WATCH: Hickenlooper Condemns Trump Attacks on Child Care, Working Families

Hickenlooper: "This isn't a child's game. These are people's lives."

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper called out President Trump's latest efforts to harm Colorado's working families during a Senate Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on federal funding for child care. Specifically, Hickenlooper criticized the Trump administration's recent decision to freeze more than $300 million in federal funding directed to Colorado families for child care, food aid, and other social services.

"What the president has been doing by freezing funding for entire states is political retribution at its worst. And it's harming working parents, children, and child care providers in the process," said Hickenlooper.

"…This isn't a child's game. These are people's lives," he continued.

Watch his full remarks HERE.

Despite recent news that a federal judge issued a temporary injunction requiring the Trump administration to continue to administer the federal funds, many child care providers remain uncertain about their future.

During the hearing, Senator Hickenlooper asked Liz Denson, the president and CEO of Early Connections Learning Centers in Colorado Springs:

"How has this uncertainty and chaos of this announced freeze, how has that impacted your centers and the families that you're serving?"

Denson responded, "It absolutely would be catastrophic for us but also for our entire state…Child care is a critical piece of economic infrastructure and without it our entire state's economy would crumble. Parents would not be able to work and it would continue to ripple outward even beyond the lines of our state."

Watch his question HERE.

Hickenlooper has been a fierce critic of the Trump administration's senseless political attacks on Colorado. At the end of January, Hickenlooper sent a letterwith the Colorado delegation urging the administration to immediately reinstate more than $300 million in frozen child care and social services funding for Colorado.

Hickenlooper sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee where he leads the bipartisan Child Care Modernization Grant Act, which would reauthorize and improve the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) to help provide quality, affordable child care to America's working families.

Watch video of his opening remarks HERE.

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