"I think that they should provide day care centers for the working parents of low income, struggling families. Free of charge to the working parent/parents, of course. It should be funded by the people's taxes, which they pay a lot of and go to useless things anyway. It would give plenty of people (especially women and unwed, teenage mothers) a chance to continue or begin the careers they couldn't pursue earlier in life. Another idea would be to distribute money to these low income families with let's say, two or more kids." NY

"The cost to the government should not be a concern."CA

"As you can see, the problem does not lie with day care itself, it lies with the cost of day care. Many mothers cannot afford it, and are therefore forced into some difficult and uneasy situations." MO

"It is necessary to have good child care in the United States. Who cares about how much it will cost us?" TX

"Since the United States collects enough taxes each year, the cost of child-care should not hurt the people economically at all." MA (Deficit? What deficit?)

"I believe, if our government can spend billions of dollars on star wars projects, why can't it help those families whose only source of income is from a single parent?" AL

"Our government has money to give to other countries for their needs. Why can't they give some money to Americans' needs?" PA

"I feel that it's time to give every child the care and education they need, no matter what the cost is." CA

"The government could use money being sent to other countries here, at home for better and more positive uses." FL

"Where are our country's priorities? Why can't President Bush take some money from this program (Superconducting super collider @ $534 million) instead of robbing present child and health care programs? It seems that government money is being wasted on highbrow scientific programs instead of helping remedy the needs of citizens of our country." CT

"The federal government is going to have to face reality and stop giving to every country who needs help and take a look at America and spend a little of that trillion dollars on America's future, the children of today." VA

"I can understand the concern of President Bush and the legislators when they look at the price tags of some of the new child-care legislation, but what I can't understand is how they turn around and spend billions of dollars on the stealth bomber and other high tech weapons. Isn't our furture more important than yet another nuclear weapon?" IL

"'The California Child Care Resource and Referral Network has trained more than 1,200 new family-care providers in seventy comomunities to create more than six thousand new spaces for children.' Which, in turn, has cost $3 million. Is it a waste of money, or will it change our society?" NY

"When a program doesn't work the directors ask for more money. Instead of this, money should be given to successful programs. Reinforcing failure only lead to more failures, not more success in any endeavor."KY

". . .the United States' federal agencies paid for about 6.9 billion dollars worth of aid towards the cost of childcare." IA

"Child-care centers will not cost too much money. All they will have to do is fix-up certain buildings in communities and buy certain furnishings and pay people to watch the children." MT

"Commitments of monies of a never before seen magnitude to child care are necessary to manage this relatively modern problem." IL

"In a time when the children are the only hope for the future, the government needs to take a course of action, but in an era of thirteen digit deficits, it also needs to minimize cost." TX

"Whenever there is a problem in the United States there is a common cry, let the government take care of it. At this time, with a 200 billion dollar budget deficit looking the U.S. in the face, we cannot continue to throw billions of dollars at every good, although not vital, cause that comes along. Child care is a good cause, but in these economic times, is it really fair to ask the government and the nation's business sector to pay for child care?" KY

"The congress has decided to spend approximately $1.75 billion dollars per year to supplement programs already in existence for child care. The only problem with this plan is that it attempts to spend funds that simply do not exist." AL

"To pay for building, renting or leasing these day care centers we could make a national lottery that would help fund the day care centers, and also lay taxes off a little bit. The rich could also pay in taxes and income taxes." NE

"Head Start funding should be increased and a program for school-age children should be developed. The government should increase quality infant and toddler care. The Department of Health and Human Services should require the licensing of child care workers. To help mostly middle income families, the government needs to give incentives to private industry to have child-care options. The options should allow a parent to stay at home with an infant early on, with an option to work part-time for awhile. " IL

"Considering our nation's deficit, the government cannot be expected to subsidize a child care program all on its own. This would be too expensive. On the other hand, soome families barely make enough to get by without having to pay phenomenal amounts for child care. . .Therefore, the United States government should supply affordable care, qualified supervision and accessible facilities for child care." OH

"One billion seventy-five million dollars is a large sum of money to spend on babysitting little children; especially in these days with the war in the Persian Gulf costing an estimated 265 billion dollars or with our nation in the middle of paying for the Savings and Loan scandal which will cost more than 300 billion dollars. But most Americans would rather see their tax dollars go to something that they might actually be able to take advantagve of the benefits someday in the future." MI

"Certainly the national debt causes hesitation and argument concerning the funding of child care, but that does not give our government the right to ignore the constantly growing problem facing hard-working Americans." AL

But most realize money is not the whole problem . . .

"But what should we do with the fourteen or fifteen year old little girls who are having babies when they are still ' just babies themselves"? Do we tell them to just quit? You think you can get them to quit? More power to you, but you will never get them to quit and I think it would be mostly just because of spite, just to have a baby after the government said no. That would be a reward in itself." NY

"Try to imagine yourself as a pregnant working wife. . .What kinds of changes and effects is having a child and trying to hold a job going to have on your life? Your husband works too, but his paycheck is spent before it is received. Together both you and your husbands' paychecks combined bearly account for enough money to pay the bills you normally receive. So, what are you and your husband going to do to pay the new bills that will appear because of the child that is on the way? When should you take off of work due to your pregnancy? . . .What are you going to do about the money you loose by not being able to work and how will you and your husband be able to pay all the bills without your paycheck? When you do decide to return to work or are forced to because of the costly bills, will your old job still be there for you? If your job is still there, where are you going to put the newborn child?" OK

"Many parents are faced with a triple dilemma: day care is hard to find, difficult to afford and often of distressingly poor quality." IL

"America's legacy to its young people includes bad schools, poor health care, deadly addictions, crushing debts and utter indifference." KS

"It is a hopeless battle between having your child cared for properly or getting your necessities taken care of. It is a no win situation, a double edged sword. The problem is major, yet the government does not take it seriously." CT

". . .No parent would feel right about leaving their child unattended, but what other choices does he have? Either they can stay at home with the child, living-off of welfare, or go to work and leave the child to take care of himself. " CA

"Single parents have little choice between working and staying home. Either they work and put their child in day care or they go on welfare. Their options are limited, and so is their money." KY

"One may wonder what is considered affordable care? It should be a flexible system based on the wages of the parents. Living expenses should be fairly determined then subtracted from their income. An affordable payment would then be determined based on the remaining amount." OH

"It would be very difficult to determine the fair amount that each family should receive or which cases should even be considered for assistance." OR

Some students were angry at legislators . . .

"The problem is most of the people who make our laws and create new government programs just do not think this issue is truly important. Why? I'll tell you why. These men and women can afford to have their children taken care of properly. They never have to live paycheck by paycheck or wonder if the place their children are being taken care of is efficient. Therefore, they just don't understand how difficult it can be." OK

"It seems strange that congress doesn't do anything about the problem but yet both the Senate and House of Representatives provide on-site day-care for its members and employees." OR

"The Senate and House of Representatives, which have been so reluctant to help families nationally, provide on-site day-care centers for the members and their employees." MI

". . .it has been shown that when it comes to their own children, child care is always in reach. For $6,600, Senate employees can send their kids to a federally operated day care center less than a block from the capitol." OK

"We should not be satisfied by the false promises made by politicians but we should look for and demand action."NY

"I think the government does not understand what being poor means and how it feels. If I was given a wish, I would ask that the whole congress read a short essay I read in English class titled "What Is Poverty?" by Jo Ann Parker. I'd wish the government read this essay so that they could have some of Parker's statements stick in their heads like they did in mine:

			Poverty is cooking without
			food and cleaning without
			soap.
			Poverty is living 
in a smell
			that never leaves.
			Poverty is dirt.
			Poverty is an acid that drips
			on pride until 
all pride is
			worn away.
			Poverty is looking into a
			black future."CT

"Congress has failed the children and their parents. Congress has failed society by not solving the child care crisis. Ironically, Congress cannot agree on the government's role in helping parents find proper care for their children. . . It's time for Congress to remedy its immediate problems. . .At this present time, expansion of the government's role would cost the government money that it does not have, and cost the Americans money that they cannot afford." CA

"Congress should pass a bill saying that there has to be at least five nurseries in a town of over 5,000 people. that is a nursery for every 1,000 people. I think that would be fair, maybe costly, but at least our children would be safe." KS

"The people count on the government to do what's best for society and if they can't count on the government, then who can they count on? Look, I know that I myself am not going to run the government, so I have to rely on the people who surround me. And the way I look at it now, if these are the people who are supposed to better my society, then I haven't got much to look forward to." NY

". . .the politicians can care a little more about our future, they might work or push a little harder on these bills." VA

"(Congress) is not able to pass the bills that many people need, because congressmen are too afraid of hurting their re-election chances next year."IA

"I know that we elect people to make our decisions for us, but maybe something like this should be put to a popular vote." NY