Sen. Tina Smith: Child care, support for small businesses key to reopening the economy

As plans emerge to reopen the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said a large investment in child care should be part of any assistance. Smith and Massachusetts Sen. and former Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren are proposing a $50 billion to boost the child care sector.

Sen. Smith talked with All Things Considered host Tom Crann Thursday.

The interview below has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full interview.

Why is child care important for reopening the economy?

Access to good quality and affordable child care is one of the biggest challenges and biggest expenses that any family with young children have. So, this is a huge challenge before the outbreak.

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But with this epidemic, it is pushing many of these child care providers over the brink. And we cannot let that happen. This is a moral imperative and an economic imperative because our economy won't work if when we do return to normal, we don't have safe, affordable, good quality places for our children to be when we're working.

How would the money be used specifically?

What we are proposing is $50 billion that would be used to stabilize the child care system that we have to keep providers in business. Many surveys are showing and the providers that I've talked to have told me that they are on the verge of closing their doors and just going out of business. So, we need to stabilize those child care providers.

But beyond that, we also have to look at what do we do to stabilize this child care system, which is so integral to our economy and to our children's health and well-being for the long term. Our bill also provides support for long-term investments into infrastructure, training, facilities and other things that we need to do to make the system really work for families and child care workers.

You said Minnesota small businesses received $7.6 billion in forgivable loans as part of the Paycheck Protection Act. Minnesota’s rate is better at 6.5 percent than the nationwide rate, 3 percent.

Minnesota businesses and lending organizations jumped on this opportunity to help small businesses. And we have done well in getting these loans approved. In Washington, I think Republicans and Democrats agree that we need to do more to this to fund this program.

But beyond that, we also need to make sure that the dollars are getting into the hands of really small businesses, those we call "mom-and-pop" businesses, the family-owned businesses that are on Main Street, that might be restaurants or nail salon.

So, we want to make sure, as we move forward, that we are looking at this program and making sure that it's working as well as it can and put more money into it. Those two things, in my mind, need to go hand in hand.

President Trump and other Republicans say Senate Democrats are holding up another round of loans for small businesses. Are you? Why?

That's a little bit of some of the political talk that goes back and forth in Washington. But in this case, interestingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce agrees with Democrats that we need to make some changes to this program so it works well.

Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida actually came out Thursday and read much of what the Democrats are saying about how we need to move this small business proposal forward, at the same time that we make sure that our hospitals and state and local government services also have the money that they desperately need.

What are the long-term effects of all these additional programs?

My view is that right now the emergency trumps the long-term issues that we need to always consider when it comes to budget deficits and debt.

And the other thing to remember about this is that as we look at some of the lending and grant-making that we are doing, that also comes along with U.S. taxpayers taking an ownership share in those businesses.

That's also what we did in 2008. And while that process did not work perfectly, it's an unremembered footnote that U.S. taxpayers recouped much of the money that we loaned companies back in 2008 because of that ownership position we took in those companies. I think that is a wise investment in our money right now.