Sen. Mitt Romney wants the federal government to pay parents a monthly stipend to help cover child-rearing costs, a proposal expected from a liberal Democrat but striking for the Utah Republican.
Under the Family Security Act, single parents earning up to $200,000 and married couples earning up to $400,000 would be eligible for direct, per-child cash payments, beginning four months prior to birth and ending at age 18. It is not the sort of legislation political observers necessarily associate with Romney, who ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002; president in 2008 and 2012; and Senate in 2018 as a business-oriented fiscal conservative.
But Romney’s plan would streamline federal programs and tax benefits directed toward children. The proposal is deficit neutral and has elicited no immediate opposition from conservative groups in Washington that score legislation. Some conservative policy analysts say the bill is an innovative approach to combating child poverty — and not at all off-brand for a fiscally conservative Republican.
“I do think a lot of people see it as a leveling of the playing field as opposed to a massive social program,” said Boyd Matheson, opinion editor of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. Matheson, former chief of staff to Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a conservative stalwart, was an adviser to Romney’s 2018 campaign.
Romney introduced the Family Security Act as an amendment to the legislative vehicle being used to move President Biden’s coronavirus relief package. The proposal did not receive a vote, but the senator remains optimistic about the proposal’s prospects down the line. In response to a request for comment, Romney’s office forwarded his remarks on the bill from Thursday.
“It’s budget neutral and consolidates a number of existing programs into a program where people are able to get checks on a monthly basis and therefore have capacity to care for their families,” he said.
Republicans over the years have resisted creating new social programs, arguing private-sector and religious charities are better equipped to help those in need. But that resistance has softened recently, with Republicans warming to government assistance as a means to address societal inequities. For instance, conservatives such as Lee and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida have supported paid family leave, long a priority of the Democratic Party.
In that regard, Romney’s plan to use taxpayer dollars to help parents pay for the costs of raising children fits right in. To make sure the proposal does not overburden an already bloated federal balance sheet, the bill would strike the popular federal tax deduction for state and local taxes and eliminate the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, among other adjustments.
In a column for Bloomberg, conservative commentator Ramesh Ponnuru called Romney’s legislation “wildly ambitious” and said it “deserves praise for another reason. It breaks out of the increasingly sterile debate among Republicans that centers on” former President Donald Trump.
“Romney is the least Trumpy Republican imaginable, but he is not pushing all and only the same ideas he did when he ran for president in 2012,” Ponnuru wrote. “Maybe, just maybe, the party can find a productive way forward on social policy that isn’t defined either by Trump or what came right before him.”
