Whenever anyone, liberal or conservative, writes an item on family policy, the first thing I do, even before I read the text, is do a “Ctrl-F” search for “marriage.”
If someone is writing about family policy and they don’t ever mention the most fundamental building block of humanity throughout time and geography, then they are missing the plot entirely.
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie published a column today not so much attacking Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) new Family Security Act 2.0 but more making the case that Romney’s plan is out of touch with the mainstream of his party. The plan, which would give families $350 per month for every child under 5 and $250 per month for every child 6 and up, attracted no co-sponsors when it was introduced last year and only added two co-sponsors this year after Romney added in a work incentive that phases in benefits until a minimum $10,000 of yearly income is earned.
“And yet,” Bouie writes, “there’s little indication that any more than a token group of Republican lawmakers is interested in Romney’s latest proposal. There’s no appetite for it.”
“That’s because the Republican ideal of a ‘pro-family’ agenda is girded on traditional hierarchies,” Bouie explains. “Reproductive autonomy, up to and including the right to get an abortion, weakens hierarchies of gender. And the social safety net — especially one that extends directly to mothers and children — undermines the preferred conservative social order of isolated, atomized households kept in line through market discipline.”
I don’t know exactly what Bouie means by “traditional hierarchies” in this context. But does he mean marriage? Because if he does, then families built around a married mother and father absolutely are “the preferred conservative social order.” And pro-family Republicans do believe that our existing social safety net does undermine marriage.
But “isolated, atomized households kept in line through market discipline” is not the preferred vision of social conservatives. Sure, there is a more libertarian wing of the Republican Party that supports more liberal immigration and trade policies that raise GDP at the cost of wages, particularly for working-class men trying to support a family. But that wing of the party is also the most likely to support abortion. And it has been losing power within the evolving Republican coalition.
“If the goal of abortion opponents and politicians is to encourage life and promote families then, yes, their interest and priorities are at odds with their actions,” Bouie continues. “But if the goal is a more rigid and hierarchical world of untrammeled patriarchal authority, then, well, things are pretty much going according to plan.”
But nothing about the current state of the American family is going according to any conservative plan. The percentage of households headed by a married couple is at an all-time low, while the percentage of children born to unmarried mothers is at an all-time high. It’s laughable to suggest that “untrammeled patriarchal authority” is on the rise when a record number of households have no patriarch.
And this is where Romney’s Family Security Act is strongest. Our current safety net includes many marriage penalties — penalties President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda only made worse. The Family Security Act would begin to undo many of these penalties, starting with those that exist in the current Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit programs.
Besides, Romney isn’t alone in calling for more federal support for marriage. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has proposed a parent tax credit that gives working families (those with earned income higher than $7,540 a year) a $6,000 fully refundable tax credit for single parents and a $12,000 credit for married parents. That is an explicit $6,000 bonus for married households.
Senate candidate J.D. Vance has proposed giving government loans to married couples that are completely forgiven if the couple stays together and has children. A similar program has proven effective at increasing marriage rates in Hungary.
Maybe Bouie believes promoting marriage is bad because the institution promotes “a more rigid and hierarchical world of untrammeled patriarchal authority.” If so, that is a debate that I suspect most Republicans would be very eager to have.
