all working parents. 
Nationwide, 55% of children under age six have both parents (if they 
live with two parents) or their single parent in the labor force. That 
figure rises to 61% of school age children who have both or their only 
parent in the labor force. In my home state of New Mexico, 54% of 
preschool and 63% of school age children have both or their only parent 
in the workforce.
  Another way of thinking of the magnitude of the issue is to consider 
that more than half of all preschool children are away from their 
parents most of the day and two out of three school age children are 
likely to require child care before or after school. With the passage 
of the TANF legislation in 1997, a number of mothers will be entering 
the workforce for the first time and will require child care if they 
are to succeed in the job market.
  Mr. President, while I may not agree with every portion of the bill, 
I believe that we need to improve child care access, quality, and 
affordability for our working families. I believe that this bill 
affords us the best approach to these child care issues and urge others 
to join in support of this initiative.
  Access is a problem for many parents and expansion of the child care 
and development block grants is one step toward increasing the 
availability of child care programs. Accessibility grows even more 
complicated when we look at our rural areas of the country. Each 
community has unique circumstances to overcome, such as a lack of 
resources, programs, and transportation. Since the issues of 
availability and access are addressed in this initiative, I am hopeful 
that individual states will be able to address their most critical 
needs.
  Yet, Mr. President, improving access without improving the quality of 
the child care is an empty gesture. Staff education and training are 
among the most critical elements in improving quality. Currently, many 
states do not require providers who care for children in their homes to 
have any training prior to serving children. I am told that 33 states 
allow teachers in child care centers to start work without prior 
training. This legislation includes incentives to encourage states to 
invest in activities that will enhance provider-child ratios, improve 
the enforcement of licensing standards, improve

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the compensation of child care providers, and offer training and 
education to child care providers. It is essential that we have child 
care staff who are trained to provide the necessary care and then have 
salaries commensurate with their training to retain them in the field. 
It is a credit to those who have worked in crafting this bill that they 
have ensured that child care for children with special health care 
needs will be addressed as well.
  My state currently has many families who cannot find the quality, 
affordable child care they need to ensure that their children are well 
cared for and safe. Currently, child care is unaffordable for many 
working families in New Mexico. Full day child care for one child can 
easily cost $4,000 to $10,000 per year, which is a lot of money in a 
state where the average per capita income is $18,803. This is beyond 
the reach of many families. These families simply cannot afford the 
cost of quality child care in addition to all of the other demands on 
their monthly budget. Increasing the Child Care and Development Block 
Grants will increase the amount of child care subsidies available to 
working families.
  Finally, Mr. President, this bill addresses a critical area: the 
issue of after school care for school age children. Good after school 
options can help children and teens do well in school and stay out of 
trouble. It is estimated that nearly 5 million children are left 
unsupervised by an adult after school each week. Studies have shown 
that juvenile crime actually peaks between 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. when 
many children are unsupervised. Additionally, I am told that one study 
found that eighth graders left home alone after school reported greater 
use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana than those who were in adult 
supervised settings. Our initiative will allow us to strengthen local 
resources and is designed to improve the quality of care in after 
school programs.
  In closing, the legislation covers the full spectrum of child care 
from early childhood to adolescent after school needs. I look forward 
to participating in the debate on making child care affordable and 
accessible. I am hopeful that the Senate will move forward on these 
issues of utmost importance to our working families, parents and 
children alike.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd in 
sponsoring the Child Care ACCESS Act to improve the affordability, 
availability and quality of child care.
  One of the major accomplishments of the last session was to help make 
college more affordable for working Americans. We passed bipartisan 
legislation to increase Pell Grants to the highest level in history and 
to provide tax credits for college expenses. As a result, more 
Americans will now be able to afford college.
  We must now turn our attention, with the same firm resolve, to the 
education of our young children and making child care affordable, 
available and safe. This must be the top priority for this Congress.
  The recent research on brain development has provided the importance 
of the first three years of a child's life. Early education 
opportunities are essential for the positive emotional, physical and 
social development of children.
  Last year's appropriations bill included several important provisions 
related to early childhood education and development. We increased 
funding for the Early Head Start program by $66 million and provided 
and 11% increase in early intervention programs for infants and 
toddlers with disabilities. We also provided an additional $50 million 
for the Child Care and Development Block Grant to improve the quality 
of care for infants. I would have liked to do more, but we were 
constrained by provisions in the budget agreement. These 
accomplishments set the stage for us to do much more during 1998.
  Mr. President, many low and middle-income families simply cannot 
afford high quality or even get decent child care. According to the 
Children's Defense Fund, child care can cost between $3,000 and $8,000 
for each child. This clearly makes child care inaccessible to many low-
income and middle-income working parents with young children. The need 
for safe and affordable child care is great and this legislation will 
provide families with the help they need.
  Last year, the President and First Lady sponsored the first White 
House Conference on Child Care. The child care concerns facing families 
was summed up quite simply by Secretary of Health and Human Service 
Secretary Donna Shalala. Can they afford it? Can they get it? Can they 
trust it? This legislation is a comprehensive response to those 
questions.
  First, the bill improves the affordability of child care for low-
income families by providing additional resources for the Child Care 
and Development Block Grant. This new funding will double the number of 
families who can qualify for these subsidies. Second, it provides 
significant additional assistance for many middle income families 
struggling with these huge costs.
  We have all heard concerns about the difficulty working families have 
in securing child care subsidies. In Iowa, eligibility for Block Grant 
assistance is restricted to families who earn less than 125% of 
poverty--or less than $1,389 per month for a family of three. I have 
long championed the need for parents to have the opportunity to work 
rather than to be on welfare. But, we cannot expect that to happen 
without sufficient resources to pay for child care.
  I am pleased that this legislation includes a significant increase in 
the child care tax credit, similar to a measure I introduced in 1996 
and 1997. A key feature of this legislation is to make the credit 
refundable so that those will the greatest need--those that making near 
the minimum wage would be able to receive this tax benefit. Under 
current law, they are not eligible.
  However, low-income families are not the only ones who are struggling 
to pay for child care. Middle income families also need relief and this 
legislation expands the Dependent Care Tax Credit and makes this credit 
refundable. The limits of the existing tax credit was last changed in 
1982 and it has been seriously eroded by inflation. Under existing law, 
a working family with two children in child care making $30,000 can 
receive only $960 which, in Iowa often that amounts to only a fraction 
of child care costs. This is a huge burden on young working families. 
The tax law in this area is especially unfair since other tax 
provisions allow some taxpayers with generous company benefits to 
acquire tax reductions equal to over $1500 for child care with only a 
single child in day care.
  In 1996 and 1997, I introduced legislation to substantially increase 
the assistance available to working families and to make those benefits 
refundable so lower income families would also benefit. My proposal 
provided for a benefit of up to $2300 when two children are in day 
care. I am pleased that the proposal being introduced today, and the 
proposal submitted by the President reaches that same level. Because of 
need to keep this overall proposal within our ability to pay for it 
without eating into the surplus, the benefits start to phase down for 
families making over $30,000 in this proposal. I would favor starting 
to phase out the size of the increased benefit at a higher level 
covering a larger share of middle income families if we can find the 
additional offsetting funding.
  A key feature of the tax provision is to make the credit refundable 
so that those with the greatest need--those that making near the 
minimum wage would be able to get this benefit, that is currently 
available to higher income families. While some make technical 
arguments against the provision regarding budget and tax policy issues, 
I feel that we must do more to help working families bear this 
considerable cost and help their children receive decent child care so 
important to establish a good foundation for their years in school and 
thereafter. And, I find it most unreasonable that those with the most 
need would be receiving less benefit then those with far more 
resources.
  After our constituents tell us about the trouble they have paying for 
child care, the next thing we hear is that they can't find child care, 
especially for children who are school age. An estimated five million 
children spend some times each week as ``latchkey'' children without 
the supervision of an adult. Further, the Department of Justice tells 
us that most juvenile crime occurs during the hours of 3 and 8 pm.

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  This legislation addresses this critical need by expanding funding to 
improve the supply and quality of child care for school age children. 
In addition, more funds would be made available to the 21st Century 
Community Learning Centers to help public schools create before and 
after school activities for their students.
  Finally, families want quality child care that they can trust and 
this legislation provides additional funding to encourage states to 
improve the quality of child care. These funds could be used for a 
variety of different activities that we know make a difference such as 
providing additional training for providers or reducing provider-child 
ratios.
  The legislation also provides a modest tax credit to allow a parent 
to stay at home with children under the age of one and provides a tax 
credit to employers for expenses related to child care for their 
workers.
  Mr. President, this legislation provides the most comprehensive 
response for families struggling to meet their child care needs and I 
urge my colleagues to support it.
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