Bipartisan Coalition Backs Child Care Legislation

Congressmen from both parties joined with children’s, union and religious groups Tuesday to support a proposed child care bill against alternatives that would reduce funding and remove quality controls.

The House was scheduled to vote Thursday on a bill sponsored by Education and Labor Committee Chairman Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles) that combines $14 billion in tax credits for parents, $1.75 billion in child care aid and a requirement that states set quality controls for day care providers.

The proposed legislation faces two challenges--an amendment proposed by Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.) that would reduce the aid to $200 million and scuttle the quality controls, and one proposed by Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) that would cut virtually all aid and the standards.

Opposition to the amendments was voiced at a news conference by a coalition including such unlikely allies as Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who helped push a bill similar to the Hawkins proposal through the Senate in June.

“It may seem odd that I am here this morning with so many distinguished Democrats,” Hatch said. “But this is one issue on which there is no disagreement that the time had come for federal leadership.”

Hatch, as well as groups including the Children’s Defense Fund and the American Academy of Pediatrics, criticized the substitutes for eliminating the requirement that states set health, safety, training and nutrition standards.

A report issued Monday by the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs said 22 babies or small children were killed or seriously injured in child care facilities in the last 15 months.

“The federal government asks states to set speed limits and address other safety-related factors in order to receive highway funds. We should ask no less for our children,” said Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.).

Deny Benefits to 750,000

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, said the reduction in funding in the Stenholm amendment would deny benefits to more than 750,000 children, including 333,000 in the South.

Stenholm would not increase Head Start funding and would only add $200 million more to existing social services block grants to provide for child care.