Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, despite all the noise going on, despite the fight we are having, I think one thing we can all agree is the most important thing for our country is to restore and save the American dream.

With all this talk of an economic recovery, it would shock people around this country who are struggling to find a job or perhaps have a job but the job is a dead-end job and it doesn't pay enough that they can't live off of what they are making--there are a lot of reasons that is happening, but one of the reasons that is happening is because in the 21st century, the jobs we need in order to make it to the middle class require a higher level of skill and education than they did in the past. This is particularly chronic and is hurting people who are growing up disadvantaged, especially children growing up in dangerous neighborhoods, with little access to education and broken families. They are struggling to get ahead, and we are seeing the impact of the societal breakdown every day.

We have a program called Head Start. This program helps children 5 years of age and younger. There are about 1 million kids a year who benefit from this program. It helps them get meals, it helps them get access to medical screenings, physical therapy for children with disabilities, and access to quality prekindergarten education for these children. This is not a perfect program. I would like to see reforms. I would like to see this program become portable so that children and their families can access the best provider possible. But now is not the time for this debate. Now is the time to do everything we can to protect this program in the short term because as we speak there are thousands of children around this country already being impacted. In my State of Florida, almost 400 children have already been cut off from these services.

The reason I think this issue is different from the other ones that have been debated here is because the one thing you can't get back is time. Every day that goes by is one less day of education these children get. You can never give them back the time. You can always go back and pay somebody the money you owe them, but you can't give them back time.

So I would like to make a request that I hope will be accepted. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.J. Res. 84, which makes continuing appropriations for the Head Start Program, which was received from the House; I further ask that the measure be read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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