On Family Policy, the GOP Is Moving in the Right Direction
July 13, 2022
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:
