05/29/2026
We urge lawmakers to reject the following bills:
H.R. 7720 Child Care Payment Integrity and Fraud Accountability Act: This bill treats all states as high-risk by annual error rate reviews instead of every three years, despite no evidence of significant or widespread fraud in the CCDF program. These time-consuming, burdensome, and costly reviews will mean states have less funding for child care assistance, while doing nothing to reduce fraud.
H.R. 7721 Combating Regulatory Abuse, Closing Known Deficiencies, and Overseeing Waste Nationwide Act (CRACKDOWN Act): This bill would give the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) new power to freeze 100% of a state’s child care funds for state administrative errors. Uses an arbitrary, low-risk threshold standard that isn’t about fraud and eliminates state due process. This doesn’t reduce fraud and would needlessly punish thousands of families who rely on federal child care assistance and destabilize a state’s child care sector.
H.R. 7723 Safeguarding Taxpayer Dollars in Child Care Act: This bill requires HHS and USDA to penalize providers unfairly, including permanently barring child care providers from receiving federal child care funds and participation in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). This puts providers who haven’t committed fraud at risk of losing their business and could make them less willing to serve families with CCDF subsidies. This could have a chilling effect on providers serving families with subsidies, making it harder for these families to find the care they need. It also means that more child care programs could close altogether and more families - including those who don’t use subsidies - will have a harder time finding and affording child care.
Regarding CACFP, the bill would further undermine the existing and deeply flawed Serious Deficiency (SD) process to trigger disbarment from the entire program. CACFP ensures that the participating child care centers, family child care homes, Head Start programs, afterschool programs, and emergency shelters serve healthy meals and snacks. States currently administer CACFP with strong oversight systems created by USDA, designed to detect and prevent integrity concerns. SD is inconsistently applied and often triggered by minor errors- not fraud or misconduct- and should not result in termination from either CACFP or CCDF.
H.R. 7726 No Funds for Repeat Child Care Violations Act: This bill would require HHS to permanently bar child care providers from receiving federal funds for non-fraudulent actions, such as incomplete paperwork, like missing signatures. This puts providers who haven’t committed fraud at risk of losing their business if they serve families paying with CCDF subsidies. It could have a chilling effect on providers serving families with subsidies, making it harder for those families to find the care they need. It also means that more child care programs could close altogether, and more families - including those who don’t pay with subsidies - will have a harder time finding and affording child care.
H.R. 7724 No Waivers for Fraud Act: This bill would eliminate HHS’s ability to waive a sanction it has placed on a state. This flexibility is rarely, if ever, used but would be important to preserve for instances of capricious sanctioning of states without proof of fraud and more generally for unforeseen situations in which the Secretary and state agree that withdrawing a sanction is appropriate.
We urge lawmakers to vote NO on any package that includes these bills and instead focus on the real child care crisis facing our country.
