Some progressives, however, remain unimpressed.
Some progressives, however, remain unimpressed.
T he concept of appropriating the welfare state for conservative ends — of “declaring peace on the safety net,” as AEI’s Arthur Brooks put it in 2013 — has a long pedigree in conservative circles. Irving Kristol famously called for a “conservative welfare state,” arguing in 1976 that “the demand for a ‘welfare state’ is, on the part of the majority of the people, a demand for a greater minimum of political community, for more ‘social justice’ (i.e., distributive justice) than capitalism, in its pristine, individualistic form, can provide.” So-called “reform conservatives,” including National Review’s own Ramesh Ponnuru, have championed a version of a “conservative welfare-state” policy agenda for at least a decade, particularly as it pertains to supporting families. Today, the recent interest in a “pro-worker conservatism,” accompanied by the rise of groups such as American Compass and the end of Roe v. Wade, have come alongside a renewed push for pro-family policies on much of the mainstream Right.
Some progressives, however, remain unimpressed. Writing in the New York Times on Wednesday, Jamelle Bouie scoffed that “as a practical matter, the pro-welfare, anti-abortion politician does not exist, at least in the Republican Party.” The evidence that Bouie offers for this claim is, “There’s little indication that any more than a token group of Republican lawmakers is interested” in Mitt Romney’s new child-tax-credit proposal. “There’s no appetite for it. For the vast majority of Republicans in Congress, passing a new child benefit is not the kind of work they came to Washington to do.” Why? Because Republicans — and social conservatives in particular — want to keep women in their place:
That’s because the Republican ideal of a “pro-family” agenda is girded on traditional hierarchies. 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.
If the goal of abortion opponents and politicians is to encourage life and promote families then, yes, their interests and priorities are at odds with their actions. 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.
It’s a tempting conclusion to reach, from the progressive perspective. If anti-abortion legislation is driven by an antipathy to women, rather than a belief in the dignity of unborn children, then there’s no need to actually engage with the fundamental issue at the root of the abortion debate — i.e., whether or not unborn babies are human, and entitled to the basic right to life.
But it’s also silly. Bouie’s eagerness to surmise that “there’s no appetite for” Romney’s proposal is belied by the fact that the legislation was introduced less than a month ago. The idea that it’s unlikely to go anywhere, simply because it hasn’t yet, betrays a willing ignorance of how the legislative process functions — as Samuel Hammond, the director of social policy for the Niskanen Center, which worked with Romney’s office on the proposal, noted on Twitter: “That’s not how Congress works.”
In fact, in the short time that it’s been in circulation, Romney’s proposal has already secured endorsements from representatives of the same kind of social conservatism that, in Bouie’s telling, are committed to a “social order of isolated, atomized households kept in line through market discipline.” The legislative proposal’s page boasts glowing endorsements from the most prominent pro-life groups in America. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s vice president of government affairs “applaud[s] Senators Romney, Burr, and Daines” for their “creativity” and willingness to “rethink[. . .] the status quo” in “building a culture of life.” The National Right to Life celebrates “this life-affirming provision,” which “not only empowers mothers, but acknowledges that life begins before birth.” And the director of legislative affairs for the Faith and Freedom Coalition writes:
For too long, we have presumed the family would always be there to strengthen society while spending little effort to support its health. With the Family Security Act, Sens. Romney, Burr, and Daines are leading the way on what can be one of the most important efforts to support the family in nearly thirty years. If we do not take concrete steps to strengthen the family, we’ll have no chance of addressing the social problems most on Americans’ minds — educational failure, poverty, and crime.
It’s unclear how these statements, and the philosophy that undergirds them, square with Bouie’s conviction that “the goal of abortion opponents and politicians . . . is a more rigid and hierarchical world of untrammeled patriarchal authority.” The child tax credit has been a major cause célèbre of social-conservative intellectuals, scholars, and policy wonks for years. Even if you isolate Republican politicians and disregard the largest civic players and activists in the pro-life movement, the idea that there is “no appetite” for pro-family policies such as a child tax credit is at odds with reality. The 2017 Republican tax law, for example, doubled the value of the child tax credit, expanded its eligibility requirements, increased its refundability, and indexed the refundable portion to grow on an annual basis. The same legislation created a Family and Medical Leave Tax Credit to help businesses offer family leave to their workers, the first federal initiative of its kind.
In the Senate alone, examples are too numerous to comprehensively recount. In 2021, Mike Lee and Marco Rubio introduced a plan to nearly double the child tax credit again. Months later, Josh Hawley introduced a “parent tax credit” without a work requirement. Tom Cotton, along with Representative Ashley Hinson (R., Iowa) in the House, is pushing to make women who suffer miscarriages eligible for paid family leave (backed, again, by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the National Right to Life Committee). The center of gravity in the GOP is shifting, and will continue to do so — particularly if more welfare-friendly Republicans such as Blake Masters and J. D. Vance arrive in the Senate in 2022.
Can they go further and do more? Always. I have personally criticized the Republican preoccupation with work requirements when it comes to family policy, and prefer Romney’s original child-tax-credit plan — which did not include a work requirement — to the one on offer now. But the party is rapidly moving in the right direction on this issue. That Bouie refuses to see that, and omits any number of counterexamples to his thesis, says far more about him than it does about conservatives.