A Bill Whose Time Has Come

American parents want safer, affordable child- care programs. The U.S. Senate is now debating legislation that might deliver programs that meet that description. But the question of how best to provide this care remains in doubt. So is the fate of the bill, broadly cast as it is. As fast as its chief sponsor, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), takes care of one objection, opponents offer up another. His bill is even more sound now than when it started out, and the Senate should vote it on its way.

The Dodd bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and supported by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine), would expand the amount of child care available and provide subsidies for care of children when their parents cannot afford it. Working with Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas), the sponsors have reduced the original bill’s direct federal funding for services and subsidies, proposing to pay some of the costs through dependent care and child health-care tax credits. The total bill remains $2.5 billion a year.

Last year the bill foundered on concerns about federal money going to religiously affiliated child- care programs. Churches and synagogues provide much of existing day care; backers wanted to preserve those services without violating constitutional questions of church-state separation. The dilemma has been resolved with a provision that churches and synagogue programs may receive federal money as long as they do no discriminate against children whose care is publicly subsidized and do not offer religious instruction.

Some governors did not want Washington to write health and safety standards for the states. The new bill gets around that by having states set their own standards. But it creates an advisory panel to draft model standards that states could adopt if they chose. States that adopted model standards would qualify for extra grants; states that did not would not. The National Governors Assn. now supports the bill.

President Bush and some Republican senators want Congress to pass only a tax credit for child care. But “tax credits standing alone simply do not address the need for affordable, quality child care for parents in the work force,” says Marion Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund and a key architect of the bill. Bush’s proposal would pay an average of $20 a week; minimal child care costs at least $75.

Republicans charge also that the Dodd-Hatch bill will prevent parents from deciding who will care for their children. The charge is unsupportable. Families can use subsidies for care at day-care centers, at churches or synagogues or in private homes. It is entirely up to them. The bill actually would widen options by encouraging development of more day-care centers.

The day-care bill is a splendid expression of an idea whose time has come. It should pass now.