[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1624]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    EXPAND AND IMPROVE ACCESS TO HIGH-QUALITY AFFORDABLE CHILD CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, too many people in our country--the 
richest country in the history of the world--are hungry, and it is a 
sad reality. Hunger has many faces: children, seniors, veterans, the 
disabled. One group that experiences hunger and is often overlooked is 
working families.
  Millions of people who work for a living don't earn enough to ensure 
that their families have enough to eat. They don't earn enough to 
ensure that their kids have access to quality child care. For millions 
of working families, every single day is a struggle. We in this Chamber 
ought to do more to help.
  In his State of the Union Address, I was pleased to see the President 
identify specific ways to support working families: tripling the child 
care tax credit; increasing the number of slots available and investing 
in high-quality, affordable child care programs. These are investments 
that are important to all families but especially working and poor 
families.
  We know that the early years of a child's life are critical to 
shaping healthy cognitive, social, and emotional development. Ensuring 
that all of our young children have an opportunity to thrive in a safe, 
nurturing environment is one of the best economic investments that we 
can make. It is the right thing to do, and it pays huge dividends later 
on.
  Families at all income levels know how expensive child care is today. 
In 2013, the cost of full-time care for an infant in a child care 
center was about $10,000 per year, more than the cost of instate 
college tuition in many States, and many of the best child care 
programs cost more than that.
  For poor families, the cost of quality child care can be an untenable 
burden. For these families, it may mean being forced to choose between 
paying rent, getting medicine, or buying food.
  No parent should find themselves in the difficult situation of having 
to drop their child off at a program that is unsafe or of poor quality 
just so they can get to their job. Parents shouldn't have to choose 
between safe child care and keeping their job to pay the bills. For 
poor families in particular, it is a daily struggle to balance 
everything and still make ends meet.
  Mr. Speaker, last week, the Census Bureau released figures that 
showed that one in five children in this country received food stamps 
last year. Let me repeat that. One in five children relied on SNAP. 
That is 16 million children who relied on SNAP to keep them from going 
hungry last year, more than at the start of the Great Recession.
  We know that our economy is improving slowly, but the gains aren't 
shared evenly among all Americans. Too many poor and working families 
are still struggling to make ends meet. We know that despite some of 
the false rhetoric, the majority of SNAP participants who are expected 
to work and are able to work, in fact, work.
  Families with children have even higher rates of employment than 
other households on SNAP. More than 60 percent of families with 
children receiving SNAP have someone in the household working.
  Mr. Speaker, these families have a working adult but still make so 
little that they qualify for SNAP. Without SNAP, these families would 
not be able to put enough nutritious food on the table for their 
children and for themselves.
  Being poor is hard, and it is expensive. We should do everything we 
can to support working families. Expanding and investing in child care 
is an important step toward achieving that goal.
  I urge the Republican leadership to support the President's 
initiatives to expand and improve access to high-quality, affordable 
child care programs. At the same time, I urge the Republican 
leadership--I plead with them--to refrain from cutting food and 
nutrition programs that are essential to a child's healthy development.
  It is the right thing to do to support these families, to support 
food and nutrition programs, to support quality child care programs. It 
is the right thing to do for all American families. It is especially 
the right thing to do for our low-income families who have not shared 
in recent economic improvements and who face tough choices every day.
  Families should not be forced to choose between good, safe child care 
and putting food on the table. That is a false choice; and, quite 
frankly, in this country, it is shameful that they have to make that 
choice.
  I urge my colleagues to make a renewed commitment to end hunger now. 
We have the resources, we have the food, we have everything, but we 
lack the political will.
  Hunger is a political condition. We can solve this problem in a 
bipartisan way if we choose to, if we make it a priority. There are 
millions and millions of our citizens who are depending on us to do 
more than we are doing now. I hope that we live up to that challenge. 
We can and we should do much better.

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