How President Trump Could Champion a Families First Agenda 

In retrospect, four years out of the White House may have been a blessing in disguise for President Donald Trump. The first days of his second term were marked with the unleashed fury for four years of pent-up energy. He signed a fusillade of executive orders, on race- and sex-based discrimination, gender identity, criminal pardons, federal architecture, abortion and climate policy, TikTok, and immigration—and more. 

Many of those orders will be welcomed; some are too-enthusiastic overreaches that will likely meet their demise in federal court. But there’s no doubting that the Trump White House has learned the lesson of his first, disjointed year in office, and used the intervening four years to prepare deliberate action. 

Whether that discipline can be sustained past the initial weeks will heavily determine the success of President Trump’s second term. One of the biggest decisions that will soon face the President is how to handle the expiration of a signature accomplishment from his first term in office, 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Among other provisions, TCJA cut top tax rates and doubled the size of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), but those provisions are scheduled to expire this year. The President and his team can help Congress by setting clear priorities about what should be included in this year’s negotiations. 

Some in the President’s party would like to use this year’s tax bill to slash spending on safety-net programs. While some reforms could be useful, massive cuts would go too far. As the New York Times’ Jason DeParle recently reported, some of the policies being discussed would materially harm some of the new working-class voters who swung to the G.O.P. in the last election cycle. 

The President could instead ensure his hallmark populism means that pro-parent provisions make it to the top of the list. Increasing the size and reach of the CTC could ensure that working families benefit from the tax cut package as well. 

But beyond his role in legislative negotiations, the President could use the next four years to creatively empower the executive branch to experiment in new, pro-family ways. And, as the initial wave of executive order signings have shown, the President’s ability to reorient the federal bureaucracy could be incredibly beneficial. 

Top of the list should be giving states more flexibility and federal waivers to pioneer new ways of eliminating marriage penalties. The most straightforward fixes would have to come from Congress, but states interested in making sure that couples do not incur a tax penalty or loss of benefits when marrying could consider tinkering with safety-net programs. 

As IFS Future of Freedom fellow Brad Wilcox has written, federal bureaucrats could make it easier for states to experiment with creative ways to mitigate these anti-family rules. A state that wanted to support working-class couples could disregard some or most of the income of a secondary earner when evaluating whether a family should qualify for Medicaid, food assistance, or child care vouchers. They could enact a “honeymoon period” for newly-married couples, ensuring they maintained eligibility for their prior safety-net benefits for a time-limited period upon getting married. They could take a page out o Tennessee’s book  and provide diapers or other in-kind supplies to new moms covered by Medicaid. All this, and more, will be made easier with support from D.C. 

Similarly, scaling back overreach on child care policy from the Biden and Obama administrations could help stretch federal dollars further. Instead of requiring states spend a greater share of child care dollars on just a select subgroup of families and “quality improvement” practices, the feds could open the door to a more flexible, varied approach to child care .

Other federal programs could benefit from a facelift. The Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Program could use some high-profile champions, and a greater focus on equipping young men to be reliable partners and committed fathers within marriage, on top of its work to support men who are already parents. 

Lastly, even with a term-limited occupant, the White House also has the power of the bully pulpit. President Trump and Vice-President Vance should convene a national summit on the future of the family, focusing on the global trend of lower fertility rates and what policy and culture can do to raise marriage and birth rates. In its ideal form, it would bring in a cross-section of academics, media figures, celebrities, and politicians to share ideas and raise the spotlight around the decline of family formation in America (where just as many adults say too many children are being born as say there are too few.) The summit could focus on a few key principles: that children are good, that declining birth rates are a real concern, that children do best when raised by two parents, and that empowering parents to raise their kids according to their values, rather than those of bureaucrats or corporations, is true pro-family policy.

Finally, a blue ribbon panel on kids and tech that took a critical look at the evidence behind technology in the classroomand the impact of social media on teen well-being would also be welcome, though it would require political courage to stand up to some of the Big Tech moguls who populated the Rotunda during the President’s inauguration. 

That issue alone illustrates some of the tensions on the right that a successful President would be able to manage, and that might consume an unsuccessful one. The rise of AI, just like how hard to go after cutting entitlement spending, could divide his coalition. Which makes it all the more important to find popular policies the White House can use to broaden support. Championing policies that support families and bolster parents could help. 

It’s not an understatement to say that without the excesses of the progressive left over the past four years, President Trump wouldn’t be occupying the White House today. And the initial moves he made—to roll back federal affirmative action policies, to oppose concepts from gender ideology in federal documents, to undo federal action to expand access to abortion—showcased a willingness to not only fulminate against trendy ideological fads from the academy but to also take action against them. Measures to remove marriage penalties or support new parents might not make political headlines to the same extent, but done right, they will be at least as important for a strong American future.

Patrick T. Brown (@PTBwrites) is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he writes the weekly “Family Matters” newsletter.