“They can put something out there to say, ‘We want child care or maybe something on health care and homelessness,’ but they know they’re not going to get anything through this Congress beyond maybe something small,” Dean Baker, a White House ally and economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank, said. “But I think it makes sense for Biden to throw something out there when Republicans are saying that Democrats care more about people in Ukraine and Israel than they do about the people here.”
On September 30, child care funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) expired.
According to a report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, child care is unaffordable for the majority of Virginia families.
Today, a draft domestic supplemental funding legislation was released which includes robust funding to address America’s child care crisis, and would replenish funding for a full year.
“The child care crisis is a five alarm fire that is holding our families and economy back. I continue to hear from parents across Virginia about how difficult it is to find high-quality, affordable child care, and from providers about how their wages make it hard for them to stay in the industry. If we want to build on our economic progress — particularly at a time when unemployment is low and companies are struggling to hire enough workers — we have to address this issue head on so parents can enter the workforce. For the sake of our families and our economy, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in getting this legislation across the finish line as quickly as possible,” said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
The domestic supplemental package would ensure that Congress can allocate the resources needed to respond to urgent issues impacting Americans and the economy. The package includes $16 billion to fund child care and $6 billion to expand access to broadband through the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). The ACP helps low-income Americans access internet service, which plays a crucial role in peoples’ ability to access work, school, health care, and other services.
The White House unveiled an approximately $106 billion aid package on Friday with a focus on funding for Ukraine and Israel, and for the U.S.-Mexico border and global humanitarian assistance, as reported by The Washington Post.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont insisted Monday that Congress should not focus on foreign aid, but on urgent domestic funding shortfalls.
“Congress cannot approve BILLIONS in a supplemental budget that ONLY addresses critical emergencies around the world,” Sanders said in a statement. “We have crises here at home too.”
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Rebecca Barnabi
