State of New Hampshire Archives: on Families & Children

Bernie Sanders: $1.61 a week for paid family & medical leave

SANDERS: When Secretary Clinton says, "I'm not going raise taxes on the middle class," let me tell you what she is saying. She is disagreeing with FDR on Social Security, LBJ on Medicare and with the vast majority of progressive Democrats in the House and the Senate, who today are fighting to end the disgrace of the United States being the only major country on Earth that doesn't provide paid family and medical leave. What the legislation [costs] is $1.61 a week. Now, you can say that's a tax on the middle class. It will provide three months paid family and medical leave for the working families of this country. I think, Secretary Clinton, $1.61 a week is a pretty good investment.

CLINTON: Senator, I have been fighting for paid family leave for a very long time. I have a way to pay for it that actually makes the wealthiest pay for it, not everybody else.

Maggie Hassan: Restore funding for the Children in Need of Services program

This budget includes some reforms. But we cannot neglect our duty to help those at risk and keep our communities safe, and so this budget begins to restore funding for the Children in Need of Services program.

Martin O`Malley: Universal national service option, to cut youth employment

O'MALLEY: [In Maryland] we actually passed a living wage. We raised the minimum wage. We were the only state in American that went four years in a row without a penny increase in college tuition. We invested more in our infrastructure and we squared our shoulders to the great business opportunity of this era and that is moving our economy to a 100 percent clean electric energy future. The conclusion of all of those things is this: they weren't hopes, they weren't dreams, they weren't amorphous goals out there. We actually took action to do these things and as president, I have put forward 15 strategic goals that will make wages go up again for all American families. Universal national service is an option for every kid in America to cut youth employment. And I'm the only candidate on this stage to put forward a new agenda for America's cities so we can employ more people in the heart of great American cities and get them back to work.

Steve Marchand: Make NH the best state to start a family & start a business

Marchand: Our mission is to be the best state in America to start a family and to start a business. I think our two biggest challenges to thrive in the next few years is we need to get younger, and we need to get more entrepreneurial and nimble as an economy. I don't believe the policies that our current governor pursued would move us toward a younger and more entrepreneurial economy. I want to get us in the right direction.

Chuck Morse: A strong economy helps daycare, not worker pay

The Republicans, Morse and Ayotte, were more circumspect. Morse said his focus was to build on the school policies enacted under Gov. Sununu and to create state budgets that foster prosperity.

What about on the daycare front? Well, all of them acknowledged that daycare workers probably need to get paid more money, but some, Morse most emphatically, said there was little the state could do directly to affect that, other than having a stronger economy. For Chuck Morse, it's clear that all policies, including those dealing with child well-being, tie directly back to the state budget.

Ayotte, meanwhile, seemed to be pretty attuned to who was in the audience, mostly people in the child care and education fields.

Cinde Warmington: It's worth pursuing universal pre-K

What about on the daycare front? Well, all of them acknowledged that daycare workers probably need to get paid more money. Joyce Craig stressed her mayoral background and argued that it's equipped her to understand how to listen to what communities want.

For Warmington, who's pitched herself as the Democrat poised to fight for what she believes, we heard a willingness to be forceful. "Feed the children. Let's start with that," she said repeatedly at one point during her discussion.

Joyce Craig: It's worth pursuing universal pre-K

What about on the daycare front? Well, all of them acknowledged that daycare workers probably need to get paid more money. Warmington said repeatedly, "Feed the children. Let's start with that."

Joyce Craig, meanwhile, stressed her mayoral background and argued that it's equipped her to understand how to listen to what communities want when they deal with the state, and that she can deal with these issues from the perspective of someone who's had to lead locally.

Kelly Ayotte: Forgive college debt for people who work in mental health

What about on the daycare front? All of them acknowledged that daycare workers probably need to get paid more money. Ayotte seemed to be pretty attuned to who was in the audience at these events, mostly people in the child care and education fields, and she really pitched herself as someone wanting to solve problems and as someone opened to taking ideas from anywhere, which is a different vibe than her early campaign's focus that NH is on the verge of becoming Massachusetts.