We have heard many harp on the horrible state of the American family, the dire straits that our country is in on all levels because of broken families, and that we’re doomed as a result. We all know this to be true, not only from all the stats and studies, but because we can see it with our own eyes. Well, there is some good news on this score; something can be done about it. We can, and we must, turn the ship around. The Heritage Foundation, despite its recent troubles, has released some good guidance, proposing a way to do just that.

Dr. Keven Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America, commented on the “Saving America by Saving the Family” report: “The family is the foundation of every healthy society, and, tragically, the American family is on the brink. We are dangerously close to being unable to reverse the decline. Our country will not survive if families continue to crumble at this rate. "If we want to secure the Golden Age of America, we must have bold solutions like those in this report that lay the foundation for stronger families. Strong families build strong communities, churches, schools, and businesses. Without them, freedom cannot last.”

Roger Severino, vice president for Heritage's Economic and Domestic Policy, also highlighted the significance of the proposal. “There is nothing more important than the future of the American family,” he said, “and we know that committed, fruitful marriage is the linchpin to its restoration. Our report calls for new investment from private, non-profit, and government sectors to back the bedrock of flourishing societies — the traditional family.”

The investigation is extensive, and the issues surrounding marriage and family are broad and complex, which is why it has taken The Heritage Foundation two or three years to compile and produce the policy path. The overarching goal proposed is to incentivize marriage and family through laws and policies, and to ferret out rules or laws that harm or disincentivize marriage and the American family.

The opening summary nails it: “To end America’s family crisis, policymakers and civic leaders should treat restoring the family home as a matter of justice, driven by two truths. The first is that all children have a right to the affection and protection of the man and woman who created them. The second is that the ideal environment in which to exercise this right is in a loving and stable home with their married biological parents. In contrast, the default in American culture today is to put the desires of adults over the needs of children. Children are too often called to sacrifice what is due to them — the presence of their mom and dad under the same roof for the entirety of their childhood.”

The plan focuses on three areas specifically. First, get rid of the policies and programs that punish married families. Congress must categorically end “marriage penalties in welfare programs, impose work requirements, and end waste, fraud, and abuse.” Roberts relayed in a press briefing on Monday, “There is a score of federal policies, in tax policy, in safety net programs that actually disincentivize marriage. We want to correct all of this.”

Second, reduce reliance on the government as the “parent” and instead prop up married families. The report calls for executive orders from President Donald Trump “requiring every grant, contract, policy, regulation, research project, and enforcement action involving the federal government to explicitly measure how it helps or harms marriage and family, and block or support those actions accordingly.”

Third, restore the American Dream, which has never been simply about homeownership but about being able to have and provide for a family. Heritage suggests helping to make that possible by building on Trump accounts with $2,500 deposits “into new investment accounts for newborns, redeemable upon reaching the landmarks of adulthood and marriage.” Also, Heritage recommends a “parallel credit” to the existing $17,670 adoption tax credit, and making those amounts available to married parents for each baby born to them, with a 25% bonus for those with families of three or more children. The report continues, “Make the value of every credit, program, and tax benefit provided for paid childcare available for at-home parental child raising.”

While it would be best for the government to stop subsidizing childcare altogether, I suppose that if the government is already paying for someone else to take care of people’s children, they may as well pay the parents who choose to take care of their own kids.

As a society, we need to encourage people to get married and have children, as Charlie Kirk did constantly, but there also has to be the weight of government and legal support behind it if it is going to survive and also succeed. Poland is an excellent example of a government putting taxpayer money to work. That country has implemented many laws and policies that protect and incentivize marriage and families, such as the most recent one, which nixes income tax for families with two or more children. Furthermore, we would be wise to follow Poland’s lead in not only banning same-sex marriages, but also banning them from adopting children. This would restore the order of putting the children and their needs before adults’ desires or wants, as The Heritage Foundation rightly stated.

Overall, the Heritage report is encouraging. Kudos to researchers for their great and much-needed work in this area. Now we need our administration, Congress, and the Senate to say “yes” to the proposal and start the hard work of turning the ship around before it’s too late. As Severino concluded, “We will need these initiatives and an accompanying cultural renewal to save and restore the American family.”