The ABCs Of Child Care

By NANCY TRAVER

Even for the U.S. Congress, it is difficult to ignore the obvious: American families need help with child care, and they need it badly. Half of all women with preschool children now work outside the home, in contrast to 29% in 1971. Long waiting lists at child-care centers are routine. Many care facilities have marginal health and safety standards and are short of properly trained workers. The average cost for one year of care for a child is $3,000, which is beyond the reach of poor families and creates a financial strain for the middle class.

As a result, child care has become a hot-button political issue, and both Democrats and Republicans are scrambling to cater to the concerns of working parents. Last week the Senate approved an ambitious Democratic plan, dubbed the Act for Better Child Care, or ABC, that would vastly expand the Federal Government's role, at a cost of $8.75 billion over the next five years. The bill would authorize $1.75 billion each year to help low-income parents pay for child care. Parents would receive 70% of the funds directly; the remaining 30% would go to the states to expand day-care services.

In a provision sure to draw a legal test on separation of church and state, the bill would issue vouchers to parents for use in day-care centers that offer religious instruction. To win the support of Republican Senators, ABC would create a tax credit for the costs of care and child health insurance, adding to the federal deficit as much as $10.3 billion in lost tax revenues in five years.

Another section requiring federal standards for child-care services was eased in order to allow the states to establish their own guidelines, thereby winning the endorsement of the National Governors' Association.

ABC is sponsored by an unlikely pair: liberal Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and the archconservative Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch has been vilified as a traitor by conservatives for supporting the bill, which Senate Republican leader Bob Dole denounces as a "money-eating bureaucratic sinkhole." He attacks ABC provisions that would encourage state governments to establish standards for day-care centers as an unwarranted intrusion by Washington. Hatch counters by insisting that conservatives should be as responsive as liberals to the needs of families. Says he: "Should we continue to ignore the problem just because some on the far right have their heads in the sand?"

President Bush, who favors an approach based largely on tax credits, has threatened to veto ABC, but it is difficult to see how he can sustain such a veto. Although the vote broke down largely on party lines, nine Republicans joined 54 Democrats in passing the plan. Moreover, the House is working on a / bill similar to ABC that would also expand the Head Start program and offer school-based care to latchkey children. Bowing perhaps to political reality, the Administration indicated last week that it would be willing to discuss how ABC can be improved.