Brennan attacks Bush on child-care stance

ROCKPORT — The “kinder and gentler” Bush administration has served notice that it intends to veto a $611 million child-care bill now being worked out by the Senate and House of Representatives, Rep. Joseph E. Brennan said Friday.

Brennan spoke at a conference of the Resource Access Project Network at the Samoset Resort on Friday. Several hundred Head Start workers attended the session.

The Bush administration supports a “bail out” package for savings and loan organizations in which $150 billion to $300 billion “will be truly wasted,” but then turns its back on the nation’s children, Brennan said.

“We have come a long way” since the days of the Nixon administration when child-care bills were labeled “anti-family,” Brennan told the cheering Head Start workers.

In his campaign to regain the Blaine House, Brennan criticized the McKernan administration for “scavenging ” health-care funds to cover a deficit. In his two-term administration, more was done to get women off welfare without “wasting so much money on testing,” he said.

The House approved the child-care bill Thursday night. Brennan said the document is headed for a House-Senate conference for a compromise bill.

Although politicians all say they support child-care assistance, “Why are so many children living in poverty? The number is currently one in four or one in five. In Maine, the poverty rate for children is 23 percent.

“The fact is, it is more difficult and dangerous to be a child in this country than to be an adult. Our infant mortality rate is appallingly high. We rank 22nd worldwide, behind most comparatively developed countries,” Brennan said.

In Maine, it has been estimated that approximately 250 children are born each year with an alcohol-related birth defect, Brennan said.

“Our children have lost ground over the past year. They are in trouble but they can’t vote. It is up to us … (to) act on their behalf,” he said.

The proposed child-care bill would develop after-school programs using existing school buildings. It also would increase money for child-care services, and $260 million for state grants for increase child care and salaries of workers.

One Head Start worker at the Samoset said she clears about $50 a week, after deductions.

The bill would establish $25 million in grants to assist businesses with day-care programs and $75 million to assist states in improving child-care standards.

Brennan praised the 200 child-care workers at the conference. “With adequate resources, you can help turn life sentences of despair into a lifetime of achievement.”

As health-care costs increase, more people, including the nation’s biggest firms, are looking at a national health-care plan, Brennan said.