Eva M. Clayton: “Mr. Chairman, I also want to rise to support the Lazio-Gilman-Tauscher amendment. I want to speak about the importance…”

“Mr. Chairman, I also want to rise to support the Lazio-Gilman-Tauscher amendment. I want to speak about the importance of providing quality child care and doing all that we can to increase the supply of well-trained individuals to provide for our precious children. A tragic story most poignantly pointed out the need of providing child care. Recently in the Washington Post we all heard about a police officer who found that she had to choose between having child care and taking care of her children. Since she had no child care, she had only one day job. You heard the story. On her first day of being jobless and with her children at her side, she held her colleagues who came to her home at bay with a gun. While none of us condone her action, we all have to recognize the pressure, the agony and the desperation she must have felt in trying to keep her job and to care for her children as well. We understand that this Nation's future, millions of our babies, children and youth, spend large quantities of their time in the child care environment. Therefore, it is understandable that we need to provide the best-trained individuals to make sure that they are taken care of. This modest amendment will have a major impact, because it will help produce more competent child care workers. These child care providers are crucial to the health and the welfare of our children.”