A blizzard of federal spending is on offer as the midterm election approaches. In a lengthy speech in Dallas at the GOP’s unprecedented midterm convention, President Trump pledged to give every American adult $5,000 if the GOP retains its majorities in Congress this fall. Separately, the Trump administration has indicated, via Vice President J.D. Vance, that it will offer a plan to allow married couples with a stay-at-home spouse to access a grant worth up to $9,000 a year for childcare expenses. First reactions to these ideas among pro-family conservatives have been mixed — perhaps surprisingly given the general support of these conservatives for more financial commitment to families with children. Usual allies are in disagreement on these proposals. Why?

Before discussing some of the expressed concerns, there is a big picture — a very big picture — to address. America’s fiscal house is in grave disorder. So too are its family policies and outlook. The roster of risks is painful to look at. The U.S. national debt has soared to over $40 trillion, applying upward pressure on the schedule of debt repayments and interest rates. Interest on this record debt now exceeds $1 trillion per year — $1.27 trillion, to be exact. Federal spending is out of control as well. Spending has increased from $5 trillion in 2015 to more than $7 trillion a decade later. What’s more, for fiscal year 2027, the Trump administration has requested a 42% increase in the defense budget — raising it by nearly half a trillion dollars for everything from new weaponry, to shipbuilding, drone development, and personnel increases.

Meanwhile, no plans to address the imbalance between government revenue and spending have significantly advanced. Driven by circumstances too ominous to ignore, several ranking Republicans on key committees in Congress are discussing, and even sponsoring, proposals to raise Social Security tax rates or the level (and types) of income subject to Social Security taxes. Absent reform, estimates are that Social Security benefits will need to be cut by an average of $17,000 per couple when the trust funds are empty by late 2032, just one full presidential election cycle away. Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has introduced his own federal budget outline designed to trim federal spending by some six cents per dollar with the goal of eliminating the annual deficit within five years. House Joint Resolution 139, calling for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, however, currently has two cosponsors.

If we are not serious about beginning to reduce spending and deficits, and instead opt to claim a $5,000 “dividend” merely for voting Republican in 50 days, who do we expect will pony up for fiscal restraint? If it is the next generation or two, we will have to reckon with the prospect of an ever-larger debt being laid upon the shoulders, wallets, and purses of an ever-smaller generation. The decline in U.S. and global fertility is well-known. In 2026 to date, one source reports a modest .11% increase in the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) to 1.79 children per woman, still well short of replacement-level fertility. As things stand now, the share of the national debt owed by each citizen is approximately $119,500. But each citizen does not pay taxes to reduce the debt. The per capita share of the debt for each American taxpayer is over $286,000 — over half a million dollars per married household.

Decades ago, Family Research Council helped lead the way among socially conservative groups in embracing and passing the child tax credit (CTC), a measure that has helped reduce the federal tax bill for families by trillions of dollars over the intervening years. The measure was pro-child but was not aimed at achieving any particular pro-natal effect. The fertility rate in 1997 was approximately 2.0 children per woman. Family groups saw the CTC, as it was called, as a way to return earned dollars to families with children, not to redistribute funds from other programs or as grants from a benevolent federal government. It was offered in the wake of proposals by national Democrats to create a national system of childcare facilities run by the federal government, centers that would likely suffer from religious liberty issues and educational challenges typical of federal programs. CTC advocates viewed the credit as first and foremost money belonging to families for them to spend as they saw fit, on home care, care by relatives, or in an institutional setting the family selected.

It is clear now, 30 years later, that while the CTC may have softened the decline in the birth rate, it has not sparked a baby boom. The range of parties concerned about the disappearance of millions of children and the benefits of family time spent with children continues to grow, as does the search for measures that will boost families’ confidence and willingness to make room for one or two more sons or daughters. A variety of ideas have been advanced to achieve this goal, with some evidence for each from overseas, but none of the ideas seems ironclad to produce the desired prenatal results. The Lyman Stone proposal for a new American Birthday Account is sizable and structured as investment for use well into the future. The initial payment into the account of $17,000 dwarfs the amount produced by the new Trump accounts, which generate a value of some $12,000 over time if they are based on only the original investment of $1,000.

The Vance proposal, in turn, has likewise been criticized for its failure to commit new funds to permit at-home childcare. While the annual amount expended could be $9,000, the existing program already has a sizable waiting list, and money allocated to married families under the reform would, without more, displace an equal number of single-parent families. Any program that supports marriage would be a rare federal bird, of course. When the CTC and its variants were adopted in the 1990s, no distinction was made between single- and married-couple parents, and marriage itself had not been redefined to include same-sex partners. The concept was pro-child and pro-every child. The Vance program, which has not been elaborated to date, contains a tension therefore that the CTC did and does not because of budget limitations (which Congress could ameliorate via new appropriations).

Which brings us back to the Trump proposal for a “dividend” to every adult. Clearly, it is not of the same character as the other ideas, if it can be said to have any character at all. It is a promised payment, presumably from the U.S. Treasury and not the president’s own wealth, for a particular electoral outcome. It is pledged to go to every adult citizen, so it has nothing to do with children, families, or natality at all. It is not deferred or invested, so all of the old complaints about similar, welfare-type handouts, that they can be used for any purpose at all, including bread and circuses, drugs or gambling, hold true. And these concerns arise before one ever gets to the questions that opened this article, that is, whether a nation riddled in debt and veering toward even more deficit-spending can continue to afford such fiscal irresponsibility.

That even bad ideas for redressing our situation get such attention is a sign of the depth of the dilemmas we face. The answers to those dilemmas are of a profound nature and transcend election cycles. We are a nation in tribulation because of fear of the future and because the weakening of transcendent values, like natural marriage and love for life, has sunk so deeply into our skin. Even the dread of AI, which should and could be a tool for progress, can trace some of its roots to a belief among human beings that we are a negative force in a benign and beautiful universe and an all-seeing but unfeeling internet will turn on us. It is one more example of thought leaders concluding malignly that we are getting what we deserve — that we are not blessed to be children of God in a world the Lord has redeemed from its errors through the sacrifice of His Son.

The road back to fiscal and family sanity is out there if we choose to follow it — but it will require us to eschew the quick fixes and political showmanship that bedevil our times.