On the recordAugust 6, 2022
I am so pleased to be on the floor today to join with Senator Murray, Senator Schumer, and Senator Blumenthal to talk about the critical importance of childcare. I will speak in about 40 minutes about a piece of this bill, the black lung program, which is really important to the State of Virginia, but, like Senator Murray, I share a sadness that childcare is not included in this bill because this is what I am hearing from Virginians: Even before the pandemic, there was an inadequate supply. People working in this field weren't being paid enough. Parents are having to pay too much. It is a market failure, and we have to fix it. This bill doesn't, and so we will need to continue it. There has never been anyone in the history of the U.S. Senate who has been as passionate an advocate for childcare as the senior Senator from Washington, Senator Murray. She sort of swallowed a lead, because she is a modest person, when she said: I cared about this from before I got here. Her colleagues know and Washingtonians know, but all Americans might not know, that Senator Murray was an early childhood educator before she came to the U.S. Senate. So this is a passion that drove her career before she was here, and she hasn't left it behind, not for one second. So when she says she is going to stay on this until it gets done, she will. I am very, very pleased to be a HELP Committee member under her leadership and to help her on this, and I have a personal interest in this too.…
