Ducking Family Policy

Too many members of Congress are completely out of touch with a question many Americans are asking these days: Who will take care of the children? Congress has answered by talking for months about family values, but, in the end, valued families so much less than parliamentary procedure that it abandoned major legislation strengthening the nation’s child-care systemand a parental-leave bill. Whoever called this the “year of the family” had the wrong calendar.

Not all members of Congress are out of touch. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) was joined by many in Congress in support of a $2.5-billion measure that would have created subsidies for day care for children from low- and middle-income families, increased the number of day-care programs and set standards for their operation. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) also had widespread support for a measure that would have given parents up to 10 weeks’ leave to care for newborn or ill children.

Some Republicans started a filibuster because they thought, correctly, that the Democrats were playing politics with the issues. But the child-care and parental-leave bills were not issues the Democrats dreamed up at the last minute to try to force Republican lawmakers to act on family issues. Both measures have gone through legislative hearings, careful negotiations and thorough debate. Still the Senate was unable to end the filibuster Friday; California’s senators divided, with Democrat Alan Cranston voting to end debate, Republican Pete Wilson voting to let debate continue.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said there is nothing urgent about a parental-leave bill. He’s wrong. Parents daily face the choice of staying home with their newborn child and daily they must decide between losing a job and caring for a seriously ill child.

But Dole is right that parental leave and child care will be on the agenda next year. Child care is “the hottest single fringe benefit in the nation’s largest corporations,” according to a news story Saturday on the front page of The Times, right next to the report about Congress killing the bills. Members of the Business Council meeting in Hot Springs, Va., said they had to focus on child-care benefits to attract top young talent. Far-sighted business executives have figured it out; maybe next year Congress will, too, so that all workers and their children can benefit, not just those who work for enlightened companies.

Dole and his colleagues may be able to wait. America’s children and their parents cannot. But they have no choice because Congress is out of touch.