Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Thank you, Chairman Kline, for your leadership on this issue.

I also want to thank Ranking Member Miller, Ranking Member Loebsack, our colleagues across the rotunda, and, of course, the staff, who put so much effort into this pro-work, pro-family bill today.

Mr. Speaker, the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program is an example of what both parties and Houses of Congress can do when we are working together to find commonsense solutions to national issues.

I came to Congress to help all people build better lives for themselves and their families, and now, here with this bill, on this floor today, we get a chance to do that. We work together to protect children's early development and safety, as well as their parents' employment, by preserving State control over a Federal program that serves over a million and a half young Americans. This agreement prevents the administration from imposing early learning guidelines on our States, and it also limits the collection of unnecessary data on our children. At the same time, we have strengthened oversight and accountability at multiple levels of government.

Early childhood care quality will improve because we are enhancing families' access to provider information while maintaining choice of provider. Families can choose between public and private providers, including religious providers. They can choose larger institutional settings or smaller, or even in-home operations.

As a Member of Congress and as a parent, I know that parents, not the Federal Government, are best positioned to choose child care providers, and this legislation ensures parents will have power over Federal bureaucracies, which are no substitute for a family. We are holding providers to strict safety standards, making sure child care professionals have the most up-to-date training. Parents who must either be working or seeking employment in order to take advantages of this program will have better information to guide their decisions.

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Mr. Speaker, I certainly didn't learn about these improvements before working on the legislation from the ether. The day nursery in Avon, Indiana, was one of my first stops, and we were able to incorporate a lot of what we learned that day and every day after in our work and into this bill.

I thank those whom I met with in the Fourth District of Indiana, where commonsense solutions are part of everyday life, for their help in getting this legislation and the content of it crafted.

As chairman of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, it is not only my duty to vote for good legislation but for results. Mr. Speaker, I am simply here today to ask my colleagues to vote for this legislation because it will get results. It is one of the things that we can do around here in a bipartisan-bicameral way to show the American people that we are worth our paychecks.

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