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Sending cash to parents, with few strings attached. Expanding Medicaid. Providing child care subsidies to families earning six figures.
The ideas may sound like part of a progressive platform. But they are from an influential group of conservative intellectuals with a direct line to elected politicians. They hope to represent the future of a post-Trump Republican Party â if only, they say, their fellow travelers would abandon Reaganomics once and for all.
These conservatives generally oppose abortion rights. Theyâre eager to promote marriage, worried about the nationâs declining fertility rate and often resist the trans rights movement.
But they also acknowledge that with abortion now illegal or tightly restricted in half the states, more babies will be born to parents struggling to pay for the basics â rent, health care, groceries and child care â when prices are high and child care slots scarce.
âA full-spectrum family policy has to be about encouraging and supporting people in getting married and starting families,â said Oren Cass, executive director of the American Compass think tank. âIt has to be pro-life, but also supportive of those families as they are trying to raise kids in an economic environment where that has become a lot harder to do.â
The idea of spending heavily on family benefits remains an outlier within the Republican Party, which only recently rejected Democratsâ attempts to extend pandemic-era child tax credits.
But a number of conservative members of Congress have embraced new benefits for parents, including Mr. Cassâs former boss, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, as well as the senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri and J.D. Vance of Ohio.
And in President Bidenâs State of the Union address on Tuesday, he called on Republicans to join him in providing families with child care, paid leave, child tax credits and affordable housing.
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Woke Capitalism Is a Smokescreen
American Compass research director Wells King argues that woke corporate activism attempts to launder self-interest through liberal ideology and to renege on actual obligations.
Post-Roe, the GOP Is Stepping Up To Support American Families
American Compass executive director Oren Cass discusses the promising shift on the right-of-center toward supporting generous pro-family benefits like Senator Romneyâs Family Security Act 2.0.
Big Business and Conservatives Are Headed for Divorce
In a discussion of the changing conservative approach to big business, Adrian Wooldridge highlights American Compassâs work on globalization and labor.