[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15525-15526]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 CHILD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Tomorrow at 2:15 we will have a vote on the Child Care 
and Development Block Grant of 2014.
  I want to take a few minutes and explain why it is important to end 
the debate on the Child Care and Development Block Grant and vote on 
whether we want to turn it into a law.
  When I talk about why it is important, I think of a young woman from 
Memphis who attended LeMoyne College. This woman had a young child and 
was able to qualify for a child care voucher from the State of 
Tennessee. There are about 900,000 families across the country that 
take advantage of this Federal voucher program. She was able to get 
$500 or $600 a month in order to provide daycare for her child while 
she pursued a business degree from LeMoyne-Owen College. With the help 
of this program she graduated with her degree and earned a position as 
an assistant manager at Walmart. With her new position, she is now able 
to pay for the child care for her second child without help from the 
Federal Government. This is exactly the kind of legislating we should 
be doing at the Federal level.
  What is the appropriate role of the Federal Government on an issue 
such as childcare? The answer this bill gives is that we should enable 
this young mother and 21,000 other families in Tennessee to take a 
Federal voucher, choose their own childcare center, and help them to 
financial independence through work or continued education or training 
programs. It has been an enormously successful program. The program has 
worked for over 20 years and was inaugurated in the administration of 
George H.W. Bush and was a bipartisan product of Congress. It follows 
the example of other successful Federal programs by enabling American 
families to help themselves.
  We follow the same model when we deal with Federal Pell grants and 
loans that help students pay for college. Last year the Presiding 
Officer will remember we had an agreement in this body on huge changes 
to the student loan program. President Obama became involved and 
Secretary Arne Duncan led a bipartisan working group to develop a 
solution. The Republican House of Representatives came along, and we 
created new rules for the $100 billion of loans the Federal Government 
makes to students every year. The result was a market-based system that 
is revenue-neutral for the taxpayers, and lowered the interest rates on 
student loans to undergraduates by about one-half that year. We first 
used the idea of Federal vouchers for education with the passage of the 
GI bill in 1944. Recipients can take a voucher and then choose among 
educational institutions of their choice, such as the University of 
Notre Dame, University of New Mexico, University of Tennessee, 
Vanderbilt University, Yeshiva College, or whichever accredited college 
they so choose. This idea has worked very well and the GI bill may be 
the most successful piece of social legislation ever passed.
  The Child Care and Development Block Grant is a good example of the 
government working as an enabler rather than simply prescribing 
mandates. The program provides $5.3 billion for childcare services for 
children under the age of 13, with plenty of flexibility. While it has 
broad bipartisan support, Republican particularly appreciate the 
flexibility the act provides to States through block grants. States are 
then able to provide parents with vouchers so that they can select a 
provider that best meets their needs. It is a model that has proven 
successful since 1944 and one I hope we continue.
  Now we have the chance to move this bill forward by voting to end 
debate. The cloture vote that we will have tomorrow will reflect that 
we debated the bill fully and that at least 60 of us believe it is time 
to move forward and vote yes or no.
  Have we all had our say? I believe so. Senator Harkin, Senator 
Mikulski, and Senator Burr, have worked on this for several years as 
well as several others of us. It was approved 1 year ago by the Senate 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on a bipartisan basis. 
Then in March of this year, 2014, the bill was debated and discussed in 
this very chamber over a 2-day period.
  We have had a lot of discussion in the Senate about whether we get to 
offer amendments. That concern has come from the Senator who is 
presiding today, that concern has come from me, it has come from the 
Senator from Oklahoma, who is here. It is not easy to be elected to the 
Senate and it is not easy to stay in office. And once elected, senators 
want their voices to be heard, whether it is on the Keystone Pipeline 
or the Child Care and Development Block Grant. The Child Care and 
Development Block Grant went through a model process that began with 
the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, then to the 
Senate floor on March 12 through unanimous consent. There was no motion 
for cloture, no filling of the tree, and anyone who offered a relevant 
amendment was able to share and debate that amendment.
  Senators offered 50 different amendments. Then we considered and 
agreed to 18 of those amendments. This body approved 4 by recorded vote 
and 14 by voice vote. Senators Enzi, Landrieu, Franken, Coburn, Boxer, 
Lee, Portman, Tester, Scott, Thune, Bennet, Warren, Vitter, and Sanders 
all had amendments to this bill. They were allowed to offer them, speak 
on them, and they were either voted on or accepted, and then the bill 
was passed by the Senate.
  The bill then went to the House of Representatives, was amended and 
approved and then sent back to us. Again, here we have an example of a 
good process.
  I think part of the reason for the quality of the process is the 
bipartisan appreciation for early childhood education. I think it is 
time to stop talking and vote on the Child Care and Development Block 
Grant.
  I ask our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for it.

[[Page 15526]]

  I think all of us can support the idea of early childhood education. 
I am the product of one of the first early learning programs in the 
State of Tennessee. When I was a child, my mother started one of the 
two early preschool education programs in our county. She held class in 
a converted garage in our back yard with 24 3-year-olds in the morning 
and 25 5-year-olds in the afternoon. It is hard to imagine a single 
mother dealing with that many children all at one time, but she did. As 
her son, I was able to experience kindergarten for 5 years. I may be 
the only U.S. Senator who can say that.
  I had an appreciation for early childhood education instilled in me 
by both my mother and father. Many of us in this chamber have a very 
similar appreciation. We may have different ways of trying to get to 
that goal, but this legislation, the Child Care and Development Block 
Grant, provides $5.3 billion to families across the country, namely 
mothers, who are going to school so they can get a job, or who are 
working so like the young woman in Memphis I mentioned earlier, can 
stand on their own two feet. This program helps them get started.
  It is an important bill. I congratulate Senators Harkin and Burr and 
Mikulski for their hard work on this. I urge my colleagues tomorrow 
afternoon to vote yes on ending debate on cloture for the Child Care 
and Development Block Grant.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

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