The wrong agreement on the fertility crisis

Plus: an effect of smaller families, gorgeous old tiles, and more

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A take I haven’t written elsewhere

The wrong agreement on the fertility crisis

(via)

The last eight years have scrambled a lot in American politics, but not enough to prevent my mild surprise that the 2024 election is so much about having kids—and that there’s a rising agreement between the major parties on family policy. As a Politico report summarized last month:

JD Vance has floated the idea of more than doubling the child tax credit. Kamala Harris has repeatedly called for both that benefit and paid leave on the campaign trail — and she selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate partly because he enacted those policies in his home state.

It’s a striking pivot from previous election cycles: Both sides in a U.S. presidential race are playing up economic programs that would allow workers to better balance their personal and professional lives. That is evidence of growing bipartisan support for so-called care proposals as advocates spend tens of millions of dollars to drive their case home to candidates and the issues poll historically well with voters of both parties.

Suffice to say, this is not where things stood in 2012, let alone the 1990s or 1980s, and it suggests that at least some of these measures will pass in the near future regardless of who wins the presidency and control of Congress. Popular, bipartisan spending projects have a way of overcoming even the stubbornest Washington gridlock.

I have some basic libertarian objections to parts of this agenda. But in the grand scheme of things I’d like to change about our government, stuff like parental leave is not high on the list, and I don’t get too worked up about reasonably well-administered welfare programs meeting real needs. So that’s not my critique here.

My critique is rather that we’re reaching an agreement on fertility, but it’s the wrong agreement. Or agreement in the wrong order—the cart before the horse.