Heritage Foundation | A “Manhattan project” to increase the birth rate

The Heritage Foundation will offer important revisions of American economic policy to encourage heterosexual couples married to have more children.

The right group at the origin of the 2025 project – the political strategy proposed to President Donald Trump for his second term – is preparing to recommend economic incentives encouraging heterosexual couples married to have more children.

The Heritage Foundation, a reflection group installed very close to the American Capitol, hopes that elected officials create registered savings regimes funded by the government, reserved for married couples.

He hopes to redirect the funding of federal support for children to individual families, in order to encourage parents to stay at home and raise their children.

The Foundation also wishes that Mr. Trump signs decrees demanding that any federal program “measures his positive or negative impacts on marriage and family”. Now -listed programs would be revised or closed.

“Save the American family”

These ideas appear in a five -page summary – obtained by the Washington Post – a document to be published entitled We must save the American Family (“You have to save the American family”). The Foundation claims a “Manhattan project to restore the nuclear family” and encourage couples to have more children.

This document marks a rupture for the group, which turns away from its positions advocating the reduction in state size and the free market, by encouraging the government to intervene in an area as intimate as procreation.

“For the family policy to work, it is necessary to re -examine the old principles and innovate. But we must also mobilize the nation, “said the document, which was sent to the political experts of the Foundation by a vice-president of the group, Roger Severino.

Recently, the Republicans have advocated a natalist policy, more favorable to the family in general. The American “pronatalist” movement believes that the United States and the planet as a whole must produce more children to avoid the collapse of society.

The president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, makes a priority a priority, hoping to end up a dynamic within the Republican Party, declared to the Washington Post Four people close to the group’s projects.

From his first speech as vice-president, JD Vance announced: “I wish more babies in the United States of America. »»

A conservative counter-culture

Pronatalists’ leaders consider Mr. Vance as their main ally to the Republican Party.

“The popular culture of the last decades minimizes the importance of the family and denigrates the solid, stable and lasting marriage between a man and a woman who make children,” added Mike Johnson, the republican president of the House of Representatives.

“It is one of the pitfalls in our cultural struggle (…) and public policies should take this into account,” he added.

Technos Peter Thiel and Elon Musk entrepreneurs, two generous donors to the Republican Party, also advocate pronatalism. Musk, father of 11 children, recruited potential mothers on his social network X.

He brought his 4-year-old son to the White House when he headed the DOGE, the service charged by Donald Trump to reduce government costs.

In its document, the Heritage Foundation rejects the “extraordinary technical solutions”, such as freezing of eggs, in vitro fertilization, substitution maternity and genetic screening, a form of pronatalism makes, according to the group, “artificial uterus and babies created in laboratory on demand”.

The “answer to the problem of loneliness and demographic decline begins with marriage” and the American decline of marriage is explained by “free love, pornography, careerism, pill, abortion, homosexual relations and divorce without responsibility”, according to the conservative reflection group.

According to the 2024 census, less than 50 % of American households were made up of a married couple. In 1949, four out of five households consisted of a married couple.

Solicited for this article, Mr. Severino described the decline of the family “greater long-term threat to our national well-being” and thanked the Washington Post to deal with the subject before the announcement of his next recommendations.

“We are developing new ideas to counter the family crisis (…), effective solutions based on principles to apparently insoluble social problems,” says Severino. “Some say that there is nothing to do to restore the American family, but we are determined to find a solution. »»

In a speech, on September 2, Roberts encouraged the conservative movement to assume the values ​​of marriage and more numerous families.

“A movement seeking to save the nation and to restore the family must be made up of men and women whose privacy is not in contradiction, but in confirmation with their public testimony,” Roberts told the National Conservative Conference, in Washington.

“We cannot just rent the wedding from a column. We must commit ourselves, accept their obligations and remain faithful through its tests. We cannot be content to deplore the drop in the birth rate. We must welcome children to our homes and give them the love and discipline they need to become virtuous citizens. »»

“We cannot just shake our heads in the face of the decline in the wedding rate. We must be hospitable and bring people together in our homes, as did the founders of our nation. »»

Concerns within the Foundation

The Heritage orientation Document arouses concern within the institution. A person aware of his content, who asked for anonymity, described him as “eugenics”.

Another called it as a “social engineering” which would reverse half a century of progress towards gender equality.

“This document is not a compromise between supporters of a limited government and those of a strong government,” said this person, who also asked for anonymity. “It is a steamroller on supporters of a limited government. »»

“Return 50 years back?” “Added this person. “I wouldn’t want to go back 50 years. »»

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