Child-Care Funding Becomes Hot Issue in Welfare Debates

By Linda Jacobson

As the nation's main welfare law moves closer to reauthorization, funding for child care is shaping up to be more of an issue in the debate than some had predicted.

Now that a stricter version of the 1996 welfare overhaul has passed the House, a "tripartisan" group of senators—so named because of the involvement of Independent James M. Jeffords of Vermont—is pushing for an increase in money for child-care subsidies. The senators argue that child-care spending needs to be increased if more single mothers are going to be moving into the workforce and working longer hours—as President Bush's plan and the House bill would require.

"The child-care thing is critical," said Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "I think it's the most important issue that...