The American Family Is Making a Comeback
Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig recently made a similar critique of "Room to Grow," suggesting that reformicons have chosen the sanctity of the free market over a robust family-leave policy that would help women and families proposed by congressional Democrats in the FAMILY Act.
These are serious charges. Ultimately, Dionne and Bruenig suggest, conservatives will value their ideology over the security and prosperity of families. But these are debates that conservatives have proven they can win. Reformicons are hoping they can convince Americans that the Republican Party once again cares not just for family values but also for families' realities. It would be a good thing for America if we had that debate.
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The 2014 midterms are shaping up to reflect the most vapid of our partisan sniping over the last year and a half: Democrats will try to convince America Republicans are crazy, and Republicans will do their best to live up to that billing. Of course, this kind of politics does not serve America well, and it also does not help our politicians, who win elections with no policy mandate and enter Congress ill equipped to work with the other side.
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This is a shame, because for the first time in Obama's presidency, the opposition—at least part of it—is putting forward real ideas and policies. There is also a growing consensus that the help families need includes both promoting family stability and cohesion, and providing economic supports. "Today, it is harder and harder to be good parents and good workers for many working families. That's a tradeoff that is neither good for our country or our families," Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, told me. "That's why policies like paid leave, sick days, and child care are so vital, because they support families as they create economic security for their families."
But Tanden also noted that "it's important to have two parents involved in the life of a child whenever possible. As progressives, we see both greater economic support and support for family stability as key ingredients for success. We just wish conservatives saw both issues as well."
In fact, Santorum took a similar both/and approach when I asked him about these issues. "Strong families produce a strong economy, and I absolutely think there is a role for the federal government to play when it comes to promoting marriage and family," he said. "In 2009, the Brookings Institute released a study that, among other things, said if you graduate from high school, get a job, get married and then have children (in that order), your chance of being in poverty is just 2 percent. Yet our country—whether through tax policy or through the rhetoric of our current president—does very little to support the institution of marriage."
The insecurity families are facing and the barriers to creating new families, acknowledged across the partisan divide, demand attention. The upcoming midterm should be about which party supports policies that best promote stable, secure and thriving families.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has recognized the new burdens families face. He recently announced that policies in the U.K. must pass a "family test," which means, "every single domestic policy that government comes up with will be examined for its impact on the family." As British MP and economic expert Mark Hoban told me, "We look at equalities and business impact of policies—this adds vital new dimension." Obama should announce a similar policy and call on Congress to do the same.
Congress can move forward on some specific areas of reform where there is general bipartisan agreement: expanding the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, eliminating the marriage penalty, promoting workplace flexibility, expanding paid family and medical leave and addressing the high cost of child care. Dionne recently suggested in his column that some of these reforms could be part of a "plain vanilla bipartisanship" set of proposals Congress could pass right away.
We should also look at the two purchasing areas that create the greatest obstacles to marriage and having children: housing and higher education. Due to rising real estate costs, the concentration of young people in urban areas, and their expectations for their careers and lifestyles, young people are becoming first-time homebuyers not with their spouses but with their friends. Though some young married couples are experimenting with communal households—living with one or more additional married couples—the vast majority are either delaying marriage because of the financial burden of buying a home, or renting for far longer than their peers due to income constraints. We should consider options—tax credits, interest-rate incentives, family-friendly zoning and city planning—that align America's interest in marriage as a public good, and stability as an important factor in a child's educational and social development, with our housing policies.
Similarly, we should help young couples that combine their student-loan debts through marriage by offering them lower interest rates. This would not only lessen an obstacle to marriage, but it would also respond to the fact that marriage is often a stabilizing force when it comes to managing and paying off debts.
The popular conception of the American Dream is a spouse, two and a half kids, and your own house with a car in the garage and a picket fence around the yard. When we talk about the American Dream slipping away, we tend to focus on the possessions: the house, the car, the picket fence. At a time when the income of American families is declining, this makes some sense. Materialism can be alluring, but mere consumption alone is unsatisfying: Our possessions do not make us human. The American struggle to acquire and consume more is not new. It is a more fundamental hope that is challenged today. The people that make up the American Dream—the spouse, the children, our dearest relationships—seem out of reach for millions of Americans.
Politics alone cannot restore this hope, but it will only further fuel Americans' cynicism if Washington does nothing to address it.
