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The Heritage Foundation wants a “Manhattan Project for the nuclear family” to boost marriage and birth rates.

Its draft proposals are landing like an atomic bomb among proponents of free markets who had previously been aligned with the leading conservative think tank.

A draft executive summary of the forthcoming family policy paper that is circulating among conservative economic policy types proposes substantial tax and cash incentives for marriage and childbirth.

It’s clear that Heritage is going all-in on family policy. A speech Heritage President Kevin Roberts gave at the National Conservatism Conference last week also previewed that family policy will be a cornerstone of the organization’s policy agenda.

Prudence, Roberts argued, “recognizes that the interests of the family and the national interest are not merely aligned, they are one and the same. It demands that we ask of every policy, every proposal: Will this strengthen the American family?” Roberts said.

I got a copy of the draft Heritage Foundation family policy paper executive summary that calls for a whole-of-government “Manhattan Project to restore the nuclear family,” as first reported by the Washington Post last week.

Here are some new details about the big, bold tax and economic proposals to boost marriage and birth outlined in that draft and giving some free-market advocates heartburn:

• Make the $17,280 adoption tax credit eligible for married parents of newborns, with unmarried parents eligible for half that amount, distributed annually in four equal installments.
• Make that credit 25% more — $21,600 — for married parents who already have two or more children, as a “Large Family Bonus” to “acknowledge the importance of large families.”
• Build on the idea of Trump Accounts (tax-advantaged savings accounts with $1,000 federal contribution for babies born between 2025 and 2028) by bumping up the deposit to $2,000.
• Plus, create a $2,000 deposit in another account redeemable only upon legal marriage, and that becomes taxable at age 30 to “incentivize marriage when children are most likely to be conceived.”
• “Make every credit, program, and tax benefit provided for paid childcare available for parental child raising,” arguing that programs like childcare tax credits and Head Start are “pushing both parents into the workforce at the cost of time spent raising their children as many prefer.”

Those ideas are included under the “Start Supporting Married Families” pillar of proposals. It also calls for the government to “Stop Punishing Married Families,” listing changes to public assistance programs that conservatives have long argued creates a “marriage penalty,” in addition to stricter work requirements for able-bodied adults.

The third “Restore the American Dream” pillar........

© The Hill