Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff Touts Biden's Infrastructure Plan In Visit To Milford Preschool

Doug Emhoff, the spouse of Vice President Kamala Harris, visited a Massachusetts preschool on Monday to promote the Biden administration's plan to invest billions of dollars in early childhood education and ease financial pressures on working parents.

The administration has proposed $225 billion in funding for child care under the American Families Plan, part of the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Agenda.

Under the proposal, child care costs would be capped at 7% of a family’s income. Massachusetts parents currently pay more than three times that on average.

The president also hopes to open access to early childhood education by creating universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds and building more child care facilities.

Emhoff is hearing similar stories from struggling families all over the country, he said at Mother Hubbard Preschool in Milford.

“The stories I’ve heard of working families where one spouse, usually the mother, had to fall out of the workforce to get through COVID — it’s just not right. It’s not fair. And the Build Back Better Agenda is going to rectify that,” he said.

Emhoff and U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss met Dorothy Vecchiolla, who founded the school in 1961 when she could not find child care for her own kids, and longtime director Pamelia White.

White said that guaranteeing early childhood education would even the playing field when kids started school.

Today, the school takes in some of the most vulnerable children in the Milford area, and provides not just an education, but proper nutrition, White said.

Emhoff also read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to a group of about a dozen 3-to-4-year-olds.

The book, Emhoff said, was a staple for his own kids.