[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 101 (Tuesday, June 16, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S2801]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHILDCARE
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today Senators Murray, Warren, and I are
releasing the most comprehensive Senate report to date on Trump's
broken promise to make childcare more affordable.
A couple months ago, Trump said:
Don't send any money for day care because the United States
can't take care of day care. . . . It's not possible for us
to take care of day care, Medicare, Medicaid, all these
individual things.
That is what Trump said. Really, Trump?
Trump thinks it is fine to stick working Americans with the bill for
his gilded ballroom, his costly war in Iran, $2 billion of slush fund
payouts for him and his MAGA loyalists, and trillions of dollars of tax
cuts for the wealthy, but helping families afford childcare is just too
much? What a disgrace.
Trump isn't just refusing to lower costs of childcare; he is actively
making it more expensive and harder for families to find, and they are
desperate for it.
Trump has removed caps on childcare costs, frozen $2.4 billion in
childcare funding for five States that didn't vote for him, and made
numerous other changes that have driven up the cost of childcare.
Is it any wonder families paying 5 percent more for childcare now
than before Trump took office in 2025 are angry? Of course, they are
angry. When I was majority leader and Democrats were in charge, we made
a historic $39 billion investment in childcare that lowered childcare
costs by 10 percent, added 63,000 new childcare workers, and increased
the supply of available childcare slots by 7 percent.
America, that is what Democrats did when we had the majority; we
helped people with childcare. What does Trump do? He slashes it and
then proposes billions of dollars for a slush fund for him and his
family. What callousness, what hard-heartedness, and how out of touch
with the American people can Trump be?
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