This is an archive page. The links are no longer being updated.
REMARKS BY: DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES PLACE: National Association for the Education of Young Children, Washington, D.C. DATE: November 29, 1995
From the sandbox to the soapbox, you -- and your members --are putting children first -- where they belong!
My thanks, also, to Dr. [Dick] Clifford, who will continue to ignite this extraordinary torch of leadership at NAEYC.
I want to thank this organization for loaning us two of our country's best experts on children and families, my colleagues: Joan Lombardi, Director of our Child Care Bureau, and Helen Taylor, our Head Start Bureau Director.
And, I can't begin my remarks without paying tribute to your keynote speaker, Shari Lewis, and her trusted advisor, "Lamb Chop."
I have to confess: I've been waiting for years to meet "Lamb Chop." Unlike some people in this town, "Lamb Chop" actually makes sense when she opens her mouth!
For decades, with imagination and inspiration, Shari Lewis and her puppets have been part of our remarkable tradition of storytelling in America.
I'm talking about the folk tales, the fairy tales, and the down-home wisdom we all heard when we were young -- and pass down to the next generation as we get older.
Remember the Native American trickster tales and the African American folk tradition?
Golden oldies like Cinderella and The Wizard of Oz?
And, the Mexican-American song about a mother duck who protects and provides for her ducklings?
A far cry from "Beavis and Butthead!"
These stories have one thing in common.
In each case, the children get saved because of the intervention of caring adults: The Fairy Godmother. Glenda the Good Witch. The kindly woodcutter. The loving parents.
You are those caring adults Whether you're providing young children with new insights into the beauty of nature and the power of their minds, or offering a safe haven of play and learning for them while their mothers are hard at work, you serve on the front lines, giving millions of moms and dads the peace of mind that their children are safe, secure, and getting off to a good start in life.
Outside of the role of "parent," you have the most important jobs in America -- and, we won't let anyone forget it!
The Clinton Administration is proud to stand beside you in your everyday battle to help parents provide health and hope to all of our children.
Under our watch, we're fighting for a stronger Head Start program that demands quality, serves parents, and reaches our youngest children -- that's a children's agenda!
We're fighting to make people choose work over welfare with an Earned Income Tax Credit that would reduce taxes for 20 million working families in 1996 alone -- that's a children's agenda!
We're fighting for a healthier country -- with childhood immunization rates that are at their highest levels in history, and a tobacco initiative that ensures that children get information about smoking from their parents and teachers -- not from Joe Camel -- that's a children's agenda!
We're fighting for safer neighborhoods with the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapon Ban -- the first two curbs on gun violence to be enacted in more than 25 years -- that's a children's agenda!
And, through it all, we're fighting for working families -- with a vision of quality child care that helps parents educate children, promote their health and development and, keep them safe.
That's why we created a special bureau within HHS to coordinate our department's efforts on child care issues.
It's why -- while the President continues to cut the fat and reduce the deficit -- we've invested in our future by proposing increases for child care in our budget -- not once, not twice, but three times.
It's why we're ensuring that good health -- from immunizations to proper nutrition -- works hand in hand with child care.
It's why we are insisting on bringing real quality standards to every single child care setting.
And, that's why we have made -- and will continue to make -- the point very clear: child care must be the foundation of any real approach to welfare reform.
A car won't run without an engine.
A jet won't fly without wings.
And welfare reform just won't work without good child care.
Just listen to the experts: the Tennessee mother who said, "I could keep a job if I had child care"
Or, the California receptionist and part-time student, who in a letter to President Clinton, said she was "trapped between a rock and a hard place..." desperate for affordable child care so she could continue earning and learning -- and stay independent.
These are the real faces of welfare reform.
No matter how many "Want Ads" they scan or interviews they go on, single parents can't move to independence without a safe place to leave their children.
It's that simple.
Unfortunately, the Republican Leadership in Congress disagrees.
They're trying to turn away from our longstanding bipartisan commitment to child care and turn back the clock on the bipartisan progress we made in the Senate by improving the House's extremist welfare bill -- with a Conference agreement that puts the special interests ahead of our children's interests, places cutting the budget ahead of putting people to work, and gets the values all wrong.
We know that real welfare reform must reward the American values of work, responsibility, and family.
So, when they try to cut $1.2 billion from the Senate proposal for child care over the next five years -- making it impossible for at least 80,000 single mothers to move from welfare to work in the first year alone, we must say "no."
When they try to gut fundamental health and safety standards for child care -- that were enacted with overwhelming bipartisan support just five years ago, we must say "no."
When they impose a huge unfunded child care mandate on the states and then tell them that they can't even allow women with young children to work part-time, we must say "no."
And, when they slash funding targeted at improving quality in our child care system, and take us back to the days when we spent more energy guaranteeing the safety of hairstyling salons than the safety of child care, we must say "no."
The Republican Leadership in Congress thinks child care is pork -- and tobacco is a vegetable!
In fact, slashing child care resources reminds me of the old saying that the only difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits!
At a time when we are trying to improve the work incentives in our welfare system, it makes absolutely no sense to force more single moms to make the choice between going to work and leaving their children alone.
In just one year, the Republican Leadership in Congress has gone from Boys Town to Home Alone!
But, it doesn't stop there.
Under the guise of reforming welfare, they're trying to take school lunches out of our cafeterias and off our children's trays.
Let me be clear: That's not welfare reform.
They want to reduce or eliminate assistance for more than one million disabled children each year.
That's not welfare reform.
They've proposed slashing billions of dollars from foster care, adoption assistance, and child abuse prevention programs, placing hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children at additional risk.
That's not welfare reform.
And, who would be hardest hit by the Republicans' $33 billion in cuts to the food stamp program? Fourteen million needy kids.
You tell me: Is that welfare reform?
They've taken cuts in child care, child nutrition, and aid to disabled children, wrapped them up with a big red holiday bow, and tried to call them welfare reform -- but they are wrong!
These cuts are cruel, counterproductive, and costly -- costly for our children, costly for our families, costly for our taxpayers, and costly for our vision of an America that is a great country because it is a good country.
Make no mistake about it: These cuts are driven by an extremist agenda and a proposed tax cut for the wealthy -- not a commitment to real reform.
Together, we must send the message loud and clear: we're not going to stand by and let anyone put a contract on our children!
The President remains firmly committed to bipartisan welfare reform:
While Congress continues to talk and talk about reforming welfare, this is a President who has acted -- granting 35 states the opportunity to invest in child care, require work, reward marriage, and go after deadbeat parents who try to walk away from their obligations to their families and their children.
He's prodded members of both parties into accepting his child support enforcement plan, requiring states to remain equal partners in reform efforts, and demanding that teenage parents stay in school and live at home.
And, he's made it clear that welfare reform should reward states for turning welfare checks into paychecks -- not force them into punishing innocent children for their parents' past mistakes.
That's real welfare reform.
And, it is within our grasp if the Republican leadership would put aside its extremist proposals, stop playing politics, and get on with our bipartisan progress toward helping America's families and children.
So, as we leave here today, I want to thank you for providing a voice of reason, experience, and compassion.
And, as we continue this historic debate about the role of government and the character of our country, I challenge all of you to continue to stand up and speak out on behalf of our children.
Because, as you know, children don't have lobbyists.
They're not a special interest group.
They don't buy T.V. time or host radio talk shows.
And, they can't vote.
All of us are the caring adults that make happy endings come true.
And, we must make sure that children are everybody's turf.
I like the way that the writer, Francis Thompson, described childhood:
"It is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul."
From Seattle to Savannah, our job is to keep that promise of youth and that power of dreams alive for this generation of children -- and every generation to come.
Working together, it can be done.
Thank you.