ABSTRACT
Defining a federal role in child care has always been a thorny public policy issue, and the extreme ends of the philosophical continuum concerning such a policy are well established. At the one end is the view that the federal government can be effective in providing for children only if it is able to govern the program directly. At the other end is the view that any governmental role will result in the bureaucratization of childrearing. Although Congress has approved program-specific child care assistance for welfare recipients and low-income families through programs such as Title XX, the Job Training Partnership Act, the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act, and Head Start, advocates of the latter view have prevailed thus far and have prevented passage of any comprehensive child care legislation. Most notably, in 1971, President Richard Nixon vetoed legislation calling for federal child care centers on the grounds that government should not be in the position of affecting children’s psychological or emotional development.
