[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 211 (Tuesday, December 7, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8938-S8939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Build Back Better Act

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the last time Washington Democrats 
pushed through a huge change that disrupted families' arrangements, it 
earned President Obama the ``Lie of the Year'' award.
  Democrats insisted that if you liked your healthcare plan, you could 
keep your healthcare plan. It turned out that was totally false. Their 
reckless government takeover threw many families into chaos.
  This year, many of the same Democrats want to write a sequel. They 
want to ram through a radical, reckless, multitrillion-dollar taxing-
and-spending spree between now and Christmas. And a huge part of their 
bill would completely upend childcare and pre-K as they exist for 
families all across our country.
  If you like your childcare, you can keep your childcare. Well, buckle 
up, parents. What could possibly go wrong?
  The Democrats have written their toddler takeover in ways that would 
turn families' finances literally upside down and make already 
expensive childcare even costlier. So let's walk through how they did 
it.
  First, their reckless taxing-and-spending spree would make childcare 
dramatically more expensive through an avalanche of new mandates, 
regulations, and micromanagement--the usual Washington, DC, routine.
  State and local governments are panicking about the childcare 
inflation this would cause. Here in the District, as one liberal 
analyst uncovered, local officials have formally estimated--listen to 
this--that the per-child daycare cost for a toddler or an infant would 
jump up $12,000 a year--increase the cost of childcare $12,000 a year; 
$12,000 more per child per year. President Biden's inflation is coming 
for daycare.
  That is why the other half of their clumsy scheme is to dump 
subsidies onto some families. They want to borrow and print even more 
so they can

[[Page S8939]]

throw money at the same thing they have just made more expensive.
  But here is where the bad idea turns literally into a terrible one. 
The Democrats wouldn't help families directly. This isn't some simple 
voucher that families can use as they please. My colleagues have 
produced an insanely tangled scheme where the truckloads of money go 
from Washington to State governments, to the childcare centers, one 
leaky bucket after another.
  The problems run deeper than that. Democrats want States to sign up 
for badly underfunded mandates. That is the effect, because the 
retirement programs would surely last forever; but, for accounting 
purposes, Democrats are pretending the money stops after a decade. Many 
States will not be keen to be socialist guinea pigs.
  Then there is the fact that the assistance is doled out in incredibly 
confusing and uneven ways. The subsidies start and stop with no rhyme 
or reason.
  Listen to what a left-leaning organization, the People's Policy 
Project, has uncovered. They have found that, in year one, a family 
that earns $1 over their State median income ``will be eligible for 
zero subsidies, meaning that they will be on the hook for the entire 
unsubsidized price,'' which they estimate will now cost ``at least 
$13,000 per year higher than'' it does right now.
  The researcher repeats himself because it is so unbelievable. Here is 
the quote:

       Having a family income just $1 higher than [your State's 
     median income] would result in you being ineligible for child 
     care subsidies in 2022 even as the unsubsidized price of 
     child care skyrockets due to the wage and other mandates in 
     the Democratic proposal.
       This is obviously a perverse outcome and it's not clear 
     whether lawmakers even realize what they are about to do.

  This isn't just one technical glitch. It is emblematic of how ill-
conceived their whole experiment is. There are 10 problems like this on 
every single page.
  I should add, the families who even get to participate in the mess 
I've just laid out, they are actually the lucky ones because Democrats 
want Big Government to pick winners and losers among different families 
who make different choices.
  Many American families make one set of sacrifices so that both 
parents can work full time. These are the people the Democrats are 
trying to reward, although their plan fails in practice.
  But Americans are allowed to have different aspirations. Some 
families make different sacrifices to have a parent at home full time. 
Others prefer flexible middle grounds that involve part-time work plus 
in-home childcare. The Democrats' toddler takeover wouldn't give any of 
them a dime--no diversity, no flexibility. Institutional daycare or 
nothing. In fact, it is worse than nothing, because a family who wants 
a provider to come to their house part time or wants to participate in 
a neighborhood nanny share will now be stuck in an inflated market. 
They will have to bid against the employers the Democrats have blessed 
and subsidized.

  This is the essence of what the Democratic plan would do: Big 
Government and Big Labor work together to reward some family 
arrangements and punish others.
  Our all-Democrat government is already botching the things that 
actually are government's job--projecting strength abroad, maintaining 
energy independence--but they can't even do that right. Just look at 
the poll numbers. The last thing families need are for Democrats to 
appoint themselves national daycare czars and then botch that, too.
  I haven't even touched on one of the most sinister parts of this 
whole proposal.
  For parents who do use childcare outside the home, faith-based 
options are incredibly popular. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates 
that 53 percent of parents who use center-based care use ones that are 
linked to faith-based organizations, but the same Democrats who are 
letting far-left propaganda trickle down from the universities into K-
12 schools are now declaring war on faith-based childcare. Washington 
Democrats want to unleash the woke mob on church daycare. There are at 
least two parts of their bill that are direct attacks.
  First, liberals are trying to chase faith-based providers out of the 
daycare industry by denying funds to any facility they deem 
discriminatory. Of course, today's radical left tosses around these 
kinds of accusations at any remotely traditional institution. Faith-
based childcare centers could potentially get their subsidies ripped 
away if they don't hire who secular bureaucrats want them to hire, set 
up their facilities the way secular bureaucrats want them set up, or 
even--listen to this--if they give preference to kids of their own 
faith. Orthodox Jewish daycare centers could get kicked out if they say 
Orthodox Jewish families get first dibs. Evangelical centers could get 
punished by bureaucrats if the families who belong to the church are 
accommodated first.
  This is a joke. The left is trying to weaponize the word 
``discrimination'' to push faith-based childcare out of business.
  Another part of their bill goes out of its way to deny money for 
facility upgrades to buildings that are used for ``sectarian 
instruction or religious worship.'' If a faith-based center leads kids 
in prayer or teaches them their families' faiths, they don't get the 
funding that everybody else gets? We see this over and over from the 
culture warriors. They pretend they are happy to have religious groups 
in the public square but only if they check their beliefs at the door.
  Now, a few years ago, the Supreme Court had to strike down a similar 
policy that penalized faith-based organizations. A State had tried to 
deny a church a widely available grant to fix up its playground. The 
Court took a look at it and struck down the law 7 to 2.
  But the political left is right back at it. Just look at which 
Federal bureaucrat would oversee this giant mess. Well, of course, it 
is none other than Secretary Becerra, the hard-left culture warrior who 
got famous by suing the Little Sisters of the Poor for being too 
Catholic and by suing crisis pregnancy centers for being pro-life. This 
is the person whom Democrats want to give sweeping new powers over 
families' private choices? Secretary Becerra gets a giant slush fund to 
bring President Biden's inflation into childcare and discriminate 
against people of faith--just one more way Democrats' reckless taxing-
and-spending spree would hurt working families.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.