John Kerry: “I will discuss some further evidence of why this is so vital, but let me emphasize to my colleagues what we are doing in…”

“I will discuss some further evidence of why this is so vital, but let me emphasize to my colleagues what we are doing in restricting this 50 percent of the already restricted funding is not a new program. We are not creating any new program. We are not creating any new bureaucracy. We are not requiring any new line of expenditure. We are using the existing child care development block grant, and we employ a mechanism that both parties, in a bipartisan fashion, have already accepted. This existing, successful bipartisan program already helps States to invest in child care but not adequately. And it already helps this investment in early childhood development programs but still not adequately. I believe all we have to do is look at the example of President Bush, who signed the block grant into law originally, and the bipartisan effort of Senator Hatch and Senator Dodd, who pushed the Senate to make this investment a reality. This amendment spells out explicitly the truth that has been implicit in all of this debate, that children are at the heart of the debate about tobacco in this country.”