“It’s not 1950”: Senator Murray on Trump’s Outrageous and Backwards Move to Siphon Child Care Funding Away from Single Parents and Working Families

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), released the following statement in response to the Trump administration’s reported plans to tap funding provided by Congress to help working families afford child care through the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and establish the first federal subsidy to incentivize parents to leave the workforce and raise their own kids. The plan would siphon funding away from an already-underfunded program specifically designed to help working families afford child care as the Trump administration seeks to promote “traditional family values.” “ It’s not the 1950s in America—our government shouldn’t punish people for being single parents or choosing not to marry. There are hundreds of thousands of families stuck on waiting lists who are eligible for very limited federal child care subsidies—you don’t get to skip the line because you have a marriage certificate. I will not allow this President to tell single moms that their kids matter less. This is an illegal and backwards move to deny single parents and unmarried couples federal funding they should be entitled to.” “There are hundreds of thousands of working families who qualify for federal child care assistance on waiting lists—I’m ready to pass a bill that delivers enough funding so that every working family in America can afford child care. Instead, Trump is taking money away from those families and pushing for an obscene half trillion increase for his so-called Department of War. Nobody cares what JD Vance thinks constitutes a ‘real’ family—single parents and parents who aren’t married pay taxes, too. Raiding an underfunded program solely to score culture war points is not pro-family—it’s a wasteful grift that I will fight every step of the way.” Senator Murray has led the fight in Congress to make affordable child care a reality for every working family in America. She is the author of the Child Care for Working Families Act , comprehensive legislation to address the child care crisis, and she has used her seat on the Appropriations Committee to deliver significant increases to the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Over the last 10 years, she has helped more than triple funding for the program. Earlier this year, she announced the launch of a new Child Care for America Working Group alongside Senator Warren, and she has been leading the fight against President Trump’s attempts to weaken the federal child care program. In July, she forced a Senate vote on her Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval of the Trump administration’s May 2026 rule to remove regulations for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program. ###