[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 11 (Thursday, February 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S690-S692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     QUALITY CHILD CARE IN AMERICA

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I just left a meeting, partisan meeting, 
Democrats, Senators and Congressmen, with the President and Vice 
President where we discussed our agenda for this year. At the end of 
the meeting, President Clinton said that he hoped we could reach across 
the aisle to the Republican side and find common ground, concede honest 
differences of opinion but move forward on an agenda which is 
critically important to all of America's population and families.
  I know it is ambitious to think that in a year with an abbreviated 
schedule we will achieve even a majority of the ideas that were 
propounded at this meeting or that the Democrats stand for--for that 
matter, that the Republicans stand for--but we would be remiss if we 
didn't try. I think we were all sent here to use our best efforts to 
find common ground and to resolve those difficulties that ordinary 
Americans face.
  One of them I have taken a special interest in and over the last 
month or so have really focused on in the State of Illinois is the 
issue of child care. I have visited 16 or 18 child care centers in my 
State from far south in Cairo, as we pronounce it, to Chicago and 
across the length and breadth of a very diverse State, my home State of 
Illinois.
  What I find in child care for working families in Illinois is 
extraordinary diversity. Just about every community in which you stop 
has a little different approach. It seems that some are blessed with 
the support of larger institutions. Maybe the most modern, up-to-date 
and impressive facility was at a U.S. Air Force base, Scott Air Force 
Base near Belleville, IL. But, of course, the Federal Government has 
made a rather substantial investment so that the children of the men 
and women who are working on that base have the very best in child 
care. I then went as well to the Belleville Community College and saw 
where the community college made the same type of commitment. It makes 
a difference. You can just feel it in terms of what is being offered.
  That is not to diminish the efforts being made in a lot of different 
settings. When I would go down to Marion, IL, into the back of a church 
and find a very small and crowded room with the happiest kids I have 
ever run into, being supervised by a lady who is probably close to 60 
years of age but who truly is devoted to these children, it tells you 
that what is part of the success of child care in America has to do 
more with the people involved in it than any Government program or any 
structure or building or any bricks or mortar.
  But having said that, I came away from this tour sensitized to the 
fact that this is a real issue. So many people in America look at the 
Senate and the House of Representatives and wonder what newspapers we 
are reading, what people we are talking to, as we are consumed with 
issues that seem totally irrelevant.
  Now, some of those issues are truly important, but for the average 
working family their concerns are much more down to earth. I have yet 
to meet a working mother or a working family with small children where 
I don't find a genuine concern about day care. My wife and I raised 
three kids, and we were fortunate; my wife was able to stay home until 
the kids were all off to kindergarten at least. And I think that was 
the very best that we could give to them. I look back on it as 
something that really made a positive impression, a positive difference 
in their life, and yet we know today that so many parents cannot make 
that choice, that both parents have to work or if it is a single parent 
that there is just no alternative but to turn the children over to a 
care giver during the day. And we also know that care giving in day 
care is occurring at a critical moment in that child's development. 
Seventy-five percent of the human brain is developed in the first 18 
months on Earth. Most of the day care centers I visited would not 
accept a child until they had reached the age of 2 or until they were 
out of diapers. And so for the first 2 years of critical brain 
development in these children it was a gamble. Was there someone nearby 
that could be counted on, a neighbor or relative, perhaps some other 
setting where the child would get honest, good, safe care?

  What the President has proposed in his State of the Union Address and 
I hope that Democrats and Republicans can debate is what we can do to 
help working families provide for quality child care. I honestly 
believe that the investment in early childhood development is the best 
investment this Nation can make. You often wonder how a child born in 
ordinary or even poor circumstances has much of a chance. They usually 
have a chance if they have loving parents with the skills and the time 
and the resources to make their living meaningful. I came from a family 
of modest means but, thank goodness, had a mother and father who cared, 
and I think that is why I am standing here today.
  But for a lot of kids that option is strained because a lot of 
parents do not have resources, and as a consequence they look around in 
the system and find precious few alternatives. First, most child care 
is expensive. It is expensive for families that are trying to get by 
and trying to pay the bills.
  What the President has suggested is that we, through money raised in 
the tobacco bill, send those revenues back to States to make available 
to working families. So that those families that are out struggling, 
trying to get by will have a helping hand from the Government to pay 
for child care. I think that is money well spent, and there is no two 
ways about it.
  Secondly, we have to ask who will work in these child care centers. 
It is a fact of life that most of the people working there receive 
precious more than the minimum wage, and they look for alternatives. 
The turnover rate nationally is 40 percent and in some communities even 
higher each year as child care workers move on to another job.
  In Illinois, we demand of these workers 2 years of college education 
and then give them a minimum wage. High school dropouts are paid a 
minimum wage. These students who stayed in school and worked hard to 
pass the courses are basically being asked to work for the same. Then, 
of course, we know that businesses that invest in child care really do 
bond with their employees. Employees value this as one of the most 
important benefits of work.
  So the President has said not only money to help families pay for 
child

[[Page S691]]

care, also some resources to make certain we can help the students who 
want to get the education, qualify to be child care assistants but 
encouragement as well in the Tax Code to businesses to set up child 
care centers.
  Each day, three out of five children under the age of 6 in America 
including almost half of the babies and toddlers spend some or all of 
their day being cared for by someone other than their parents. In my 
home State, we estimate about 600,000 children each day under the age 
of 6 are in child care. The cost--$4,000 to $10,000 a year. Think about 
a person struggling by on a low-wage job and facing $4,000--$80 a 
week--that has to be out of pocket and paid for child care.
  In our agenda, the Democratic agenda, we set out to change this, to 
try to make certain that working families are given a helping hand.
  I have tried to reflect about the course of history when it comes to 
caring for children in America. We all remember child labor laws and 
things that have been done to help kids, but in the 19th century we 
made the most significant decision when we said in America that we 
would embark on creating a system of public education so that if you 
happened to be a child from a family of modest means you still had a 
fighting chance. America cared and America made a commitment through 
the State and local units of Government to make certain that public 
education would be there starting at the age of 6 and it was a sensible 
commitment, not only for the good of the child but the good of the 
Nation.
  Here today as we embark on the 21st century we know so much more. We 
know that by the age of 6 many children have gone through important 
formative years, many children have been trained, for good or bad, and 
that that training is going to be part of that child for years to come.
  So what more can we do? What more should we do? We have created a 
Head Start program which is designed to give these kids, at least those 
from 3 to 5, a chance to have a structured, positive learning 
environment. It is a very good program and one that needs to be funded 
at higher levels. But now we know even more is needed. Are we ready in 
this Chamber, Democrats and Republicans alike, to really engage in a 
national debate about whether the model for the 19th century of public 
education is adequate for the 21st century for America?
  Most educators, if they give you an honest appraisal, will say, if 
they were given the option of one additional year of mandatory 
education, they would not put it after high school, they would put it 
before kindergarten. Bring the children in earlier.

  Talk to teachers, if you will, who are in classrooms every day. They 
can identify kids who come from a good family and home, where one 
parent stayed home to help raise the child or they went through some 
good child care and received the right training, and they can identify 
those kids who did not. Some of them fall behind, never to catch up. So 
one of the things we are striving for this year is to follow the 
President's lead and make sure we make a commitment here in the Senate 
and the House of Representatives to help these families.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
West Virginia is now recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if I might ask unanimous consent to have 5 
additional minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for yielding this 
time.
  Crucial to this question of providing help for child care is 
providing the revenue. I find it curious that a year ago, in my first 
year in the Senate, if you would have come to this Chamber about this 
time, you would have seen Senator Orrin Hatch, our colleague from Utah, 
standing at that desk with a stack of budget books almost up over his 
head, saying this is the legacy of deficits, these are the unbalanced 
budgets that we cannot come to grips with, and arguing for the passage 
of a new constitutional amendment to force us to come to balance in our 
budget. That was a year ago. That amendment did not pass.
  A year later, where are we? We are at a point where the Congressional 
Budget Office gave us their forecast yesterday that, indeed, we would 
balance the budget. We have reached the point where the budget is in 
balance. Ironically, instead of talking about a constitutional 
amendment to force a balanced budget, we are now engaged in a debate 
about spending a surplus. Imagine, 12 months later we have gone from 
deficit talk to surplus talk. The President counsels us to be patient, 
to make sure the surplus is true and honest and to first dedicate it to 
Social Security.
  So, of course, you are going to say, ``Senator Durbin, having said 
that, how are you going to pay for child care? How will the President 
pay for it? These are good ideas, but they have to be paid for.''
  The money is to come from the tobacco bill. This is a bill I have 
supported both as introduced by Senator Kennedy and yesterday by 
Senator Conrad, because it is a bill which addresses the reality of 
what we face today with tobacco. This bill imposes a $1.50 health fee 
on each package of cigarettes. We know that discourages kids from 
buying them. They are too expensive. It takes the revenues from that to 
not only educate young people about the dangers of smoking but also to 
use it for other good purposes: for example, to increase the number of 
public school teachers across America to 100,000 so that no child in 
the first, second or third grade will have a classroom with more than 
18 students, or to put money into medical research.

  Let me tell you that has to be the most widely popular Federal 
expenditure there is. Not a family touched by cancer, heart disease, 
diabetes, HIV, would ever suggest that that is not a good investment, 
to put the money into medical research. But, also, a portion of it for 
child care.
  So, in order to make this work, it is not enough for us, as Democrats 
and Republicans, to make speeches about child care. We have to roll up 
our sleeves and pass this tobacco legislation, and we have to do it on 
a bipartisan basis. The tobacco companies will resist us every step of 
the way. They have. They will continue to. But I think the American 
people have decided they have had enough of the tobacco companies and 
the fact that they have had unreasonable sway over Washington for too 
long a period of time.
  This year, 1998, is a year of political testing for Senators and 
Congressmen as to whether they will rise to the challenge and join in 
passing tobacco legislation, reducing the scourge of children who are 
taking up smoking, and raising revenues for things that are critically 
important for America's future--like child care.
  I am happy to support the legislation that has been introduced, and I 
hope that we come up with bipartisan approval to make sure that it is 
passed. It is not just a question of raising this revenue, but the core 
reason for the tobacco legislation is to discourage the young Americans 
each day who take up smoking. Today in the United States of America, 
and every single day this year, 3,000 children will start smoking 
cigarettes for the first time. I have never, repeat never, met a parent 
who has said to me, ``I got the best news last night. My son came home 
and announced he started smoking.'' I have never heard that. In fact, 
just the opposite. Parents are concerned because they know this is a 
health concern.
  Tobacco companies have deceived the public. They have deceived 
Congress. They have gone after kids for decades. Now we have a chance 
to call an end to that and to hold these companies accountable to 
reduce sales to minors and to make certain that our kids have a 
fighting chance for a bright future.
  So, I will conclude by saying our agenda is filled this year. We may 
have more items on the agenda than they have days in session. But we 
need to pick and choose those that are critically important. I hope my 
colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, will agree that passing 
the tobacco bill is the first important step, then taking the revenues 
from that to help working families bring their children up under the 
best circumstances and to give these children a fighting chance to 
enter school ready to learn and to have a bright future.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
West Virginia is recognized.

[[Page S692]]

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Moynihan 
and I may speak for not to exceed 30 minutes. I do not think we will 
use all that time, but I make that request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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