State of the Union: Interview With Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)

Interview

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Thank you. Same to you.

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I do.

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Well, there's a solution, a proposal from the Biden administration that I support that is childcare for working families.

It would cap the cost of childcare at $10 per day. It would essentially be a way to provide childcare, to subsidize childcare for working families all across this country. Families spend as much as a quarter to half of their income on childcare, and there's no way for working families to survive under those -- under those burdens.

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Well, we keep trying. We keep trying. I don't know why my Republican colleagues won't support working families and making sure that we have childcare in this country.

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Well, there's a whole number of things -- of reasons, not the least of which, there is a work force shortage.

You're competing for fewer and fewer slots for childcare. We need to expand availability of childcare. We need to have -- expand the work force. This is where immigration reform would be helpful to bring in more workers who can be trained up and to provide childcare.

It just -- there's a number of forces at issue. And, frankly, in other countries, they have found that it is important enough an issue for there to be subsidies to support childcare for working families. And we're just one that doesn't do it.

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Yes.

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Yes. Yes.

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As soon as I got pregnant, I knew there was going to be an issue, because, when I was in the House, we were able to bring children onto the floor up to the age of 12.

Actually, it was Speaker Pelosi, when she was speaker the first time, who changed the rules for that. But, in the Senate, there are all sorts of rules. It's very tradition-bound, and they have brought dogs onto the floor of the Senate, but they have never brought children.

And so I had to enlist Amy Klobuchar to help me in that fight, and it took the entire nine months of my pregnancy. And the rules finally changed when Roy Blunt of Missouri stepped up and said, here's a bipartisan solution.

And as soon as he became chairman of the Rules Committee, three days later, he changed the rules. But it took nine months of arguing. And there were questions like, what's the dress code for the baby going to be? And so I put a blazer on her when I did bring her to the floor...

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... a little baby blazer.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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It says that they are struggling and they're barely hanging on, and many of them are falling behind, which is why I have made so many family issues a part of my work that I do, whether it's mandating that all airports have lactation stations.

That happened after I was traveling and trying to express breast milk for my babies. And I was told: Oh, just go plug your breast pump in next to where those guys are charging their cell phones. Or you can do it in the toilet. And it's like, that's disgusting.

So we changed that law. And that was bipartisan. It took five years, but it's done. And so there are a lot of these things that still need to be done, and I'm working hard on them every day.

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Hang in there, sister. We're in this together. And nobody has perfect work-life balance. Everybody struggles.

And, so, do the best that you can, and you're what keeps this country strong. You're growing the next generation for our nation.

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Happy Mother's Day to you too.

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Thank you.

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