Chris Dodd

This really ought not to be an ideological debate. It's a ludicrous commentary on our times that we're unable to come to some decent conclusions.

Today, I ask that you challenge Congress to work with us to build a strong and sustained movement.

They may be the first generation of Americans that does less well than their parents.

We need to have some consistent, year-in/year-out efforts in this regard, so we're not waiting for the next headline to provoke a congressional hearing on it.

The state of our children is not simply a failure of government or of schools; it is a failure of all of us.

The Children's Health Insurance Program is a tremendous stride in that direction, enacted in a bipartisan way.

If we have so many commissions--and I'll suggest everything from artichokes to xylophones--how could we not have a commission that focuses exclusively on children?

I think the idea of doing exactly what we did in Connecticut... is a good example of how this can work.

Thank you very, very much.

Your leadership over so many years has proven your great understanding and support of our Nation's children and families.

We're a long way from achieving it, but we do have some success to point to.

We're seeing a condition that's not getting better, too often; getting worse.

The standard industry practice is to prepare the financing documents so that the customer is not alerted in any manner that the person with whom he is dealing has the ability to control the customer's price of credit. This allows the…

9.1 million children on a yearly average were getting assistance through the welfare system.

The achievement gap is defined by age 3.

The Childcare Development Block Grant that is Senator Dodd's child. That is the one that he has been champion of for so long.

Today, it is 3.3 million children, 20 percent of children in poverty.

Yet we are only one of four countries left that I can identify in the world that doesn't provide that basic right, it seems to me.

It was a national security issue.

We haven't reauthorized it since 1996.

I hope you are. Kit Bond, who is retiring this year, and Dan Coats, who sat on this committee and is running for the Senate again, were my partners when I wrote the Family and Medical Leave Act.

There was incredible opposition to the Childcare Development Block Grant program when Orrin Hatch and I wrote it.

Every dollar we invest in early childhood development saves $10.

We are now trying to get paid leave because, obviously, that is a burden.

I invite people who like history to go back and look at what we did during the war years between 1941 and 1945.