Bill Archer: “Madam Speaker, today we are here to consider legislation that will help thousands of children who are waiting to be…”

“Madam Speaker, today we are here to consider legislation that will help thousands of children who are waiting to be adopted. In America today, there is no reason why any child should be denied a loving family. Unfortunately, there are almost 500,000 children languishing in foster care. There is little hope for many of these children when fewer than 1 in 10 will be available for adoption this year. There are many parents who want to adopt but can't, because they either don't have the money to pay the adoption fees, or because a Federal regulation says they will not be good parents because their skin color is different from the child they want to adopt. It's simply not right to deny a child the opportunity to grow up in a loving home because the child parents are not wealthy or of a different race. For these reasons, I encourage my colleagues to support the Adoption Promotion and Stability Act of 1996. This legislation will help not only adopting parents economically with the $5,000 tax credit, but will also put an end to the practice of delaying adoption, often for years, until States can find racially matched parents for children waiting to be adopted.”