Content
| At Work in Congress |
| Putting Children First: |
Ours is the wealthiest country in the world. Yet our nation's
commitment to children belies our great prosperity and wealth. One in six
children lives in poverty, nationally only 12 percent of families eligible
for child care assistance are lucky enough to receive it, and more than
9 million children under 19 do not have health insurance.
Early childhood development has been a passion of my wife Teresa and I
for years. The earliest years of life are critical in shaping every child's
future learning and development. You can't achieve reform of the public
school system that Americans deserve and our economy demands without providing
a healthy, safe, and supportive start for all children of pre_school age.
We must take an approach to early childhood development programs and child
care programs that reflects what we know to be true: children who begin
school lacking the ability to recognize letters, numbers, and shapes quickly
fall behind their peers. Students who reach the first grade without having
had the opportunity to develop cognitive or language comprehension skills
begin school at a disadvantage. Children who have not had the chance to
develop social and emotional skills do not begin school ready to learn.
I believe it is the obligation of government to ensure that all children
have the opportunity to succeed.
On Early Learning: Senator Kerry introduced groundbreaking legislation
dealing with early childhood development. His legislation helps empower
local communities
to provide essential help for young children and their families by providing
additional funding to communities to expand early childhood development
efforts and to form collaboratives of early childhood development stakeholders.
At the end of 2000, a version of this bipartisan legislation, called the
Early Learning Opportunities Act, was signed into law.
President Bush proposed doubling the child tax credit
from $500 to $1000 per child. But his proposal did not provide any benefit
to the millions of families who do not qualify for the credit. Senator
Kerry worked closely with both Republican and Democratic colleagues to
modify President Bush's proposal by making the credit partially refundable
so that the majority of low-income working families can also benefit from
the doubling of the credit. Due to Senator Kerry's work, an additional
16 million families will now benefit from this change.
Senator Kerry has worked to make child care more affordable and available
to families, and will make increasing child care funding one of his top
priorities in the upcoming reauthorization of the welfare reform bill.
Senator Kerry is also a strong supporter of Head Start and Early Head Start
and firmly believes that the programs should be expanded to reach all eligible
children.
Greatly concerned by the numbers of children who are victims of handgun
violence every day, Senator Kerry authored the Gun Lock Consumer Protection
Act, which requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to formulate
minimum safety standards for gun safety locks and to ensure that only such
locks that meet the minimal standard are available for purchase by consumers.
The use of gun safety locks is increasing in the United States, but despite
the growing use of these locks, they are not subject to any minimal safety
standards. The CPSC has participated in the voluntary recall of hundreds
of thousands of locks over the past couple of years.
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