    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [April 23, 1998]
    [Pages 604-606]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 604]]

    Remarks on the Child Care Initiative and an Exchange With Reporters
    April 23, 1998

        The President. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Hillary and I are
    delighted to have all of you here. We thank Mr. Tobias for his work and the power of his example. I thank
    Secretary Shalala and Secretary
    Herman for their extraordinary work, and
    Secretary Rubin, in his absence. And I note
    the presence here by SBA Director, Aida Alvarez, and our OMB Director, Frank Raines, in the back. I thank the Members of Congress who are here:
    Representatives Lois Capps, Rosa
    DeLauro, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sandy Levin, Patsy
    Mink, Tim Roemer, Ellen
    Tauscher, Lynn Woolsey, and Steny Hoyer.
        There are many other Members of Congress who are supporting this
    child care initiative, two who are not here; three that I think I should
    mention are Senators Dodd,
    Jeffords, and Kohl,
    along with Senator Specter, who have given
    real bipartisan leadership to the child care initiative in the Senate.
        Let me also say I'm delighted to see all the children here today. I
    like Take Our Daughters to Work Day. As Representative Capps pointed
    out, since her daughter works in the White House, she came to work with
    her daughter today instead of the other way around. [Laughter] But, for
    the rest of you, I like this day.
        When my daughter started preschool and she was asked what her father
    did, she said that he works at McDonald's. [Laughter] So I decided I'd
    better take her to work with me, even though I realized it would result
    in a diminution of my status in her eyes. [Laughter] So then by the time
    she went to kindergarten, she had actually been to work with me, and
    they asked her what I did for a living, and she said, ``Well, he drinks
    coffee, makes speeches, and talks on the telephone.'' [Laughter] So I'm
    delighted that all the children are here.
        The idea of merging work and family is embodied in Take Our
    Daughters to Work Day. There's also another important idea embodied in
    it, which is that we want our daughters to believe, along with our sons,
    that they can aspire to do whatever it is they want to do, whatever
    they're willing to do, whatever they're prepared to make the effort to
    do. Now, if you want that to be a reality, we have to make a commitment
    to give all of our children the best possible childhoods. That's really
    what all this is about.
        Last year Hillary and I sponsored two conferences that many of our
    administration people helped on and many of you participated, one on
    child care and the other one on early childhood and the brain. Now, what
    they showed is what all of you already know but what is still not widely
    accepted by decisionmakers in our society. They showed, first of all,
    that the early years are profoundly important and that an even greater
    percentage of a child's learning capacity and intellectual
    infrastructure is built up in those very early years. And they showed
    what we in the child care conference, what we've all been here to say
    today, that people are worried about whether they can find child care,
    whether they can afford it, and whether it will be good child care.
        We've been very fortunate in our country in the last few years, and
    I know we're all grateful to have the best economy in a generation and
    the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years and the lowest crime rates in a
    generation. But if we really want Americans to succeed over the long
    run, we have to allow every family the opportunity to succeed at home
    and at work. It is the most fundamental decision we have to make. There
    is no more important job in a society than raising children well.
    Nothing even compares with it. In the end, if you fail at that job, all
    the other jobs will, by definition, fail.
        Therefore, there is virtually nothing worse you can do to a parent
    than to put a parent in the position of basically just being knotted up
    every day, worrying about whether he or she has fulfilled the
    responsibilities to the child. How can you be at work worrying about
    your kids and if you have to leave work to take care of your kids,
    except in emergency situations or for appropriate events; there's a
    sacrifice there.
        One of the reasons the business community is interested in this is
    that enlightened business leaders understand that, actually, if you
    permit people to do the right thing by their children, you wind up
    having a happier, more upbeat, more affirmative, more positive business
    environment, and ultimately the business enterprise will be more
    successful because the workers are

    [[Page 605]]

    also successful at home. That's what this whole business is about:
    taking care of their children and not asking their parents to choose
    between being good parents and good workers. It all comes down to that.
        The private sector obviously can and should do more. We should have
    more companies that are willing to follow the example of these fine
    leaders who are here and who have been acknowledged. The Treasury
    working group that Secretary Rubin has led
    has done a very important job in participating in and presenting this
    report to me, and I am glad to receive it.
        I'm also releasing a report today, that Secretary Herman has provided, that highlights other family-friendly
    businesses, giving them sort of an honor roll status. I think it's well-
    deserved, and I hope that the work the Labor Department will now do in
    serving as a clearinghouse for companies interested in child care and
    setting up mentoring programs between businesses on child care will get
    more and more private sector folks involved. Secretary Shalala pointed
    out that in the welfare reform bill--the one we finally got--we fought
    like crazy to get $4 billion in child care for States. But, believe it
    or not, there's still a lot of demand out there that's not being met, in
    State after State after State.
        Hillary said, before we came out
    of the Oval Office this morning, that everybody talks about how
    important child care is, but if you look at higher education--and this
    may be hard for some of you to believe if you have staggering tuition
    bills, but still, nationwide, families directly pay only about 25
    percent of the costs of their children's move through college.
        No one questions that we have the best system of higher education in
    the world. No one questions that it's not only been good to let our
    children live out their dreams, but it's also been very, very good for
    the American economy. By contrast, with child care, the average family--
    at an earlier age with a lower income, just getting started out in the
    work force with young children--on the whole, pays over 60 percent of
    the cost out of pocket.
        So I would suggest to you that we basically have a choice to make
    here. I have put a proposal before Congress that deals with
    affordability, accessibility, the training of the workers, the quality
    of the child care. But the fundamental question is not so much over the
    specifics of our proposal, but whether the National Government has a
    responsibility to do more. And we have a fundamental choice: Do you
    believe that the early years are as important as all the evidence says?
    Do you believe that we could hardly do anything better for America's
    families than to relieve them of the burden of being terribly worried
    about their children while they're at work? In other words, do you
    believe that this should be an urgent priority for America?
        That is the decision every Member of Congress should make. And this
    year, we shouldn't slide by it. Everybody should just stand up and say,
    yes or no. Because the budget is going to be in balance, we have the
    money to make a major step forward.
        Now, there's a highway bill making its way through Congress, and I
    support a good highway bill. I presented a good highway bill that would
    have significant increase in our infrastructure. But I hope that, as
    Congress continues to consider this and determine how much money should
    be put in it, they will remember some other things. We've got to build a
    lot of highways--or bridges, if you will--to the 21st century. We have
    to have a road that will make Social Security strong in the 21st
    century. We have to have a road that will make our children's
    environment better in the 21st century. We have to have a road that will
    guarantee universal high-quality, high-standards education in the 21st
    century.
        I think we have to have a road that will guarantee that people will
    not have to choose between being good parents and good children and that
    we will act on the overwhelming weight of the evidence about the
    importance of the earliest years in the child's life.
        Now, there are choices to be made, and it is wrong to pretend that
    there are no choices here. We now have the opportunity, because of the
    good fortune that we enjoy as a people, because of the solvency of the
    budget, to take a major step forward in child care, to build that part
    of our national infrastructure. You look around at all these children
    today and at their parents beaming about them; I don't really believe
    that any part of our infrastructure is more important than they are.
        Thank you very much.

    Tax Cuts

        Q. Mr. President, do you propose tax cuts for mothers who want to
    stay home?

    [[Page 606]]

        The President. I'm glad you didn't stay home today, Sam [Sam Donaldson, ABC News]. [Laughter]
        Q. What do you think of the idea of tax cuts for a stay-at-home mom?
        The President. Well, we need to get into a negotiation. We need to
    get started talking seriously about what we're going to do.
        Q. Would you be open to it?
        The President. I'll be happy to talk to them, but we've got to--are
    we going to make a serious effort here? We need to have a discussion
    about it.
        Q. So you are willing to negotiate, then?
        The President. I'm willing to negotiate with anybody who wants to
    help people raise their children better so that people can succeed at
    home and at work. It's not an either-or deal. That's why we had the $500
    tax credit last time, children's tax credit, because we wanted to help
    all parents. We're not against helping all parents. But the question is,
    most parents are in the work force and we have to do something serious
    about it. We have to decide, are we going to do it, or not?

    Note: The President spoke at 10:20 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Treasury Department Working Group
    on Child Care member Randall L. Tobias, president, chairman, and chief
    executive officer, Eli Lilly and Co. He also referred to the Treasury
    working group report entitled ``Investing in Child Care,'' and the
    Department of Labor report ``Meeting the Needs of Today's Workforce:
    Child Care Best Practices.'' The exchange portion of these remarks could
    not be verified because the tape was incomplete.