Source: United States Senator for New Jersey Bob Menendez
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) yesterday joined Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), as well as several other Congressional colleagues and advocates, in a rally on Capitol Hill to call for the inclusion of child care and early learning provisions in any future reconciliation package. These efforts would help lower costs for families, get parents back to work, support the child care workforce, and boost the entire U.S. economy.
[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE SENATOR’S FULL REMARKS]
In addition to Sens. Menendez, Murray, and Kaine, the rally included support from Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Assistant House Leader Katherine Clark (D-Mass.-05), Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.-14), and several others. It also included speakers and support from The Century Foundation, MomsRising, the National Women’s Law Center, the Center for Community Change Action, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Child Care Aware of America, and Zero to Three.
Below are Senator Menendez’s remarks as delivered at the rally:
“Thank you. I’m thrilled to be joined here with my colleagues from the House and the Senate, and to urge the rest of our colleagues that aren’t here, particularly in the Senate, to join Murray and Kaine’s initiative because child care is an economic and moral imperative for the United States of America.
“And we need to get it done in reconciliation.
“Now, you know, I can talk from personal experience. When I was much younger and had young children, they went to a public daycare. It made a difference in the learning, in the socialization, and the ability of myself and my [then] wife to ultimately be able to work.
“Now, one of them is a television anchor and the other one is on his way to become a member of the United States Congress. Child care makes a difference in the lives of families.
“And we need to give that possibility to every family in this country.
“Two months ago, I went to Zadie’s Early Learning Center in East Orange, New Jersey. There I met a mom who has a small business and she needs child care in order to be able to keep her business growing, as well as to continue employing the people she presently has employed and that could grow.But the challenge of child care for her is a real one.
“I met one of the child care teachers who cannot afford the very service that she gives to others parents.
“And I met the owner of Zadie’s Early Learning Center who told me of the challenges that she’s had, particularly during the pandemic but even before and certainly after, of trying to provide and get high quality individuals to meet the opportunities and challenges of presenting daycare as a real option for American families.
“We have 10 to 11 million jobs in America that go unfulfilled. We need to unlock the potential for these children to begin early learning and we need to unlock the potential of getting more spouses and women in the workplace to fill the incredible need we have for our country.
“That’s why I say, it is an economic and moral imperative to do so and I plan to use my voice and my vote to achieve it.
“Thank you very much.”
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