{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=1D0E79AB-C734-4F5A-9AB4-8657C8089EB0", "Democrats\u2019 Toddler Takeover Cuts Choices, Raises Costs, & \u201cInsults the Diversity of American Families\u201d", "2021-12-09", "2021", "2021-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Democrats\u2019 reckless tax and spending spree:\n\n\u201cOn Tuesday, I shined a spotlight on Washington Democrats\u2019 proposed \u2018toddler takeover.\u2019\n\n\u201cThey want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in order to upend families\u2019 arrangements\u2026 create massive inflation in daycare costs\u2026 and attack faith-based providers.\n\n\u201cDemocrats say their plan would not hurt faith-based providers because it wouldn\u2019t explicitly block them upfront.\n\n\u201cBut that\u2019s only a small part of the story.\n\n\u201cThe reckless taxing and spending spree might not ban faith-based providers on day one. But their scheme of mandates and subsidies would slowly and quietly push them out.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 bill would deny religious providers an extra funding stream for upgrading their facilities which their secular competitors would get.\n\n\u201cAnd their proposal would let woke bureaucrats persecute faith-based groups unless they leave their values at the door.\n\n\u201cIf a Jewish daycare wants to prioritize Jewish families, they could get thrown out of the Democrats\u2019 scheme for discrimination!\n\n\u201cA Catholic facility could be kicked out if families who are registered parishioners get first dibs!\n\n\u201cIf a faith-based provider decides not to hire somebody who fundamentally rejects their teachings, left-wing bureaucrats and lawyers could come after them. The woke mob that stalks cake-bakers and florists is now coming for church daycare.\n\n\u201cTwenty-one organizations representing hundreds of thousands of faith-based daycares and preschools signed an open letter to the Senate. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims all wrote this to Chairwoman Murray and Senator Burr.\n\n\u201c\u2018The Build Back Better Act will suppress, if not exclude, the participation of many faith-based providers\u2026\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018[P]rovisions in the bill text make it virtually impossible for many religious providers to participate.\u2019\n\n***\n\n\u201cNow, the far left says that if you don\u2019t support this toddler takeover, you\u2019re out of touch.\n\n\u201cBut they\u2019re projecting. It\u2019s their Big Government scheme that is out of touch with the diverse aspirations of different families.\n\n\u201cLast year, a nonpartisan survey asked families what childcare arrangements they\u2019d ideally like.\n\n\u201cApart from the pandemic, if finances were no obstacle, what would American parents want?\n\n\u201cThe share who said center-based childcare was 27%. This is the only route that Democrats want to subsidize. Just 27% of parents say it\u2019s their ideal world. And of that 27%, a majority prefer the faith-based options that Democrats would push out.\n\n\u201cA larger group, nearly 40%, said their ideal arrangement would involve full-time parenting in some form. Either one parent stays home, or the two trade off.\n\n\u201cAnother 9% said they\u2019d ideally like an extended relative like a grandparent to be the caregiver.\n\n\u201cOther families would ideally want a nanny-share or neighborhood co-op.\n\n\u201cThe Democrats\u2019 daycare scheme would give all these people nothing.\n\n\u201cA family that has sacrificed so that a mom or dad can stay home will not get one penny for books or supplies or to make up for lost wages.\n\n\u201cA grandparent who leaves a part-time job to spend weekdays with their grandkids will not get a dime from the Democrats\u2019 plan.\n\n\u201cA neighborhood nanny-share gets zero help.\n\n\u201cForget about diversity. Forget about choice and fairness. Families would either enroll in the specific pathway that Big Labor and Big Government like best or they\u2019d get nothing.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, even in the centers that Democrats do want to subsidize, parents would get a very mixed bag.\n\n\u201cAnalysts agree the new regulations would send costs skyrocketing. The District of Columbia\u2019s local government estimates these sorts of policies would increase the cost of childcare by roughly $12,000 per child per year.\n\n\u201cTheir plan would supposedly use government subsidies to make up for this new inflation, but that assistance would be confusing and uneven.\n\n\u201cSo this bill manages to be wildly inflationary and wildly unfair at the same time.\n\n\u201cIt insults the diversity of American families and their aspirations.\n\n\u201cIt simply hands money and power to the same woke bureaucrats who are letting far-left propaganda into K-12 schools and then sending the Department of Justice after parents who speak up.\n\n\u201cThis bill would give HHS Secretary Becerra, a hard-core culture warrior, a giant slush fund to start shaping the care of babies and toddlers.\n\n\u201cAnd facilities and families who make different choices would be left facing a massively inflated market with zero help.\n\n\u201cThis would be an awful proposal for American families even if it were free. But it isn\u2019t.\n\n\u201cWashington Democrats don\u2019t just have to explain to parents why they want to make childcare more expensive, more inflexible, and more unfair.\n\n\u201cThey also get to explain why they want to print and borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to do it.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:37:48Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=1D0E79AB-C734-4F5A-9AB4-8657C8089EB0"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.977344112470746, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}