“What happens to a nation when its citizens largely stop having children and, when they do, eschew marriage?” asks the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. The size of its 164-page report “Saving America by Saving the Family” is outdone only by the 60-by-30-foot banner draped across the outside of its building. Quoting the late Charlie Kirk, it reads: “Get married. Have children. Build a legacy.”
Let me start by saying that I’m heartened by the right’s recent attention to family policy. I really am.
I started writing about paid parental leave and child care more than a decade ago while at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. At the time it was the kind of thing that got you labeled as a RINO or relegated to the policy fringes while the big boys worked on tax and reg policy. Family policy has always deserved a seat at the adult table. It’s good to see the GOP is pulling up some chairs.
And we need some new thinking in this area. It’s not like progressives have had a family policy feast going. They have struggled to pass federal reforms and to present the issues in ways that reach traditionally minded Americans. And some of the proposals they have enacted have had wide-ranging unintended consequences; for example, achievement gaps that have grown for 4-year-olds — not closed — following New York City’s introduction of a universal preschool program.
But addressing the problems families face will require more and different approaches than what’s on offer in the Heritage report. Or on offer from the GOP more broadly, for that matter.
The report highlights enormous challenges facing families, but the rhetoric and policies don’t ladder up to solutions.
The report starts by noting that “the Founding Fathers were, quite literally, fathers” with an average of six children each, which is about as relevant to raising children in 2026 as the Founders’ wooden teeth.
From there, the report zigzags from porn to IVF to stay-at-home parenting to apprenticeships. Housing, child care, student loans; you name it, it’s in there. This breadth speaks to one of the many tensions inherent in family policy: Family policy can theoretically encompass the entirety of domestic policy. But by biting off so much, the report makes specific challenges harder to solve.
Another tension: Unsurprisingly for the architects of Project 2025, the Heritage report lays much of the blame for American families’ troubles on government overreach. There are select cases to be made here, in particular around reducing marriage penalties in the social safety net and tax structures, which are well-documented, or local zoning requirements that drive up housing costs. But much ink is spilled on the War on Poverty and how its programs rewarded unmarried, nonworking parents. Many of those issues were addressed by GOP-led welfare reforms in the 1990s.
In the 21st century, there’s a stronger case to be made that the government hasn’t done enough to protect kids and families. Where is the federal law with age limits on social media? How is it that one in four women return to work within two weeks of giving birth, without paid leave? Why are public schools failing to deliver upward academic achievement? The government has struggled to even cover these basics, even though there are tried-and-true state-level policies that could be used as models, from social media age limits and classroom bans, to public paid parental leave programs, to a focus on early literacy in schools.
Instead, Heritage turns to untested, government-engineered social and cultural change.
One of the biggest line items in the report — NEST accounts — would encourage marriage by depositing $2,500 into an account that could be accessed only if the person marries before age 30. Otherwise, that money is locked up until retirement. I’m not sure this one is thought through. For one, I doubt it moves the marriage needle much — as Heritage itself notes, young people don’t value marriage as much as young people once did. And if it does move the needle, do we really want to encourage 18-year-olds to marry someone who might not be right for them to get a cash bonus? And what about people over 30 who would love to get married, but just haven’t met their person? Is it fair to make them wait until retirement for their cash infusion?
There’s also the tension of offering a cash bonus for marriage when married people are already likely to have higher income levels and more upward mobility. Should government support primarily reward the people already on the right track, while excluding people who’ve fallen on hard times? That’s a tough one politically. It’s also a tough one for pro-lifers. The vast majority of women seeking an abortion are unmarried mothers, many of whom say they can’t afford another child. To them, these policies wag a finger and turn away.
Still another divide: The report feels torn between supporting mothers who work and supporting mothers who stay home. “Work is one of the main ways that people create value. It can also connect them and give them meaning and fulfillment. Work provides people with financial stability,” the report reads. But few ideas are offered for improving the lives of working mothers. For example, the report underscores how important parental care is in the early months and years of a child’s life. But its only solution is to “encourage” companies to provide paid leave. It offers no incentive for them to do so. If parental care is so important — and I agree that it is, especially for the youngest children — then I would expect to see a stronger plan for creating a generous paid parental leave policy.
I’m assuming it wasn’t included so as to not “favor” working parents over their stay-at-home peers. But in doing so, it fails to deliver what could be significant gains for most families. It also does nothing to address the negative tax treatment that dual-earner families already face relative to families with a stay-at-home parent.
Another half-baked idea: the report proposes that stay-at-home parents be able to access the same child-care subsidies as working parents. But the plan would partly draw from the Child Care and Development Fund, which is so chronically underfunded that fewer than 1 in 10 eligible low-income working families can use it. We shouldn’t expand a program that is already so overstretched. A better idea would be to adjust the Child Tax Credit so that families could choose to have the money frontloaded to the early years of a child’s life — for child-care costs or supplementing a sole breadwinner’s salary — without impacting the financial integrity of the program, taking resources away from low-income families, or increasing government spending.
Yes, families need more support for many of the reasons that the Heritage report highlights. It’s good that conservatives are talking about these things, which is a big shift in just the last decade. But the Heritage report identifies (and arguably would create) more problems than it solves.
Abby McCloskey is a columnist, podcast host, and consultant. She directed domestic policy on two presidential campaigns and was director of economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
