GOP, Democrats Differ on Aid for Child Care : Both Parties Agree on the Need for Programs but Diverge Sharply on Legislative Approach

WASHINGTON — When former President Richard M. Nixon vetoed a federally sponsored child-care bill in 1971, he called it “the most radical” piece of legislation to come out of the 92nd Congress. He accused its supporters of trying to weaken the American family and “Sovietize” its children.

In the 18 years since then, attitudes toward federally subsidized child care have shifted enormously as the number of women in the work force has multiplied, propelled by a combination of single mothers who must work and couples who find that they need two incomes to make ends meet.

Lawmakers and others, who once dismissed child care as “just a women’s issue,” now regard it as one that strikes at the heart of America’s productivity and competitiveness.

Called Response to Change

“Demographics drives social policy, there’s no question about it,” said Edward Ziegler, director of Yale University’s Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy. “Something clearly has changed, and policy-makers are responding.”

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, as a senator in the early 1970s, was a lonely voice in Congress promoting federally financed child care. “The idea was so new to people then that they got scared,” Mondale said. “Now, everyone accepts it as essential.”

Beyond that agreement, however, Republicans and Democrats diverge profoundly on what the government should do.

President Bush has proposed a child tax credit for poor families, even if only one parent is working. His approach assumes that the recipients will use the money for child care and that they will be able to find affordable services.

Democrats in Congress do not oppose the Bush proposal. But many of them believe it does not go far enough. They argue that there are not enough child-care services to go around and that Congress must enact legislation that will result in an increase in services and an improvement in the quality.

Democratic-sponsored bills would provide states with money not only to offset poor families’ child-care payments but also to set standards for child-care facilities and provide training and incentives for those interested in child-care careers.

The split reflects a fundamental difference in philosophy over the boundaries of federal intervention in society.

Supporters of the White House proposal, sticking to the GOP belief in limited federal involvement, say parents should receive federal aid directly and make their own decisions about the care of their children.

Supporters of the major Democratic-sponsored legislation argue that the Bush plan does not cover enough families or provide enough money to pay for decent child care. Without a first-class child-care system in place, they say, parents will not be able to make any real choices, no matter how much money they receive.

The underlying support for the Democratic legislation comes from social scientists who argue that decent child care is not now available in the United States.

Behind Other Countries

“We are just nowhere that we should be in the social engineering of a child-care program,” said Dr. Irene Goldenberg, a family psychologist and professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at UCLA. “We are far behind many other civilized countries. The kinds of places that exist today in the United States are far behind the standards that you find elsewhere.”

Ziegler, who, as the first director of the federal Office of Child Development in the early 1970s, was one of the creators of the Head Start program, complains that efforts to promote child care have lost sight of the welfare of the children.

“We still don’t have the vision to say, hey, child care is like education--the quality of child care is going to determine what kind of people these children become,” Ziegler said. “It should be more than just a service that allows mothers to go to work. It should be considered an environment that determines the development of the child. Too many families approach it this way: ‘I have to get this so I can go to work.’ ”

Not Stored but Inspired

Mondale, now practicing law in Minnesota, still uses the argument he made nearly 20 years ago in Congress: “You’ve got to have good, developmental help for these children so that they are not stored but inspired.”

The philosophical underpinnings of Bush’s approach to child care can be traced to a confidence in free enterprise--a belief that the market will provide the sort of child care that families want, as long as families have the money to buy it.

“President Bush assumes that, if people are willing to pay, somebody will be willing to sell,” said a spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). “It will be a growing market because employers will see it as a matter of survival as the percentage of women in the work force increases.”

The federal government, in this view, has no business setting standards for child-care providers. That should be left to families and, if necessary, the local governmental units closest to them.

“There are fewer day-care slots in states that have more stringent regulations,” Robert Rector, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said. “It raises the cost of care, and fewer people use it . . . . If you believe the federal government should be setting criteria (for day care) . . . why doesn’t the government do that for first and second grade?”

Current Care Defended

Besides, according to the White House, existing child care is not as bad as some social scientists complain. Citing a report by the Massachusetts-based consulting firm of Abt Associates, a White House fact sheet on Bush’s child-care proposal said that “unregulated family child care is ‘stable, warm and stimulating . . . . It caters successfully to the developmentally appropriate needs of children in care.’ ”

Despite their fundamental differences, both philosophical camps agree on one thing: The need for federal support for child care is urgent.

In 1988, women in the labor force numbered 51.6 million and accounted for 45% of the total. More than half of all mothers with children under the age of 2 are in the work force, according to the Children’s Defense Fund, a public interest advocacy group. About 57% of all mothers with preschool children and 65% of all mothers with children under 18 work outside the home.

And they don’t work just because they enjoy it. About one-quarter of today’s working mothers are the sole support for their children, according to the Children’s Defense Fund.

Under President Bush’s plan, estimated to cost $2.5 billion a year within three years, low-income parents would receive a tax credit of up to $1,000 a year per child. Families with incomes between $7,143 and $8,000 would be entitled to the maximum credit; a lesser credit would be available for those with incomes up to $7,143 and between $8,000 and $13,000.

If the credit exceeded income taxes owed, the difference would be refunded by the government--a sort of a negative income tax.

Parents could spend the money however they choose, not necessarily on child care. They could care for their children themselves or use any form of child care they could find.

Critics of the Bush plan say that the maximum $1,000 credit--approximately $20 a week--would not go very far toward meeting typical child-care costs.

“Family day care in major cities usually costs $75 a week or more for the care of children up to 3,” said Helen Blank, a child-care specialist with the Children’s Defense Fund. “If poor families are to have real choices, they must receive enough help. This is a child allowance. You can do it, but don’t call it child care. It has nothing to do with child care and won’t have any impact on child care at all.”

In the Senate, the leading bill, entitled the Act for Better Child Care, or ABC, is sponsored by Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.). It has a surprising supporter in conservative Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), one of its chief co-sponsors.

$2.5 Billion for States

The bill would authorize $2.5 billion to provide states with funds to make child-care assistance available to working families with incomes all the way up to the state’s median income. The states would decide how to provide the assistance, either through contracts with child-care providers or through vouchers for parents.

The measure would make some of the new federal funds available to states to increase the number of child-care programs, and it would set minimum federal standards for the facilities.

The ABC bill has been introduced in the House by Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.). But the leading proposal there, incorporating many of the same elements but also providing funds to expand Head Start and establish more school-based child-care programs, is sponsored by Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles).

The most controversial provisions of the Democratic measures are those that would set federal standards for child-care centers.

Standards Opposed

“There is some fairly strong opposition to those mandatory standards,” said the spokeswoman for Dole, who has sponsored the Bush proposal in the Senate. “That is one of the primary sticking points. That, and giving the funds to the states and not giving the freedom to individuals to make their own choices.”

From the other direction, Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), chairman of the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, is a strong proponent of the major provisions of the ABC measure but argues that it does not authorize enough money.

“The $2.5 billion is laughable,” he said. “It’s like the United States saying it’s going to catch up on the space race and immediately jumping into a 1955 Chevy.”

Also, the Democratic bills raise some thorny constitutional questions about the separation between church and state because many child-care programs that would receive federal money are housed in church-run facilities.

Offers an Option

Hawkins said one acceptable approach might be to require church-based child-care programs to refrain from religious instruction or other church-related activities, although he admitted that “the churches object to that.”

Some action is expected in the Senate within the next few weeks. Many lawmakers are talking about considering the ABC, or some form of it, in conjunction with a tax proposal, whether Bush’s or one of several others that have been introduced.

“I think the President would sign a bill, even if it isn’t his approach,” Hawkins predicted. “The demand is so strong. I don’t think the President would dare veto it.”