Paying People To Have Kids Is Welfare

If you reduce the tax burden, government spending, and deregulate you won’t have to do this.

It was announced this week that President Trump is mulling over an idea to pay mothers $5,000 to have more babies as a way to combat the declining birth rate.

It’s similar to what Viktor Orban did in Hungary, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Bluntly, we already have this. It’s called welfare.

If you reduce the tax burden, government spending, and deregulate you won’t have to do this.

The bottom 50% of Americans pay an average of $822, per latest IRS data. Unless you’re only returning $5k of taxpayer dollars to people who paid in $5k or more this is a wealth redistribution scheme.

If the average 50% and under taxpayer pays $822 where does the other $4,178 come from for their child payment?

Common pushback I come across online:

Relax. They can implement it as a tax credit.

Based on what income? If the average amount that the bottom 50% pay is $822 dollars how do they get a $4,178 “credit” that same year? That isn’t how tax credits work.

But I thought we were the pro-family party?

This is also what Mike Johnson said. Others on the right have made this same argument. It begs the question that expanding welfare itself is pro-family. Welfare makes the American family co-dependent on the government instead of independent of it. How is that “pro” family? What does being pro-family have to of with expanding welfare? Why isn’t it also “pro-family” to eliminate or reduce income taxes, deregulate, and cut government spending?

This defense outsources godly stewardship to the state while giving the government a pass for expanding itself and burdening other families. It is a veneer hiding the further diminishment of the family unit through dependency on the state.

We should want people to have more children!

Under any circumstances? Regardless whether or not the parents/mother or father can afford them? It’s a cheap sentiment betrayed by the callousness of turning children into commodities.

Hungary did it and it worked.

No, it actually did not.

Hungary’s total fertility rate rose slightly from 1.23 (2011) to 1.59 (2021–2022) after the payments, but declined to 1.36–1.38 by 2024, far below the 2.1 goal. Women cited inflation, economic stability as causes, and also a trend amongst youth to stay “child-free” — which was a choice also dominated by economic uncertainty.

In no country that’s tried it has this policy been successful.

Relax, Trump is just pitching ideas.

Technically POTUS is only being reported as entertaining this and he’s said nothing of it publicly yet. It may very well be his advisers pitching this. Regardless, I thought the purpose of elected leaders proposing ideas was for the voters who elected them to provide feedback to said ideas? I suppose that people who propose this want us to stay silent until after the proposal becomes law? At which point is it considered acceptable to voice concern about publicly discussed policy? Obamacare was once just a pitched idea, too.

The whole debate reminds me of the story detailing how then-Rep. Davy Crockett was once humbled by a hard-working farmer with one line: “It’s not yours to give.” (A must-read.)

How do you make it more attractive for families to have children? For starters, don’t just target the mothers with this payment at the expense of the dads. It reinforces the progressive argument that fathers are irrelevant. Second, CUT TAXES. It would be even better to abolish the IRS outright, but there isn’t enough courage in D.C. to make that happen. Reduce taxes, CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING. It’s asinine to think that paying women $5k to have babies is good for the economy when it’s a multi-billion dollar taxpayer drain. And finally, DEREGULATE. Make us an energy powerhouse, which Trump has already taken steps in doing. Reduce corporate taxes because it’s insane that our corporate tax rate is higher than China’s. Make the country a business-friendly place.

That’s how you finish making America great again.

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