[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1536]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             BALANCING ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I introduced legislation last week that 
addresses one of the most urgent challenges facing American families. I 
call it the Balancing Act because it helps to strike the delicate 
balance between work and family.
  The Balancing Act, H.R. 3780, acknowledges that many Americans have 
two full-time jobs, one as employee, the other as parent; and it 
provides the tools to be both a reliable employee and a responsible 
parent.
  Over the last several decades, a socioeconomic revolution has 
fundamentally altered the American family, Mr. Speaker. When I grew up, 
we were a Nation of predominantly nuclear families with one breadwinner 
and one full-time parent. Today, more than two-thirds of all families 
have two parents or one unmarried parent working outside the home, but 
our government has not been responsive to these changes. The Balancing 
Act brings public policy out of the Ozzie and Harriet era and into line 
with the realities and pressures of modern life.
  Specifically, the Balancing Act will provide paid family leave after 
the birth or adoption of a baby or young child; make major investments 
in child care, training and benefits for providers, construction and 
renovation of facilities, and expanded child care for infants and 
disabled children.
  It will establish voluntary, universal preschool. It will expand the 
school breakfast program and provide dinners for children in 
afterschool programs whose parents are working late and make part-time 
employees eligible for job benefits while encouraging businesses to let 
more employees telecommute.
  The Bush administration could not be more hostile to families trying 
to perform the balancing act. Their tax cuts benefit wealthy Americans, 
whose lives are already balanced. They think we can afford to rebuild 
the Iraqi society, but we have to cut vocational education and family 
literacy right here at home. They even think we can afford a manned 
mission to Mars, but for life back here on earth, we have to lop $408 
million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  The administration does, however, want to help the poor acquire 
interpersonal skills so that they can promote and strengthen marriage, 
at a mere cost of $1.5 billion. But, Mr. Speaker, the people I talk to 
do not want the government to be their family therapist. They want a 
government that helps create good jobs, flexible workplaces, universal 
health insurance, affordable child care and safe after-school programs.
  No amount of counseling, Mr. Speaker, would have saved my marriage to 
a man who left me alone and destitute with three young children to 
raise. I was 29 years old. What I needed at that desperate moment in my 
life was not right wing moralizing but a compassionate safety net, the 
very social safety net conservatives seem determined to tear down. 
Although I had a job, I needed public assistance to provide my family 
with food, health insurance and child care. Only truly compassionate 
government policies helped me turn my life around.
  If one is a Republican, however, pro-family means that heterosexual 
marriage is so indispensable that we must spend $1.5 billion to promote 
it, but gay and lesbian marriage is so depraved that we ought to 
consider writing discrimination into our Constitution to prevent it.
  The Balancing Act offers a real pro-family agenda for all families. 
It addresses the issues families struggle with at the kitchen table, 
not the things they do in their bedrooms.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting my 
legislation.

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