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A Head Start with Mr. Adams · Mom Wars

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: From the front lines of The Mom Wars, here's Bethany
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Mandel and Cara Kennedy.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Mom Wars.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I am your host, Bethany Mandel, and I am joined
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: by someone important enough that he has someone set up
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: his shop for him before we start recording. That's when
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: you know you've hit it big. I am joined by
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Assistant Secretary Alex Adams for, what is it? A-C-F.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: A-C-F, the Administration for Children and Families.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I knew the C-F part, but I wasn't sure what
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: the A was. So I think that maybe the Mom
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Wars is the right place for you. What do you think?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It's just like children and families.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I'm thrilled to be here.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Love it. So you and I spoke. I think back
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: in December about an orphan tax that I'm going to
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: put it in the show notes, but I want everyone,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: if you're listening and you're like on a treadmill or something,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: pull up that piece in the show notes and we're
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: going to talk about it later in the episode. But
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: now I wanted to talk a little bit about some controversy.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Your office is drumming up with Head Start. My knowledge
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: of Head Start is that they have the honor, maybe,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: of having been the last people on planet Earth to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: still mask children during COVID. They were masking kids like
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: it was going out of style into like, I don't know,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: maybe 2023. So what changes are you making to Head Start?
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Are kids finally out of masks at Head Start? I
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: guess that would be my first question.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Well, the court struck down the COVID rules, and we
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: have formally since rescinded those. So those are in the
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: dustbin of history. But Head Start's one of those programs.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: It's from the Great Society, so it's been around for
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: 61 years at this point. And my boss, Secretary Robert F.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Kennedy Jr., his family is intimately involved in the creation
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: of it. His uncles, President John F. Kennedy was one
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: of the original folks that had discussed the concept. And
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: then his other uncle, Sergeant Shriver, had overseen some of
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: the programs from the White House. So it's a program
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: that's near and dear to his heart. And he's talked
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: to me about making the program better and brighter. A
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: lot of what we're doing, we do have a notice
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: to proposed rulemaking out. So it's open for public comment
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: from anyone with expertise in Head Start operations, early childhood education, financing, administration,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: et cetera. But what we were trying to do with
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: that proposed rulemaking is go back to the basics. What
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: was the original purpose of the program, which was kindergarten
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: readiness and family wraparound support? Like a lot of programs, federally,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: it starts with a core statutory purpose. And then over time,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: it gets papered over with a lot of good ideas
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: and a lot of good intentions. And regulation gets added
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: on top of regulation. Reporting requirement gets added on top
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: of reporting requirement. Form gets added on top of form.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: And eventually, you have a bunch of people hired just
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: to do compliance and checkboxy type of work. The Head
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Start regulations have grown to over 130 pages, and it
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: has things as inane as advisory committee term limits and
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: how many they have to have per center and how
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: much mulch is enough mulch for the playground and just
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: all those ticky tacky things. We've proposed to cut the
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: regs from over 130 pages down to about 10, focused
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: on the most important things. And most importantly, returning a
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: lot of the decision-making to these local programs. Head Start's different.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Most of the programs that ACF oversees, it's checks that
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: we write to state governments and then state governments implement them. Here,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: we work directly with 1,600 different Head Start programs across
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: the country, everywhere from Boise, Idaho to Bangor, Maine. And
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: rather than set one-size-fits-all highly prescriptive input-driven regulations from here
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: in Washington, D.C., we're saying, let's return some of those
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: decisions to these local programs. In so doing, the economic
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: estimate that accompanies the rule is this would save $ 2. 2 billion. Wow.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: And it would allow those local programs to then reinvest
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: those $ 2. 2 billion in additional access to the Head Start program.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: It's funny. So I've sent kids to various preschool programs
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: over the years. And I prefer programs that are not
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: official and legal and regulated and registered and all of
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: those things. Because I have a friend who ran a
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: legal program in her basement for five children. It was
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: just like a very low key thing. And she showed
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: me her book of regulations from the county. And she
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: said the compliance cost on this stuff is so high
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: for me. And she pointed out just like a couple
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: of examples. The changing table had to be a certain height.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: And she had to rebuy a changing table. She had
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: to repave her driveway because there was a crack in
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: her driveway and someone could trip. All of these things.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: And I said to her, like, why are you doing this?
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: And for the first two years, it was because she
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: was getting COVID relief funds. And so it made sense
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: for her to be a registered child care educator. provider
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: but then after that the the cost benefit analysis was
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: like no brainer why would she why would she be
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: official and it sounds like montgomery county which is not
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: the most unregulated place in the country was far less
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: regulated than head start providers how does that impact like
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: child care on a day-to-day basis like what is the
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: impact of all those regulations.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'll start by saying there's a group called
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the Archbridge Institute, and they rank each state's childcare laws
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: on most regulated to least regulated. And very interestingly, earlier
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: this year, Archbridge said, well, since Head Start is this
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: federal to local program that kind of operates outside of
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: state law, let's rank Head Start as if it were
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: a state. And Head Start, not surprisingly to anyone that
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: spent a day in the program, was the most restrictive,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: most regulated. It was more restrictive than Bernie Sanders, Vermont.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: It was more regulated than California, Illinois, New York, Minnesota,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: et cetera. So it is the tightest regulated. There has
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: been a little bit of narrative, but that's why it's
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: driving the highest quality is if regulation and quality are synonymous.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know that anyone credibly believes those two are
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: always synonymous. So in the regulations that you mentioned, and frankly,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: a lot of what's in the Head Start book of regulations,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: on their own, you could justify. You could say, here's
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: why you have square footage requirements for this, or here's
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: why you have advisory committees for that. In isolation, you
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: can justify each of them or at least cough up
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: a semi-plausible post hoc rationalization for each. It's what they
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: do in total. So all these good intentions get layered
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: over time and eventually become a tapestry that no longer
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: makes sense. The most significant rewrites to Head Start occurred
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: in 2016, so at the end of the Obama administration,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: and 2024 at the end of the Biden administration. And
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: if you look at the rewrites that they published, the
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Obama one was, by design, it was going to increase
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: the cost of providing Head Start by a billion dollars.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: And they said, well, if Congress just adds a billion
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: dollars to the program, we won't lose any access. However,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: they had to humbly acknowledge that, yes, this will cost
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: a billion dollars. And if Congress does not ante up,
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: this will cost 100,000 slots. Spoiler alert, Congress did not
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: ante up a billion dollars. And they were exactly right.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: They lost 100,000 slots year after year after year. So 1.1
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: million fewer families have been able to access Head Start
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: as a result of those regulations. The other thing I
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: would say is if you look at the preamble to
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: the Obama-era regulation is they acknowledge, yes, cost is going
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: to go up. If Congress doesn't ante up, we're going
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: to lose over 100,000 slots. the quality for the remaining
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: shrinking number of children and families that access it is
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: going to be such of an order of magnitude higher
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: that society will still be better off because the quality
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: experience of that shrinking number of kids will offset the
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: society's loss of 100,000 other children accessing it. Spoiler alert,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: that also did not prove to be the case. There
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: was an independent report that came out today from ASPE,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation from HHS, that
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: looked at the three goals of the 2016 regulation. Cost
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: would go up. Boy, did it. It grew faster than inflation.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Access would go down. Slots reduced. Boy, did it. Quality
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: remained flat. They published the quality graph using the measure
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: articulated by the Obama administration in that rule. and it
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: is flat. Maybe if you get out a millimeter ruler,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: it might go up a millimeter. My ruler only goes
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: down to the centimeters, and I couldn't detect any difference.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: But cost went up, access went down, and quality remained flat.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: We're saying, let's try a different approach. Let's get out
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: of the business of setting one size fits all regulations
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: from Washington, DC. Let's get out of the business of
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: sitting here in a limestone building, projecting what every parent needs,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: what every child needs, what every program needs, regardless of
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: local workforce conditions, economic conditions, And let's provide that breathing
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: room to states, to local programs, and to parents to
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: set appropriate decisions. And it's been really interesting. I mean,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: you said at the beginning there's been controversy. I would
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: say some of it was generated by people who were
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: involved directly in the 2016 and the 2024 rewrites. And
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: I've been surprised that knowing the record that they have,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: they haven't gone underground or changed names or identities. It's
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: called chutzpah.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: You have to have it in Washington.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: But to try to double or triple down on a
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: failed strategy has been surprising to me, one. But two,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: if you believe in this program, and I do, you
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: would want more kids to access it, not less.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So I'm reading some of the CNN reporting. And I'm
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: going to quote the critics. But critics blasted the effort,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: saying that getting rid of Head Start's rigorous child development
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: health and safety standards is a backdoor way of dismantling
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: the program. Rigorous is a really generous word for what
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Head Start is. I was reading some data about how
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: effective it is. And the TLDR feels like a lot
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: of different communities. And when you're talking about schools and
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: all of these sorts of questions of effectiveness, And it
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: seems like it's really the community. The program itself doesn't
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: seem to be all that effective one way or the other.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: It's the community that you plop Head Start into. If
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: it's a community of engaged parents who care, the kids
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: do better. And if it's not, then they don't. I've
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: seen some data that indicates that kids who went to
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Head Start and kids who didn't the kids who didn't
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: go fared better. Is that still, because that's old data
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: that I read years ago. Is that still the case?
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Well, let me unpack several parts of that. I mean,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: the CNN reporting is emblematic of a lot of the
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: reporting on this. It's misinformed. It's driven by conflict entrepreneurs
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: who are trying to send a shrill message.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I like that, conflict entrepreneurs.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And generally what I would say, what a lot of
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: the reporting has missed is we're going back to the basics.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: There is a strong Head Start Act that is enshrined
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: in an act passed by Congress. It was most recently
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: amended in 2007. And the Head Start Act has strong
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: protections for eligibility with a focus on children with disabilities,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: foster youth, youth who have experienced homelessness. It's got civil
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: rights protections. It outlines the statutory goals of comprehensive wraparound
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: services for families. It outlines the goal of school readiness.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: It has outcomes criteria. And if a program doesn't meet outcomes,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: then it can be re-competed and we can pick a
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: different vendor for the local community. So the Head Start
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Act remains in total. What changes is all those extracurricular,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: heavily prescriptive, one-size-fits-all mandates that previous administrations chose to add
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: on top of what Congress required. So we're going back
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: to the statute. When people use the word dismantle, it
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: means one of two things. Either fewer kids are going
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: to access this or that quality is going to erode.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: On the first part, by design, the Obama administration, the
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Biden administration dismantled Head Start by adopting regulations that cut
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: the program. The Obama administration, again, admitted it would lose 100,000 slots,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: and the Biden administration had to humbly admit the same,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: that their regulations would lose 100,000 slots. Those came to be.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: You see those in the numbers. In 2015, we had
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: about a million kids in the program. Today, it has
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: dropped below 700,000. The number I just saw today was
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: it is down to 666,000 slots, a very ominous number, right? 666,000.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: So it dropped from a million to 666, and it's
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: going to continue to be on that roller coaster ride
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: down if we just continue status quo. We're taking a
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: different approach, cutting red tape to increase access. The other
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: side of that dismantling coin would be reducing quality. So
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: that would assume that the 2016 regulations increased quality. The
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: independent report that I mentioned that came out today demonstrated
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: that that's not the case. So just bad framing. I
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: agree with you completely that ultimately this is up to
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: how engaged the local community is, which is why we're
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: trying to reinvigorate local action as opposed to this passive, one-size-fits-all, unthinking,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: helpless culture that some suggest. And what we're doing, one
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: of the things I do like about Head Start is
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: on their governance boards and their policy councils, it does
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: require parental engagement. and it does require parents to have
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: a role in shaping curriculum, program structure, and other things
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: like that. So by us getting out of the business
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: of setting mandates, like what is the appropriate child-to-staff ratio,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: or what is the appropriate educational requirements for teachers' aides
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: or home visitors, we are returning those to local decision-making.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Probably the most interesting dynamic is I've met a lot
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: of these individuals. I've come to believe that they're in
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: it for the right reasons. They're mission-driven, they're purpose-driven, and
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: I trust them to make good decisions. Ironically, some of
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: the associations that represent these programs, the message that they're
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: sending is, we do not trust them. We do not
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: trust our members to make good decisions. If they make
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: a different decision than I would make, it is automatically
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: a bad decision, and they're going to cut corners, and
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: they're going to reduce quality. I think it would be
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: very hard for me if I was a head start
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: to pay dues to an association that is telling me
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: they don't trust me to make good decisions.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: This week on Conservative Crossroads, the topic, is passage of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the SAVE Act necessary to ensure election integrity? Don Palmer
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: says yes.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: It's absolutely necessary for our republic that citizens vote Have
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: sort of a trust that their voting system is working
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: and verifying registrants to vote and that their ballot is counted.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Stephen Richer says no.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: For example, the 2024 presidential election did not require the
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: Save America Act. It was lawful. It was accurate. There
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: is no evidence of significant fraud or error. Donald Trump won.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Passage of the Save Act this week on Conservative Crossroads.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Ricochet. Join the conversation.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: A lot of what they're criticizing you guys is cutting
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: different kinds of services. To play devil's advocate for a moment, good.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: When I see the mandate that schools have and the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: increasing mandate, for example, with mental health, I think to myself,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: you can't teach children how to read. I think it's
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: like 15% of kids in my local school district can
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: read on grade level right now. In second grade, I
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: think is when they do the testing. So I see
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: teachers who have a mandate to teach and they're not
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: doing that well. And then I see activists say, let's
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: increase the mandate of people who already aren't good at
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: their jobs and give them other things that they're not
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: trained to do, like mental health screenings and mental health
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: counseling and And because they want to get kids under
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: sort of the gender rubrics. Is that part of what
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: you're trying to dismantle in Head Start? Because my limited
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: observations with Head Start was it was a very activist
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: situation with COVID.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Well, again, I would challenge the assumption we're dismantling Head Start.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: I would say we are making Head Start better and
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: brighter and more durable for the future. You're focusing.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: You're laser focused on the actual task.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So the statute does outline a role for Head
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Start with comprehensive wraparound services. What we're getting out of
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: the business is saying this must happen within 30 days.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: This must happen within 45 days. Those are services that
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: should be decided locally. Interestingly, one of the ones that
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: the news focused on was it cut a requirement to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: teach tooth brushing. Again, I reject the premise that parents
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: can't teach their children how to brush their teeth. But Generally,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: what I would say is, you know, when you add
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: all of these prescriptive requirements, it kind of becomes a
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: cornucopia of special interest. What if we did this every
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: 30 days? What if we did this with an hour
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: if this happened? What if we required this in triplicate?
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: And that's how you get cost to spiral. And when
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: costs spiral, ironically, you get fewer services for children. You're
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: going to see some data come out in the near
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: future that show, in addition to the number of kids
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: coming down, the number of services has declined. And in
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: many cases, the rate of services provided to that lower
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: number of children has also declined. Specificity breeds specificity. Why
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: did we specifically call out toothbrushing instead of shoe tying
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: or walking or, you know, all of these other things.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Those are ultimately things that should be decided locally, not some,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: you know, a bureaucrat sitting here in a limestone building
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: in Washington, D.C. saying, you know, I have an idea. Right.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: So speaking of a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. in a
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: limestone building, so you said that, like, you proposed rules
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: or something. Like, can you translate that for the rest
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: of us living in English land?
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I reject the premise that I'm a bureaucrat. I'm
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: trying to cut regulations.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: No, I'm saying, explain it to me. Like I say
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: to ChatGVT, explain it to me like I'm five. That's
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: your prompt.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no. So it's very DC speak, right? So Congress
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: passes a law, the Head Start Act, outlining strong parameters
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: for the program. And then agencies in implementing it will
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: promulgate regulations that sometimes go beyond and are binding legal requirements.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: You don't use the word promulgate with a five-year-old, just
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: so you know.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: I have a seven-year-old and I was reading to her
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: how to regulate when she was a kid and E
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: for economics. I don't know that she retained any of it,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: but you publish regulations that have the force and effective law.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: If you're going to change those regulations, you have to
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: propose them, and it opens a public comment period. We're
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: in the middle of a public comment period. I think
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: there's about 40 days or so left for people to comment.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: They can tell us- Can I comment?
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Can I write a little letter?
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Anyone can comment. Anyone can comment.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Do people actually read this? How important is the public comment?
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Let's be real.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Under the Federal Administrative Procedures Act, we have to respond,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: or we have to read every comment, and we have
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: to be responsive to comments. So- We've published tons of
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: rules throughout ACF. I would say, you know, generally they
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: get very little comment other than like college masters of policy,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: public policy students, you know, commenting saying, you know, I'm
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: submitting this comment as a requirement for my class, like
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: stuff like that.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: That's so funny.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: The Head Start regulation has been different. I mean, I think,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: you know, in the first 20 days or so that
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: the public comment has been open, We've gotten several thousand comments.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you what makes an effective comment and what
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: does not make an effective comment. I've got my phone.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I was the kid who watched C-SPAN. So this is,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I'm actually very interested. If I was not doing this,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: which is why I do this, because I like doing
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: this stuff, I would be submitting public comment right now.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: I would be like listening to this podcast and Googling like,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: how do I submit a public comment? So tell me.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Well, as I said, we have to review each and
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: then we have to be responsive to public comment. So
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: the thing that makes the most effective public comment, I
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: don't know if you can see the back of my phone,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: but I've got a sticker that says data is greater
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: than opinions. You know, I would start there.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Facts don't care about your feelings.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Another way of saying that. You know, I would start there.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, just submitting a comment saying this sucks or
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Head Start has been great for 60 years. Don't dismantle it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: You know, like you know, we'll take those into consideration,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: but it doesn't give us direction. Why does this suck?
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: What would you do differently? What is the evidence that
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: we should add some of these things back in? Okay,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: if cutting the requirement that Head Start teaches toothbrushing is
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: improper for dental health, what is the evidence that Head
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Start children have better dental health entering kindergarten than other
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: center-based schools childcare programs or public preschool programs or parent-initiated
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: teeth-brushing education.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: That's always the question that progressives can't answer. When you ask,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: what is the evidence that this works? They short-circuit every
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: single time.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: And we have gotten some very thoughtful comments. I've been
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: asking for kind of a daily recap of what's coming in.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: And I can tell you empirically, there are changes that
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: we are going to make to the final rule based
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: on the comments that come in. But the most effective
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: public comments are those that go beyond opinion and have
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: strong evidence-backed, evidence-informed, non-emotional arguments. So I would encourage anyone
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: that has expertise in this area to take a pretty
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: careful look and submit comments by the deadline. I believe
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: it's October 6th. Okay.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm putting on my homeschool mom hat. I feel
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: like this would be a great assignment for homeschooled high schoolers, right?
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Outstanding. Outstanding. I love it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I love it. I was at an event yesterday at
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: the White House and something that I loved President Trump
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: said was that like they're just, they're empowering parents and
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: they highlighted the importance of homeschooling and the beauty of homeschooling.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I feel like this is like one of those examples of,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: you know, I think probably a homeschooled high schooler would
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: be smarter than a lot of MPH students, masters in
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: public policy. or public health?
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Well, as someone who has an MPH, I can probably
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: say that's true.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: No offense, but let's just be real here.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: But we want a wide net. We want as many
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: comments as possible, evidence-based, data-informed decisions so that we can
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: get this right. The point of proposing rules is to
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: get objective feedback from the community and so that we
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: don't make the same mistakes that the Obama and Biden
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: administration does. We don't want to add costs. We don't
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: want to reduce access. We don't want to saddle programs
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: with square footage requirements and bulge requirements and forms and
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: triplicate requirements that just create work for administrators and administrative overhead,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: but don't actually benefit the children and families that Congress
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: intended to serve. One of the rules that we proposed
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: here is this is a higher administrative limit than most
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: government programs. We allow Head Start programs to take 15%
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: off the top for administrator salaries, administrative office suites, and
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: things like that. Whereas a lot of programs that we
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: work with have 5% cap or 10% cap. So we
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: propose to lower the administrative cap from 15% down to
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: 5% so that these programs become a little less top-heavy
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Because of all the red tape relief that we're given,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: they won't need as many bus monitors and people with
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: clipboards and forms standing around just counting things. They'll be
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: able to spend more of the dollars on actual children
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: and families. Now, we've gotten some objective feedback that 5%
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: across the board, larger urban programs versus smaller rural programs
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: with fixed overhead, it might not It might not make
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: sense to set one cookie cutter, so we're looking at those.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: And that's why evidence-based, data-based, informed public comment can be
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: really important.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: So you don't want this to be a jobs program
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: for unemployable adults, basically. How mean. How terrible. Why– Why
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: would you not want it to be that? Can I
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: shift gears for just like 30 seconds? I didn't warn
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: you that I was going to ask this question, but
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: when you said that you were an MPH, how did
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: you come out of that program and not be like
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a crazed maniac? I think terrible things about MPHs since COVID.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: This is just my own personal bias. But I always
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: think about like when... the Trump administration is staffing positions
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: like yours, like people who are really smart and really effective,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: who are not brain dead zombies who bought into all
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: of the like craziness of their professional programs. Like, how
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: did you get to be where you are and survive
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: an MPH program?
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I started my career in pharmacy. So
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I did a doctorate in pharmacy and Turned out I
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: didn't fully enjoy being a pharmacist. I pivoted in my
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: career pretty early on to public policy. I worked for
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: a trade association and went back and got my MPH
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: part-time while doing that. I think by doing it part-time,
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: it's supplementing your skill set as opposed to forging who
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: your identity is. I would say I also had deep
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: policy bearings and beliefs to begin with. But after that,
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I pivoted into government service, ran a state licensing board,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: a board of pharmacy, and then kind of grew in
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: state government until last year when I got a call
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: from the Trump administration asking if I wanted to go
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: from state government to federal government.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: And then you had to move to Washington.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: I still live in Idaho, and I'm kind of commuting
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: back and forth because- It's for you. I love Idaho.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I love the West. I love the politics out there.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: I love the people out there. And I love the
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: job here, but I don't love the D.C., culture.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Life, yes. So I deeply disagree with you. I love Washington, D.C.,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: but I think that more government agencies should do this.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: There was talk of the Trump administration potentially doing that,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: especially with, I think, ag, de-centering it from Washington, D.C.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Are there other people in your position who are doing
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: this crazy commuting situation? Because I feel like that keeps
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: you connected with real America versus Washington, D.C.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you look at political appointees, I know a
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: bunch that are commuting back and forth. They'll come here
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: for the way and then they'll go home for the weekends.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: And I think that's pretty common in an administration like this,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: where they valued state expertise, they valued outside expertise and
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: not just longtime individuals who have burrowed their way into
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: federal positions. I would say from a family and economic standpoint,
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: terrible decisions. It allows you to stay grounded back home
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: while still being able to make important policy decisions. Good
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: for you.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ben Sass. And I'm Chris Dyer-Walt. And this
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: is Not Dead Yet. We're all dying, but some of
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: us have been brought face-to-face with that reality. However long
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: each of us have to do it, though, we all
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: want to live a good life. One with meaning, love,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: and joy. And our guests are here to help us
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: do exactly that.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: Now available for download and streaming at Ricochet.com.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Ricochet. Join the conversation.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I want to switch back to the first thing that
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I talked about. So hopefully folks will be able to
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: multitask and read while they were listening. I do that sometimes.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: I have my phone in my hand and I'm always
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: doing a million things while I'm listening. So we spoke
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: almost a year ago now about this orphan tax that
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: really spoke to my heart. A lot of people don't
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: know that when a parent passes away, if the child
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: is born, if they haven't graduated high school yet, they
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: receive what their parent would have gotten in their Social
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Security benefits. My parents both passed away when I was
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: in my teens, my mom when I was 16. And
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: so I theoretically got her Social Security benefits. Actually, my
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: aunt stole them, which was unfortunate. She owes me $ 35, 000.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: So there is a mechanism in a lot of states
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: where the state itself can steal those Social Security survivor benefits,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: which is wild to me. Can you explain a little
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: bit like what this is? Because when I first heard
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: about it from some of your staff, I like went
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: to an 11 on anger because I had my Social
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Security survivor benefits stolen by someone. And apparently that's legal
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: for a state to do that.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is straight out of a Dickens novel. It's
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: probably the most pernicious form of government I've ever come across.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: So as you said, when a child's parents die, the
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: child is entitled to an earned benefit, the Social Security
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: survivor's benefit earned through their parents' work. It's not a
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: welfare program. This was an earned entitlement. In last year
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: when we spoke, Bethany, in 39 states, there were 39
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: states where if that child then entered foster care because
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: their parents had passed away, And again, foster care is involuntary.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: No child is raising their hand saying, you know, I
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: want to go into state custody. There are 39 states saying, well,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: the child's in our custody. That's basically our money. And
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: they would, in the most literal sense, steal the survivor's
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: benefit from the orphan to cover the cost of foster care,
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: a cost that they cover for every other child in
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: foster care. So orphans were being asked to pay their
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: own way. whereas non-orphans were being covered by the state government.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: When you look through that anthology of how we got there,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: NPR has actually done quite a bit of coverage on this.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: And there were a number of consultants that came to
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: state governments in the early 90s and said, hey, we
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: can offset some of your state costs if you treat
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: your foster youth as quote unquote revenue maximization opportunities. So
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Consulting groups would work with states, identify youth in their
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: care who are eligible for survivor's benefits, apply for them
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: on behalf of the youth, steal it from the youth,
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: and in many instances, not even tell them. I've talked
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: to an NFL player that this happened to. I've talked
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: to one of my employees at ACF that this has
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: happened to. I can put names and faces to people
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: who this has happened to. Now, the ones that come
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: to us and talk to us about it are like, yourself.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, they've been very successful and they see that
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: it's wrong and they want to prevent it from happening
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: to the next person. But there's a lot of people
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: out there when you age out of foster care that
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: have not been successful. You age out without that family
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: support structure and access to those survivor's benefits is the
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: difference between having a car or not. It's the difference
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: between having rent for two to three years or not.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: It's the difference between going on to college or not.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: And there's a lot of people who have not been
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: able to connect with ACF and tell their story and
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: advocate for other youth because this forever set them back.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: So last December when we talked, we sent letters to
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: those 39 states saying, hey, this is going on. If
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: you didn't know this is going on, it is. Let's
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: work together to end it. I am proud to say
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: many of them have ended it. We are down to
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: just 14 states to go. From 39 down to 14
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: states to go.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Are there any notable states in there that we want
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: to throw some shade at?
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, all 14 have equal ire from
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: myself because it's equally wrong. The one that stands out
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: the most, frankly, is Minnesota because you have a governor
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: there who on the campaign trail talked about how he
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: was a recipient of survivor's benefits in his youth and
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: how having access to survivor's benefits gave him, quote unquote,
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: dignity and Yet the governor of Minnesota is robbing the
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: orphans in his foster care system of dignity. The only
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: argument that anyone could credibly postulate against this is budget.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: You know, they were using this to offset the budget.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about Minnesota and budget for a second. I
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: think they can find some money.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: We surveyed states just to get a grasp of what
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: is the order of magnitude of this. And the amount
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: that they're stealing from their orphans ends up being 0.22%
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: of their child welfare budget. 0.22%, a fraction of a percent.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: I'm a former state budget director. You have to have
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: balanced budgets in states. I routinely close budget gaps of 5%, 7%, 10%.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: If you can't close a 0.22% budget gap, you need
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: a new job, frankly.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: That's like the paper clips.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Exactly. A lot of our message has been every governor
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: in America has the authority to end this today, and
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: we've seen that. Governor Stitt signed an executive order and
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: ended it immediately. Governor Pillen in Nebraska. Governor Landry in
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: Louisiana signed an executive order. Governor Gianforte. in Montana signed
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: an executive order. We've seen governors all over the country
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: when confronted with this moral issue say, this is wrong,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: there is no wrong time to make the right decision,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: and we are going to end this via executive order immediately.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: And you've seen action from governors all across the country.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: We are down to 14 states and we are going
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: to continue to keep pushing until we are down to
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: zero states.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: What's frustrating to me, especially about the Tim Walz thing,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: like I'm going to say something, but it doesn't apply
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: to him, which makes it really frustrating is now as
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: a 40 year old, $ 35, 000 is still a lot of money.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong. I'm not rich. I have six children.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I live in Washington, DC. It's very expensive, but it's
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: not a make or break amount of money to me
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: right now as an adult. It was everything I had
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: when I was a kid. And this is some of
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: my frustration with public policy people is that they are
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: upper middle class and they've always been upper middle class.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: This was my frustration also with so much of COVID
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: was because people didn't understand what it was like to
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: live on the margins and not have childcare and not
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: have school and not have mandated reporters. All of those
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: things hit the lowest people on the totem pole. And
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: so this was such a frustrating thing when I first
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: heard about it because These were kids. These are kids
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: for whom this amount of money is life changing. And
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: they don't even know that they're entitled to it. And
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: it was taken from them. And I just remember the
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: level of anger I felt. And I still feel 22
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: years later towards my aunt who took my Social Security
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: survivor benefits. I drove near her house like two weeks
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: ago and my kids talked about egging her house with me. Like,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I'm still mad. So let's, I mean, if it doesn't happen,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: we should just go start egging governor's houses. I think
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: that's the only, that's the only, you know, we'll just
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: look up the 14 states that are left and go
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: on a road trip. Maybe we could do it with
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Sean Duffy and we could do like American family road
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: trip and just start egging governor houses.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Well, in this political environment, I'd never advocate for violence
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: or anything. I think constructive dialogue can go and naming
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: and shaming can go a long way. But, you know,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: I'm with you. I mean, I said it's 0.2%. 2%
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: of a child welfare agency's budget. It is literally the
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: definition of budget dust. It means nothing to these states,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: but everything to these kids. It is the difference for
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: many of these kids between success or not. Luckily, many
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: of them have been independently successful and are able to
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: share their stories and share why it's wrong. But unfortunately,
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: there are many that were not able to be successful
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: and be in a position to share their stories. And frankly,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: there are many states that don't even tell the kids.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: I remember calling one of these individuals to talk about
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: what had happened to them, and they had no idea
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: it had even happened to them.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: Wild, wild.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: So what else do you have on your, I mean,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: you have a pretty full plate. You're, what are you
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: dismantling Head Start? You're dismantling Head Start. And, you know,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know, are you shooting puppies behind HHS now,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: like in your spare time? What else is on your docket?
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: ACF has about 60 programs and $ 80 billion budget. So
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: foster care, childcare, Head Start, TANF, which is cash assistance,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: just a long tail of programs. I would say the
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: common theme that we're doing across all programs is cutting
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: red tape so that more of the resources get to
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: the intended users. We're focusing on outcomes, not heavily prescribed inputs.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: We are taking on some specific fights to correct moral
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: wrongs like the orphan tax. So you'll see us put
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: out additional regulations that will cut back red tape on
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: child care, on foster care, and other things in the
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: near future. But the intent behind all of them is
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: to strengthen programs, strengthen oversight and accountability for outcomes, not inputs.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you so much. Where can folks
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: sort of follow the work that your office is doing?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Is there like a good Clearinghouse Twitter account or a
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: website or anything like that?
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: You know, we're fairly active on Twitter. I think it's
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: just at ACFHHS. And then I've got a Twitter where
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: I tweet out our official actions and opportunities for people
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: to comment, et cetera.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: What about your personal opinions on the Dodgers?
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: Does that go there or no? Those live in my head.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: We were talking before the show about how it was
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: so hot in the Rose Garden that you actually put
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: on a Dodgers hat.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: It was hot. I was fortunate to be able to
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: go to the White House for the Dodgers celebration. One
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: of the folks that works with us at ACF was
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: the former general manager for the Dodgers.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: Plus one.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I feel like it was such a Cinderella story, though.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: You kind of have to just let them have it.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: It's like the Cubs or the Knicks. You're like, you
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: know what? Good for you. I love that for you.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: That's my new favorite saying. I love that for you.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: When someone does something like hike a mountain, and I'm like,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I would never do that. People say that to me
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: all the time about homeschooling. I could never do that.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: My new saying is I love that for you.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: We'll see how that works with my wife. All right.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for coming on and thank
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: you for all the work that you do, you know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: killing puppies and dismantling headstart and all of, and, and I,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I'm curious to see how they could spin the orphan
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: tax one. Like, and I can understand how they can
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: spin the headstart thing. I can see how they spin
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: lots of things, but I, It would be funny to
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: see how they could message the orphan tax stuff. So
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: I'm going to post this on all the platforms, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: we'll see how the haters can respond to you trying
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: to make sure that poor orphans keep as much of
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: their own money as they possibly can. Looking forward to
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: that spin.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Let's find out.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: All right, let's find out. Folks, don't forget to hit
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: subscribe and leave a review, but only five stars. Come on, guys.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Until next time, saddle up.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: Ricochet! Join the conversation.