A report from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Saving America by Saving the Family,” urges Trump and lawmakers “to save and restore the American family” through massive tax credits for families with more children while capping alimony payments, enacting strict work requirements on social benefit programs, discouraging online dating, creating marriage “bootcamp” classes and more. Sounds like old-time Russia, doesn't it? Via the Washington Post:
The report suggests public-private partnerships to honor and provide monetary awards for every decade a couple remains married. It calls for a 16-year-old age limit on social media and certain AI chatbots, and further age restrictions on access to pornography, and it argues that “climate change alarmism” demoralizes young people and dissuades them from having children.
It asks policymakers to “commit to protecting life from fertilization” and states, “In the U.S., technologies such as fertilization and preimplantation genetic testing routinely manipulate or destroy human embryos.” Trump during his 2024 campaign pledged to require insurers to cover IVF treatment, declaring he would be “the fertilization president,” but his administration instead has announced plans to lower the cost of that care.
[...]Joel Griffith, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Advancing American Freedom, who reviewed a draft of the paper at The Post’s request, said the report misstates the causes of falling birth rates and provides little evidence that Heritage’s proposed incentives — both cultural and financial — to jolt family formation would truly lead to more children.
“We have this new program that has misdiagnosed the causes of declining marriage rates and fertility rates in the United States and then proposes massive new spending and an expansion of middle- and upper-middle-class entitlements to rectify the problem,” said Griffith, who was a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation from 2018 to 2024.
All these conservatives are crazy. Wages that have not kept up with the cost of living, housing costs (even rentals) are through the roof, and every time Republicans take control, they slash childcare subsidies. You want more babies? Send married couples $25,000 a year, and you'll get your wish!
