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White House Wire - Child Care 5/5/89 [OA 4425]
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323154642
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White House Wire - Child Care 5/5/89 [OA 4425]
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Records of the White House Office of Speechwriting (George H. W. Bush Administration)
Mary Kate Grant Subject Files
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Originally Processed With FOIA(s):
FOIA Number:
S
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential
Library Staff.
Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
Collection/Office of Origin:
Speechwriting, White House Office of
Series:
Grant, Mary Kate, Files
Subseries:
Subject File, 1988-1991
OA/ID Number:
13878
Folder ID Number:
13878-014
Folder Title:
White House Wire-Child Care, 5/5/89
Stack:
Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
G
19
2
7
3
THE WHITE HOUSE
on Child Care
May 5, 1989
ADMINISTRATION'S CHILD CARE PLAN TARGETS LOW-INCOME PARENTS
On March 15, President Bush sent legislation to the
Congress, the "Working Family Child Care Assistance Act of 1989,"
and the "Head Start Amendments of 1989. " These bills represent a
significant, fiscally responsible step toward meeting the
President's commitment to empower parents, especially low-income
parents, to make critical decisions about their children's care.
The Working Family Child Care Assistance Act: Low-income
families, in which a parent works, would be eligible for a tax
credit of up to $1,000 per child under age four. This child
credit would be refundable and, thus, available to families who
have no income tax liability. Two-parent families in which one
parent stays at home to care for the children, single working
parents and dual-earner couples with children would all benefit
from the credit. Eligibility for the credit would be phased in,
benefiting families with income below $13,000 in 1990 and
families with income below $20,000 by 1994. Initially, 2.5
million families would be eligible for the credit; 3.5 million,
when the credit is fully implemented. In addition, the current
child care credit would be made refundable, qualifying another 1
million families. Families would be free to choose the kind of
child care that best suits their needs -- care through relatives,
neighbors, child care centers or religiously-affiliated care.
The Head Start Amendments of 1989: Funding for Head Start
would be increased by $250 million over the FY 1989 level, to pay
for the enrollment of up to 95,000 more disadvantaged four-year
olds. The proposed expansion would increase the range of choices
available to low-income families in meeting their child care
needs. In addition, through Head Start's comprehensive approach,
which provides educational, medical, nutritional and social
services to children at risk of falling behind, the newly
participating children would be given a better start in life.
SECRETARY OF LABOR DOLE TESTIFIES ON THE PRESIDENT'S BILL
Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole testified in support of
the Administration's child care proposal before the Senate
Finance Committee on April 19, 1989 and before the Human
Resources Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee on
April 27, 1989. The Secretary outlined the guiding principles
behind the President's program:
1. More parental choice -- Parents -- who are the best
judges of quality care and know what is in their children's best
interest -- should have the discretion to make decisions about
their children's care.
PUBLISHED BY THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS - (202) 456-2930
2. Encourages options -- Federal policy should increase, not
decrease, the range of options available to parents.
3. Non-discrimination -- Federal child care policy should
not discriminate against those families who sacrifice the income
of a second career to have one parent to stay at home to care for
their children.
4. Targeted to the poorest families -- Assistance should be
targeted to low-income families, particularly those with young
children.
The Secretary added that at the President's direction, the
Department of Labor is studying the extent to which market
barriers prevent employers from obtaining liability insurance
necessary to provide child care at or near their employees'
worksites.
TAKE A LOOK AT THE FACTS: ABC BILL IS NOT THE ANSWER FOR PARENTS
The Democratic leadership has proposed the "Act for Better
Child Care, " with Senator Dodd as its principal sponsor. This
bill, "ABC," does not meet the President's principles for
increasing child care options and parental choice:
Parental choice: ABC puts its trust in government, not
parents. No money goes directly to parents. All money goes to
the States. The States then fund providers, not parents, through
grants, contracts, and certificates that they, not parents,
arrange or approve. It is the States, not parents, who have the
ultimate decision-making power on the care children will receive
under ABC.
Encourages options: ABC imposes federal day-care standards
on all providers who receive public assistance. All States
currently regulate day care to some degree, ensuring a healthy
and safe environment for children. These costly Federal
requirements will put some current child care providers out of
business, keep potential providers from offering care, and drive
up the cost of care available for all parents. Parents who want
their children to be taught and guided by the religious values
that are central to their lives would not be able to receive
assistance: All caregivers -- including relatives -- are
prohibited from engaging in sectarian activities, worship or
instruction in providing services under ABC.
In fact, parents could not use their ABC eligibility to have
anyone other than a grandparent, aunt or uncle care for their
children unless (1) the State rules in each individual case that
the person was an "eligible child care provider," (2) the person
and his/her home meets Federal standards, and (3) the person
submits to governmental grant, contract and paperwork
requirements.
Non-discrimination: ABC serves two parent families only if
both parents are employed, perpetuating the discrimination
against two parent families in which one parent stays at home to
care for the children.
Targeted to families most in need: ABC is not well-targeted
and would serve only a fraction of families most in need.
Families with incomes as high as 4 times the poverty level are
eligible for ABC. Only a small number of eligible children would
actually receive care under ABC -- 6 percent in 1990 according to
the sponsors' estimates -- and there is no guarantee that they
would be from families most in need. Only one million children,
the sponsors say, would receive child care services from the
States -- far less than the number of children in the 3.5 million
families that would initially benefit from the President's tax
credit proposals.
MYTHS AND FACTS ABOUT CHILD CARE TODAY
MYTH: Most children are being cared for in day care centers.
FACT: Less than 11% of children under 5 are cared for in child
care centers. Only 46% of children under five have employed
mothers. of mothers who are employed, the great majority use
relatives or neighbors as child care providers. For parents with
young children who prefer to care for their children themselves
while their spouses work, the President's proposals will shift
the economics of work and child care in their favor. The
President's proposals discriminate neither against day care
centers nor mothers caring for children at home.
MYTH: Only wealthy married couples can afford to have one parent
stay home to care for their children.
FACT: In more than half of all married-couple families with
children whose income was less than $20,000 in 1986, the mother
stayed at home to care for the children. In contrast, mothers
stayed at home to care for the children in less than one-third of
all married-couples with children and incomes over $20,000.
Approximately 80 percent of children in center-based care come
from two-earner families. Subsidies biased toward center-based
care (such as ABC's) offer financial assistance to families that
are already comparatively better off.
MYTH: Federal day care standards are necessary because day care
is largely unregulated.
FACT: All states currently regulate day care to some extent.
Every state licenses child care centers, and all but one regulate
some or all family day care homes. State and local governments
are best able to determine what standards are needed for child
care. Federal standards, proposed in the past, will not work.
Congress, realizing this, prohibited implementation of federal
standards in 1980.
MYTH: Religiously-affiliated day care will benefit from new
federal day care programs.
FACT: As many as one-third of day care centers are religiously-
affiliated. ABC prohibits assistance "for any sectarian purpose
or activity, including sectarian worship and instruction."
Religiously-affiliated facilities must drop religious components
of their day care curriculum to receive assistance. Also,
litigation may render these facilities wholly ineligible for
assistance, just as many religious elementary schools are now
precluded from receiving direct financial assistance. The
President's approach does not fall into the thicket of legal
problems raised by ABC, because assistance goes directly to
parents.
MYTH: Unregulated child care is unhealthy and unsafe for
children.
FACT: The typical "unregulated" day care provider is a mother
caring for one or two other neighborhood children, along with her
own child. In contrast, in day care centers, the average ratio
of children to staff is five to one. According to an ABT
Associates report, The National Day Care Home Study, unregulated
family child care is "stable, warm and stimulating
it caters
successfully to the developmentally appropriate needs of children
in care; parents who use family day care report it satisfactorily
meets their child care needs [the study's] observers were
consistently impressed by the care they saw regardless of
regulatory status."
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