Does Poland Deserve Aid More Than America’s Children? : Child Care: Congress quickly passed a foreign aid package for Poland, but a child-care bill died in committee. These priorities are just wrong.

Last week, advocates for the children of Poland and advocates for the children of America received very different treatment from the U.S. Congress.

Lech Walesa, the charismatic founder of Poland’s Solidarity movement, addressed a joint session of Congress and received a hero’s welcome. He told Congress that four decades of Communist rule have “led the Polish economy to ruin,” and that the people of Poland needed intensive foreign aid if they were to have a decent future. Members of Congress were rightfully moved by his plea.

In the wake of Walesa’s visit, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law a major new program of economic aid to Poland, agreeing to send that country and Hungary $533 million over the next three years to support democracy and private enterprise. This action is a major investment in Poland’s future and it will make life better for all of the children of Poland.

At the same time, Congress turned a cold shoulder to Marian Wright Edelman, the president of the Children’s Defense Fund and the most eloquent champion of the needs of America’s own children. Edelman has encouraged Congress for years to address the growing crisis of child care. With both the House and the Senate having passed child-care bills, it looked like 1989 was the year.

But House conferees bogged down in a fight over how to finance grant programs and the House leadership, over Edelman’s passionate objections, pronounced child-care legislation dead for this year.

In so doing, the Congressional leadership took hope away from millions of working parents in America who were expecting their leaders to deal with the crying need for a national child-care plan. The child-care legislation would have increased spending for Head Start, expanded early-childhood education and other programs through schools, and established grants for licensed and qualified child-care providers.

The collapse of the $1.2 billion child-care bill is a major blow to the working families of America, who are struggling to make ends meet and still give their children high-quality care during the day.

With report after report of toddlers and young children being abused and harmed (in some tragic cases, even killed) by unsafe and substandard child care, it is shocking that Congress would allow this bill to twist in the wind.

The failure to move this bill also crushes the hopes of so many mothers who want to work and earn a self-supporting income but have no access to safe and trustworthy child care. Every working day, 10,000 mothers of preschool children must refuse job offers because of difficulties in arranging safe, adequate and affordable child care. Thousands more are forced to work fewer hours than they would like.

Congress should remember that solidarity begins at home. If we want to get people off of welfare, we need to give them child care. And if we truly value the nurturance, education and safety of our children, we must place the resources of our government behind them. How can Congress move so swiftly to pass an aid package for the working families of Poland but drag its feet when it comes to an aid package for the working families of America? Isn’t that what we call schizophrenic behavior?

Foreign aid should be an extension of our domestic values. The child care we send abroad should represent the child care we have at home. It is morally right and it is cost-efficient to invest in children. Money spent on child care and Head Start on the front side will save money on jail care and welfare on the back side. It is a true measure of the character of our nation how we treat children in the dawn of life. We must not fail this crucial test.