Increasing Opportunity and Success for Children and Parents Through Evidence-Based Home Visiting Act

Floor Speech

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Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, following the wisdom of Frederick Douglass, who said it is easier to build strong families, strong children, than to repair broken men, I introduced my first bipartisan home visiting bill over a decade ago, in 2005. Since 2005, home visiting has been uniquely bipartisan--until today.

Research is clear. Home visiting makes kids and families stronger, healthier, and safer. In my home State of Illinois, MIECHV improved program coordination, reinforced the emphasis on proven models, and expanded availability of services. Unfortunately, the majority's approach has rejected bipartisanship and made timely reauthorization of home visiting less likely.

H.R. 2824 presents substantial cuts to home visiting and threatens the effectiveness of services for vulnerable children and families. Equally bad, the rule under which we are considering this bill conditions home visiting help to vulnerable families on harming seniors and persons with disabilities. Although we are not voting on that provision today, the rule we are considering this bill under makes it an inescapable part of it.

I join with over 110 civil rights, disability, and aging agencies to strongly oppose the Republican effort to pay for home visiting services that strengthen vulnerable children by stripping certain low-income seniors and those with severe disabilities of basic income they need to survive.

H.R. 2824 also is inconsistent with bipartisan Senate legislation introduced last week, which rejected the most controversial and problematic changes in H.R. 2824 in order to keep what works.

So what should the House have done instead of H.R. 2824?

826 organizations urged the House and Senate leaders to ``reauthorize this important program for 5 years, with a doubling of funding from $400 million, annually, to $800 million, annually, to allow States, territories, and Tribes to expand these services to more children and families.'' Yet H.R. 2824 fails to increase funding by even one penny.

Currently, MIECHV dollars serve only about 6 percent of eligible families and less than 50 percent of eligible Tribes. I tried to offer a fully paid-for alternative to double funding for home visiting over 5 years without harmful policy changes but was not allowed a vote in committee or on the floor.

One of the most harmful policy changes is a new ``State match'' requirement, which would be in addition to the ``maintenance of effort'' requirement already in law. Just as with their failed healthcare bill, this Republican bill pushes their fight to make States pay more for services, while harming vulnerable children and families as collateral damage. There is no doubt that the State match in this bill will reduce home visiting in many States and Tribes, cut services, and harm families.

The Republican bill further undermines successful home visiting by changing it from a program to improve child development and parent- child relationships to a failed jobs program. Defining a core outcome of MIECHV as increased employment and earnings will gut Federal home visiting. Not one--not one--of the evidence-based models is a job training program. Not one.

This bill says, if any program wants to improve economic self- sufficiency, it shall include employment and earnings. Further, the bill applies stringent, unrealistic outcome standards.

H.R. 2824 is failure by design for home visiting. Later today, I urge my colleagues to support Congressman Pascrell's amendment to strike this change.

After a decade of bipartisan efforts to increase Federal funds for home visiting, I am deeply saddened that H.R. 2824 now is the House Republican priority list for cutting funding, reducing services, and undermining the infrastructure that so many have worked to build. I unequivocally oppose this harmful bill and its discriminatory pay-for, joining the good company of the NAACP, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Justice in Aging, National Women's Law Center, and the Arc of the United States, to name just a few.

I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 2824 so that we can move quickly on to a bipartisan approach which builds on home visiting's considerable strength.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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