Dave Camp: “Today the Congress has an historic opportunity to improve our child welfare system with respect to adoption. Under the…”

“Today the Congress has an historic opportunity to improve our child welfare system with respect to adoption. Under the fine leadership of the gentleman from Texas and the gentleman from Florida, past Congresses have already made two important changes, providing a $5,000 tax credit for adoption expenses and eliminating racial preferences for adoption. We now have the chance to build on this outstanding record. The legislation before us today will help reduce the amount of time that children spend in foster care and increase the time they spend in permanent loving homes. Nearly 500,000 children currently reside in foster care and thousands more join them each year. These children can spend up to 3 years in foster care, and since 1982 the number of children in foster care has increased by 89 percent. For a young child, that is, far, far too long. For too many children foster care has become a permanent solution to their problems instead of a temporary answer.”