.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said we need to make sure that the benefits promised to our veterans are delivered and we need to weed out duplication in education spending in a new video recorded this week. The video addresses a few questions and comments Wyoming constituents sent him during the past couple weeks through Facebook and Twitter, from phone calls to his D.C. and Wyoming offices, and from email and written letters.
Child Care and Development Block Grant Bill
"I really appreciated it when I was in this coffee shop and it had an old stove in there and I saw a dad who was explaining to his first and third grader how the damper and the flue on the stove worked. I went over and I said, "Are your kids homeschooled?'. He said, "Absolutely. They're homeschooled from the time they wake up until the time they go to public school, and from the time they get out of public school until they go to bed'. Parents are the ones that have an obligation to make sure that their kids are educated.
"The child development block grant is for children whose parents may not have the ability to do that, or the time to do that, and there used to be 119 of the programs Most of them have turned into babysitting programs. I was able to get that down to 69 while I was the chairman. Since that time, we've worked to get that down to 45, but 45 is still too many.
"The amendment that I put into the child care and development bill, would reduce it still further and would come up with a plan that hopefully would get it down to maybe six, and under one department. Right now those childcare programs may have to put in grants from maybe 12 or 15 different agencies to run the program they're running right now and each of those requires a whole bunch of paper work, so it will be simpler for them too, but it should save the federal government a lot of money and get this closer to being back to the states."
Vote on veterans bill
"I really appreciate those questions because what we wound up with was kind of an "omnibus-anything-you-can-think-of" for veterans benefits, with none of it being paid for, and what we were trying to do was close the gaps of the retired veterans who lost a percent on their Cost of Living Adjustments, could get that back. That's where it all started. And then as it works in government, if it's worth reacting to, it's worth overreacting to.
"Senator Bernie Sanders threw in everything he could possibly think of, and just in veterans' hospital cases alone, the way that he opened it up for veterans who haven't even been injured before, we would have an overload of the veterans system. And in most states, there's already a backlog of the veterans services at the hospitals. We don't want to add to that, we want to make sure that whatever's done, can be done, and will be done right. We want to make sure that the veterans benefits promised is delivered. That's not the case now, it needs to be."
Senator Enzi records "Collecting Common Sense from Wyoming for Washington" videos every other week when the Senate is in session. He encourages Wyoming residents to continue sharing their thoughts, ideas, and questions and he will address as many of the topics as possible.