In this reading selection, First Lady Hillary Clinton issues a broad call for the government to become more involved in day care issues. 
   The rising number of women in the work place had created a growing need for good day care for children.  Such care was available, but was usually expensive.  Lower cost day care solutions were frequently less than ideal.  Reports often questioned the quality of care in overcrowded day care centers.
   Mrs. Clinton and most other liberals favored government action to create better day care facilities.  Conservatives generally opposed this idea.  They argued that government involvement would create more problems than solutions for the day care crisis.

First Lady Hillary Clinton, one of the most active presidential spouses.  She went on to win a U.S. Senate seat representing New York State after she and President Bill Clinton left the White House.

   Hillary Clinton assembles an impressive array of facts and figures about day care in the 1990s.  Overall, the picture is not pretty.
   She points out that many more families were seeking day care.  More than half of all the nation's infants under age one, she says, are in day care. 
   Mrs. Clinton notes that the development of a child's brain is greatly influenced by early experiences in life.  Bad day care, she says, can limit a child's mental development and natural potential.
   Most disturbing are the figures showing that many children are in day care that is of questionable quality or worse.  Mrs. Clinton cites figures showing that "ten percent are in care that is dangerous to their health and safety."

   The First Lady cites her husband's view that day care is "the next great frontier of public policy."  Public policy here means government action.  Mrs. Clinton does not detail just what action would be appropriate.  She clearly believes, however, that the government should have a bigger role to "build up and strengthen our families, to give them more support so they can do their jobs both at home and in the workplace."