The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
‘COURAGEOUS AND INNOVATIVE’
■ Praises state’s COVID response ■ Meets with governor, lawmakers ■ Entourage grabs a slice Vice President Kamala Harris visits CT as part of ‘listening tour’
Landing in Connecticut Friday for the first time, Vice President Kamala Harris hailed the state for being “courageous and innovative” in helping children during a pandemic that has underscored the need to fight poverty and boost education.
The visit, the last stop on her national “Help is Here” tour highlighting the $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan, the nation’s first female vice president delivered a clear message about children, and the billions of dollars in the plan for the embattled child-care system.
“When a child is supported with the infrastructure that lets them know that they are loved ... that lets them know that they are respected,” Harris said at a West Haven child care center. “These children can and will be anything they choose, and in that way, our future is bright.”
After her arrival was delayed by an hour due to fog, Harris was greeted at Tweed-New Haven Airport by top elected
officials before she spoke with child-care experts and stressed the importance of helping the next generation. During her visit, Harris even had a chance to eat some of New Haven’s famous Sally’s pizza, delivered by her staff to the center where she spoke.
Noting that 2 million women in the country left the workforce, many because of the responsibilities of motherhood in the pandemic, Harris said the billions of dollars aimed at pulling half the nation’s children out of poverty is historic, necessary and should be a nonpartisan issue politically.
“We are at a moment, I believe that should cause us to have great optimism about what is possible,” she said during a 15-minute address to parents, day care workers and educators in the West Haven Child Development Center. “And we are all a part of it.”
Connecticut was among the few states that focused on the need to keep day care centers open over the last year, particularly those near hospitals so essential medical workers could continue in the front lines helping COVID patients. The state has also attempted to keep open public schools and preschools. About 141,000 laptops were given to school kids and internet hot spots provided to help bridge the digital divide.
As Harris was speaking there, toward the end of a whirlwind visit that included a similar appearance at the Boys & Girls Club of New Haven, Gov. Ned Lamont announced that he wants to use $210 million in federal COVID relief money to invest in early childhood programs across the state, including $120 million to help child-care businesses that were hit hard by the pandemic.
“We are having this conversation to hear about the challenges and crises we are facing in this country that in many ways have been accelerated by the pandemic,” Harris said at the Boys & Girls Club.
Then she conceded, proudly, what Republican critics of the $1.9 trillion spending plan have said in opposing it: The massive stimulus bill, which passed with no GOP votes in Congress, is not just about lifting the nation’s economy out of the coronavirus recession, but also advancing a long social agenda through government programs.
“And this is a moment then, as we look at where we are, it is a moment to leapfrog over what otherwise might have been incremental change to actually fast forward in addressing the longstanding issues that have affected our children,” Harris said.
“We are at such a critical point in our nation’s history,” U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, of Meriden, said of children’s poverty. “It’s almost like a reset button.”
Cardona, Lamont and U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Jahana Hayes, were among the dozens of people who greeted Harris when she landed at the New Haven airport.
Cardona, who until this year was the state’s education commissioner under Lamont, cited statistics on child poverty nationwide and in Connecticut on food insecurity.
“We know that education can really lift up children out of poverty,” he said.
Cardona said the Education Department’s job is to provide resources on how this could work, and to get children back learning inperson as quickly and safely as possible in the pandemic.
Harris recognized Hayes, D-5, and DeLauro, D-3, a longtime proponent of funding for children’s programs, and called U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy her “buddies” from her days in the Senate.
Harris said she spoke with President Joe Biden in the White House Friday morning.
“He said as I was walking out to come to Connecticut, he said, ‘Please tell Rosa I love her,’” Harris recounted. Some may say he also needs DeLauro, in her new role as chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which oversees all government spending.
Afterward, asked about that moment, DeLauro held both hands to her heart for a silent moment, then said, “Eighteen years it took to do this, but we did it,” referring to the expanded child care credit in the American Relief Act.
Harris talked about the “generational impact” of the plan’s child and family provisions. “It is about working people,” she said. “It is about our economy. The connections between child care and all these other systems are so direct.”
She recalled growing up when her mother, a cancer researcher, depended on a neighbor, Regina Shelton, to help watch Harris and her sister while her mother was working.
“She could not have done that work without Ms. Shelton,” Harris said, stressing how all working parents need help raising children. She wanted to talk with the group about how they are measuring the pandemic’s impact on mental health and poverty.
In the center’s residential neighborhood, people stood on the front porches and at the end of the block, where they were kept by police, and waved and cheered. Inside, a classroom of 3- and 4-year-olds sat on a colorful carpet waiting for Harris. They were all wearing face masks.
“I want to see Kamala Harris,” one girl named Galya said. “I’m going to tell all my family about you.”