Heidi Alexander: “Tomorrow at 2:15 we will have a vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant of 2014. I want to take a few minutes…”

“Tomorrow at 2:15 we will have a vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant of 2014. I want to take a few minutes and explain why it is important to end the debate on the Child Care and Development Block Grant and vote on whether we want to turn it into a law. When I talk about why it is important, I think of a young woman from Memphis who attended LeMoyne College. This woman had a young child and was able to qualify for a child care voucher from the State of Tennessee. There are about 900,000 families across the country that take advantage of this Federal voucher program. She was able to get $500 or $600 a month in order to provide daycare for her child while she pursued a business degree from LeMoyne-Owen College. With the help of this program she graduated with her degree and earned a position as an assistant manager at Walmart. With her new position, she is now able to pay for the child care for her second child without help from the Federal Government. This is exactly the kind of legislating we should be doing at the Federal level. What is the appropriate role of the Federal Government on an issue such as childcare? The answer this bill gives is that we should enable this young mother and 21,000 other families in Tennessee to take a Federal voucher, choose their own childcare center, and help them to financial independence through work or continued education or training programs. It has been an enormously successful program.…”