Abby McCloskey, Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy, February 19, 2025
On July 4th, 1991, the Washington Post ran a story about the issues we are here to discuss tonight. The headline read: “PLIGHT OF CHILDREN: SEEN BUT UNHEEDED.”
The article went on to say:
“Dissonance between rising concern and stagnant policy has bedeviled child advocacy groups for the past decade and now seems poised -- with the flurry of media attention triggered by a report last month of the National Commission on Children -- to move toward the center of the national political stage.”
For those unfamiliar, the National Commission on Children was signed into law by President Reagan. It was a cross-partisan, cross-industry commission designed to ‘serve as a forum on behalf of the children of the Nation,’ covering everything from healthcare, education, work, and more.
It has been thirty years since that Commission and their report. Almost everything has changed.
I want to talk about three things that have stayed the same.
First, improving the lives of children and families remains an evergreen challenge in our country. It is something we keep working at, and yet it struggles to get the attention it deserves.
Two, ideas matter, even the smallest ideas buried in thick reports. The Child Tax Credit that we will discuss tonight came from the National Commission’s report.
A member of that Commission, then Governor Clinton, would see the idea from its inception to signing it into law, when he became president.
Which brings us to the third point. Diverse groups can generate new ideas and anchor on shared values that don’t always rise to the surface of our policy debates. We don’t do enough talking with people we disagree with - especially now.
It was in this spririt, that we formed the Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families, thanks to generous funding from the Packard Foundation.
The Collaborative was the most politically and sectorally diverse group to meet this century (it helps to still be in the early part of a century).
We had extensive moderated discussions about the challenges facing low to moderate income families and what can be done about them. The group released its report last year, called In This Together.
Tonight, we want to discuss five areas of action from that report for this new Congress and Administration. These include:
(1) Create a National Commission on Children for the 21st century.
(2) Enact a stable, predictable child-related cash benefit that primarily benefits low-to-
moderate income families.
(3) Design a holistic strategy of care options for parents of young children that reflect
differing parental preferences and children’s needs.
(4) Create a baseline of federal protection and support for new parents.
(5) Improve federal fiscal responsibility, which is what any benefit programs rests on.
We will discuss these more in the panel, which we’ll get on to now.
Thank you to Indi, a fearless member of our group and host tonight. Thank you to the host of our event, McCourt for your beautiful facilities, Convergence for graciously letting me run with this project, and to all of you for being here, including our intrepid panelists and moderator. Thank you.
Over to you, David.