What J.D. Vance Should Say

Game planning the vice presidential debate; plus, the Family Security Act goes official

People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window, wait for spring, and write my weekly newsletter. It’s Family Matters. On tap:

• The Main Event: How Sen. Vance Should Prepare for Tuesday’s Debate

• Sideshow: The Family Security Act is Real

• It’s Me, Hi

• Et Cetera

The Main Event

The 2024 vice presidential debate is Tuesday, and it may well be the nation’s last opportunity to hear the two tickets respond to each other before votes are cast. In general, veep picks never help, but they can hurt — and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) finds himself skirting dangerously close to that last category. The latest AP-NORC poll found his popularity underwater by 30 points among registered voters; worryingly, only a slight majority of Republican voters registered a favorable view of him.

It will be tough to turn that image around by November. The problem with being a Millennial conservative dad of young kids with Opinions and a habit of spending probably a little too much time online for one’s own good is that there are just too many recent examples of him using intemperate rhetoric for him to be able to plead that’s he’s changed, or let false viral allegations fade with time.

But Sen. Vance can have a long political career ahead of him. When he was selected for the ticket, I said — and still believe — the junior senator from Ohio bears the potential “for shifting the G.O.P. in a pro-family direction.” Next week’s debate will be a proving ground for which version of his brand of conservative populism will stick in the public ear. Will his public image be linked to “childless cat ladies” and musings on female menopause? Or can he showcase the more thoughtful instincts he’s shown on Twitter — authentically conservative, populist without demagoguery, sincere about using the power of the state to better support parents and working-class families?

Photo via Flickr

So, as something of a Millennial conservative dad of young kids with Opinions and a habit of spending probably a little too much time online myself, I have some unsolicited advice for how Sen. Vance should handle the questions that are sure to be asked about family, reproduction, and gender. Were I to play Aaron Sorkin and script next Tuesday’s exchanges, this is something how they’d go:

Norah O'Donnell (CBS Evening News): Senator Vance, you stated in 2021 that the Democratic Party is run by, and I quote, “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” You also said that people without children “don’t have a direct stake” in the country’s future, again, a direct quote. You’ve since clarified that those comments were “sarcastic,” but have not clarified whether you believe politicians without children can be effective leaders. Do you still stand by these remarks, and do you think that Democrats are trying to make the country miserable?”

Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio): Norah, there are so many people who have served our country admirably who didn’t have kids. Some of the guys I served with in Iraq don’t have kids. George Washington didn’t have kids! So the idea that I was trying to denigrate the experiences of anyone who is trying to truly improve the future of our country is laughable.

That being said, I do think anyone who has had kids knows what I’m talking about — obviously everybody feels some sense of obligation to leave this nation a better place than you found it, but that responsibility feels a lot heavier when you go in to your kids’ bedroom to tuck them in at night. Having kids just fundamentally changes your perspective on things. My family is the most important thing in my life — I don’t apologize for that.

And we’ve made policy choices in our country that make starting a family harder than it has been or needs to be. Democrats have some ideas, they’d mostly just backfire and make the problem worse. We need to empower parents to do what’s right for their families, not impose top-down solutions from D.C. that make life more expensive for parents trying to scrape by. And when President Trump and I take office, we’ll make it easier for parents, all parents, in places like Grand Rapids and Erie and Green Bay, to provide for their families and raise their kids in a healthy, safe, and prosperous nation.

Margaret Brennan (Face the Nation): Thank you, Senator, a follow-up, if I may. In the months leading up to the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, you opposed laws that would have allowed abortion access in the case of rape, exceptions for rape, saying — and I quote — “a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient.” Do you think rape is just an inconvenience? And do you oppose laws that allow rape victims to access abortion care?

Vance: Okay, that’s another media lie, taking my words out of context to try to make it sound like someone I’m not. I’ve gotten used to it the last couple months! When in reality, I’m with President Trump, and President Reagan, and really the vast majority of the American people on this — we have to have common-sense laws that protect babies in the womb while recognizing the need for sensible exceptions, such as heartbreaking, criminal cases of rape or incest, or when the mom’s life is in danger. And — contrary to what the media tells you — not a single pro-life state prohibits life-saving measures when a woman’s life is at risk. Not one.

Look, there’s been a lot of talk this election about Republicans being the extremists on abortion, when in reality, we’re the ones trying to find a middle ground to both protect babies and support moms. I’m a big fan of efforts to expand the Child Tax Credit to pregnant moms, and increase it across the board, and I also believe that laws like we’ve seen in Arizona and Florida strike the right balance of being pro-life and pro-family. I want to see more moms and dads given the support they need to push abortion off the table as an option, because they have the economic stability they need to really welcome that new life.

Meanwhile, we’ve got the other party pushing to eliminate the filibuster to pass a nationwide abortion law, and my opponent, Gov. Walz, even signed a law eliminating care for babies born as the result of an incomplete abortion. I’m sorry, if you’re okay with leaving babies to die on the table of an abortion clinic, you’re the real extremist.

Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.): He mentioned me, I think I get to respond?

[Crosstalk]

Brennan: Gov. Walz, 30 seconds.

Walz: First of all, I won’t apologize for defending the rights of Minnesota women to do what they want with their own body. Listen, he and Donald Trump want to talk, talk, talk about being pro-family, but in Minnesota, we went ahead and did it. We passed universal school lunches, so every kid in a Minnesota school doesn’t have to worry about trying to learn on an empty stomach. We passed paid leave so new parents can take time off work when they give birth. He likes to talk about the Child Tax Credit? We actually passed one, and it’s lifting hundreds of thousands of kids in Minnesota out of poverty. A Harris-Walz administration will bring those successes to families across the U.S., while he and his running mate are going to try to ban abortion, ban IVF, cut taxes for the rich and raise them on the little guy.

Vance: Since you brought up IVF, let me just state this as clearly as I can for the American people: No Republican politician is trying to ban IVF. No Republican politician wants a ban on IVF. Donald Trump, and I, know couples who have beautiful babies as a result of IVF and we celebrate with them. There’s always going to be ways we can improve the way we provide and regulate fertility services, but the idea that Republicans are trying to pass a total ban on IVF is a flat-out lie, a lie told by the type of people who will lie about having used IVF when, in fact, they really didn’t — which, if you ask me, is kind of weird.

But more broadly, sure, credit where credit is due — we need to get better about supporting families without breaking the bank. And Donald Trump and I will be fighting from day one to make sure that gets done.

But you guys want to bankrupt the country to provide one-size-fits-all benefits that fit none. We can do better for families than rack up giant bills their kids are going to have to pay. We need to unleash our great American economy, cut red tape, and boost the supply of housing, child care, and all the other expenses that weigh on parents, not try to spend our way out of the problem like you guys want.

One path leads to rising deficits, interest rates that make it impossible to buy a home, and the continued chaos of the past four years. The other will allow American families to know a future of abundance, safe streets, prosperity, secure in the knowledge that their kids will inherit a better America than even the one we knew in the years of President Trump’s first term in office — and, God willing, even better than the one that is to come when you elect him and me to office next month.

Sideshow

Since 2021, the most serious and comprehensive pro-family framework in town has been Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah)’s Family Security Act, and now the concept has been turned into legislative text. The headline numbers tell the story: A $4,200 Child Tax Credit for kids age 0-5, $3,000 for each school-aged child, and creates a new $2,800 tax credit for expecting parents

Long-time fans and short-time enemies have probably heard me sing the praises of Romney’s approach, which doesn’t just increase benefits for families but does so in a way that rationalizes some of the tangle of dependent-related credits and is paid for by consolidation of other tax provisions.

This latest version is an actual bill, iterating on their previous concept on which I wrote for The Dispatch. Most notably, the earrings requirement to receive the full child benefit is now at $20,000 per household (halved for pregnant women), which reduces some of its anti-poverty impact. But the new structure also ensures that the new approach holds all households harmless given changes to Head of Household filing status and the EITC, and incorporates some changes to the tax reform landscape since they first introduced the idea.

Notably, their list of endorsers corners the market on national pro-life groups, who rightly see this as a way of getting more money to pregnant and new moms in a way that ameliorates work disincentives, encourages marriage, is fiscally prudent, and buttresses family life. It remains to be seen whether Congress will have the appetite for any big swings at improving the tax code come next year. If they do, this should be the ticket.

It’s Me, Hi

Emma Ayers quotes me and others on the long-term ramifications of declining marriage for the Washington Times…Kenneth Craycraft cites my recent piece on IVF and childbirth costs for First Things…I am linked to in Rachel Cohen’s exploration of the fissures in the GOP coalition around IVF for Vox…As well as in Kristen V. Brown’s treatment of the same topic for The Atlantic.

Et Cetera

Job Alert

Do you have what it takes to run the Institute for Family Studies? The impossible job of filling outgoing president Michael Toscano’s shoes is now accepting applications.

Reports

The Congressional Budget Office projects housing starts will average 1.6 million per year over the next 10 years, before declining due to falling birth rates

Articles

Kamala Harris open to eliminating the filibuster to restore abortion rights (Wisconsin Public Radio)…An IVF Primer (Public Discourse)…In a First Among Christians, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women (Ruth Graham, New York Times)…The Case for Having Lots of Kids (Emma Green, The New Yorker)…For some parents, surging child-care costs could determine how they vote (Abha Bhattarai, The Washington Post)…Surrogates at Higher Risk of Complications From Pregnancy, Preterm Births (Pandora Dewan, Newsweek)…Russia Mulls Ban On 'Childless Propaganda' (Agence France-Presse)…House GOP sidesteps its own IVF divide (Kadia Goba, Semafor)…Religious traditional wives question the purpose of the #tradwife movement (Emma Ayres, Washington Times)…Ro Khanna’s Bold Proposal to Cap Childcare at $10 a Day for Most Families (Nik Popli, Time)…Judge Shields Catholic Employers From Mandate to Provide Time Off for Abortion, IVF (Jonah McKeown, Catholic News Agency)

Takes

Babyless blue states (Tim Carney, Washington Examiner)…Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake (

Charles Fain Lehman

, The Atlantic)…The case for a baby bonus for parents (

Leah Libresco Sargeant

, Deseret News)…Worthwhile profile and synopsis on a recent presentation by demographer Lyman Stone (Pascal-Emmanual Gobry, PolicySphere)…Kamala Harris Is a Woman of Faith. She Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Show It. (Jessica Grose, New York Times)…Are fully refundable child tax credits recreating welfare as we knew it? (Joshua McCabe, Niskanen Center)…Want to Boost Birthrates? Build More Homes (John Ketcham, City Journal)…Amber Thurman Died From The Abortion Pill, Not Pro-Life Laws (Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst and Mary Hallan FioRito, The Federalist)…Love Will Save More Lives Than Law (

Marvin Olasky

, ARC)…Harris’ Child Care Plan Is Flawed (Kathryn Anne Edwards, Bloomberg)

Roundup

Iowa: Can Real-Time State Data Ease Parents’ Child-Care Woes? (Nikki Davidson, Government Technology)…North Carolina: Tri-Share Child Care Pilots launch in three regional hubs

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