Valuetainment - “A Real Crisis Of Manhood” - Heritage Foundation CEO BLAMES Birth Rate Crash On Culture WARS

00:00:00.000 So, next one. I have four kids. Okay, birth rate right now is 1.58. Everybody I meet, I tell them I have a lot of kids, okay? What can we do to get the youth to start thinking about having a family, having kids, or maybe the crisis is so massive that it's going to take decades to fix, but how would you address it?

00:00:22.540 It's going to take a generation to fix. For people who are interested, we just published what we call a landmark paper, long, long social science study on family policy, and people know the diagnosis well. There are cultural, economic, religious, social factors that go into this, but what we're saying in this bottom line is, while those need to change, and I'll come back to a couple of them that I think in particular need to change, there may also be a role for federal and state policy.

00:00:46.880 And so, we have proposed, even as a conservative organization, that you invert some of the existing policies in federal law that disincentivize marriage and probably disincentivize the birth rate and actually incentivize young Americans before the age of 30 to get married and to have children.

00:01:04.480 We're saying, to be clear, though, that's downstream from some bigger factors, what's going on culturally and economically. And just like you say to young people you encounter, get married, have a lot of children, our institutions, which are upstream of the institution of the federal government, have to do a better job of cultivating among Americans the desire to be married and to have children.

00:01:26.940 Our religious institutions, our other cultural institutions. And so, these things have to occur in tandem. The good news is, while the data is admittedly mixed in some cases, in some countries that have done this, particularly Hungary and Israel, there have been modest improvements in the marriage and birth rates.

00:01:45.760 And so, we at Heritage are sober about the timeline we think that it will take to reverse this, a generation, 20 or 25 years. But we believe we're not yet at the point of no return, although probably there are some societies in the West that are.

00:02:00.500 Okay. While we're speaking, I just wrote this down. And I appreciate that. We have some case studies of where it's working, where it's not. Okay. Question for you. What hurts or, hell, what affects birth rate the most?

00:02:15.240 One, I have affordability. Two, policies from the top. Incentives for me to say, let's have three kids. Let's stay married. Let's do this, right? Instead of, you know, the Lyndon Johnson 1964 policies of single mothers. Let's give them more welfare. Let's give them more incentive to not get married. I'm getting all this money from the government. Why would I get married? It's cheaper. You know, it's better for me to keep having these kids. 0.81

00:02:38.740 Media, who we're turning as heroes. Okay. And then manipulation, feminism. So, out of those five, I got affordability, policies, media, who we sell as heroes, and feminism. Who's impacting that birth rate to be at 1.58 the most? 0.99

00:02:55.380 I want to be abusive and help this multiple choice and add a sixth, which is culture. I'm going to put those last three in the same.

00:03:01.120 Beautiful. Let's do that. Yes.

00:03:02.200 Because, and it is a little, I mean, it actually is hard from a social science point of view to disaggregate exactly the percentage of blame for each of those.

00:03:11.760 But culture broadly, I think, is the most important. Having said that, what we argue in the paper, and a lot of people who didn't think they would be convinced by argument have become convinced of it,

00:03:20.580 is that if you have upstream these cultural trends that you outlined so well, and in 1965, the misnamed war on poverty aggravates that by disincentivizing marriage,

00:03:31.900 and at least in some segments of the population birth, then you have the situation that we're in.

00:03:36.960 And then what's happened, especially over the last 15 to 20 years, as health care and higher education costs have skyrocketed, we've foisted upon that really bad context,

00:03:48.520 the impossibility from the standpoint of many young American men and women who want to be married and want to have kids of believing financially they can make it happen.

00:03:58.420 And so what we're trying to do is address in that paper the last two of those, the federal policy and economic policies that need to change.

00:04:08.720 We at Heritage, even though we have a little bit of cultural influence, will have to rely on Americans and American leaders to do their part.

00:04:16.780 For example, we even say this in the paper, American policymakers using the bully pulpit, not just to push a particular policy,

00:04:25.100 but to talk about this positive vision of what it is to be married and have children, can in fact help culture and those trends reverse.

00:04:33.480 Have you seen any incentive that's been done for folks to want to stay married and have kids?

00:04:41.380 Are there any countries that you look at and say, those guys did it right, they dropped at one point,

00:04:46.480 we know China right now opened it up, their birth rate is horrible. 1.00

00:04:50.020 When they say they got 1.4 billion people, I don't even know if that number is accurate,

00:04:53.060 because when you do the math, it doesn't make sense when they went to the one-child policy,

00:04:57.400 you just do the math on ChadGBT, the numbers don't go to 1.4 billion.

00:05:01.220 So I don't know where they're at. Maybe they are, maybe they're not.

00:05:03.440 What have you seen that's worked in a different country that the government incentive to cause people to have more kids and get married?

00:05:09.840 Two countries. The gold standard is what Israel has done. 0.97

00:05:12.840 Now, they've got some intrinsic advantages, largely religious, largely homogenous, 0.73

00:05:17.920 but we believe that the policies that they've enacted, which we mimic in our paper, have also played a role.

00:05:24.500 Because remember, we're not saying that our policy proposals are the end-all, be-all.

00:05:27.740 We're just saying that if you get these other cultural and social trends reversed, these can be really helpful.

00:05:34.020 But the second country, more like us, although much smaller, is Hungary.

00:05:37.500 There, the data is mixed to positive, but the one piece of data, we're not expecting to see this,

00:05:44.480 the one piece of data my social science colleagues learned that is really instructive is there was a dramatic decline in Hungary

00:05:52.240 after they implemented pro-family policies in the married abortion rate.

00:05:57.300 What do you mean?

00:05:58.920 The abortion rate by married women.

00:06:01.380 Okay.

00:06:01.840 It dropped by 50%.

00:06:02.940 What did they do to cause that?

00:06:04.160 They began incentivizing marriage.

00:06:06.520 They began incentivizing birth.

00:06:08.980 One of the proposals we make in our paper, for example, incentivizes both of those.

00:06:14.180 Somewhat modeled on the Hungary example.

00:06:16.500 The Hungary example, actually, after a certain number of children,

00:06:20.340 will eliminate the national tax burden, income tax burden, on that married couple.

00:06:24.980 We don't go quite that far.

00:06:26.460 But there, in a society that resembles more the pluralism of the United States, there is hopefulness.

00:06:32.240 So we believe what needs to happen is that Congress should basically plus up the Trump accounts

00:06:37.860 to include an incentive for marriage, a $2,500 tax credit for men and women who get married by the age of 30.

00:06:44.100 And then we want to expand the adoption tax credit, which is $17,260, to include natural births for those families.

00:06:51.980 We still want people to adopt.

00:06:54.220 Unpack that for me, if you could, the $17,000 one.

00:06:56.540 If you and your wife decide you want to go adopt a child, there is a $17,000 tax credit.

00:07:03.660 Does that exist right now?

00:07:04.900 It exists right now.

00:07:06.000 And when did that happen?

00:07:07.500 Several years ago.

00:07:08.360 I forget which year.

00:07:09.380 But it's been on the tax code for a long time.

00:07:11.940 What we're arguing is that take that same concept.

00:07:15.160 We still want, of course, people to adopt, even more people to adopt.

00:07:18.420 It actually would probably help both of these pieces of data.

00:07:20.620 But take that same part of the tax code and expand it to births, natural births, for a married couple.

00:07:27.940 That's real money.

00:07:28.740 That probably begins to change behavior.

00:07:31.240 Does it get the fertility rate from where it is now, 1.58, to replacement rate 2.1 on its own?

00:07:37.900 No.

00:07:38.760 But if you have the president and his entire administration talking about the beauty of marriage and family,

00:07:43.280 if you eliminate all the disincentives in our safety net programs toward marriage,

00:07:48.180 you probably start knocking on the door of the replacement rate over 10 or 15 or 20 years.

00:07:54.120 What if we did husband and wife married?

00:07:59.460 Each kid that's born, you're still married.

00:08:02.700 The first two kids, fine, no problem.

00:08:06.460 Third kid, $25,000 tax credit.

00:08:09.760 Fourth kid, $50,000 tax credit.

00:08:11.760 Fifth kid, $100,000 tax credit.

00:08:14.560 I think we can afford that.

00:08:15.540 Because if I was to, maybe we can do the fifth kid, $75,000.

00:08:19.260 The reason why I say that is because if, Rob, can you type in data,

00:08:25.780 how many husband and wives have five kids together? 1.00

00:08:32.420 You know what I'm saying?

00:08:33.300 I don't know how to ask that question.

00:08:34.420 How do you ask the question?

00:08:35.340 What's the proper way to ask that question?

00:08:36.700 That's how I would work.

00:08:37.260 How many husband and wives have five kids together? 1.00

00:08:44.100 I'd want to know what that number is.

00:08:45.860 Can you pull that up?

00:08:47.660 Because what if the incentive was after two?

00:08:50.080 Because first two, you've got to do it anyways, right?

00:08:51.940 By the third one, if I'm going $25,000, $50,000, $75,000, $100,000 for the sixth,

00:08:55.700 I had this, what's his name, Dr. Taylor Marshall that you may know, right?

00:09:01.620 He became a Catholic, left the Episcopal Church.

00:09:05.500 He was a priest there, and he's a great, great storyteller.

00:09:09.160 And he said they have eight kids together.

00:09:10.780 I said, why do you have eight kids?

00:09:11.920 He says, I'm a traditional Catholic.

00:09:13.360 I said, tell me more.

00:09:14.340 He says, pull up how many kids traditional Catholics have on average.

00:09:17.900 I said, I don't know what the number is, 4.9.

00:09:20.200 How many kids do you have?

00:09:21.260 We have four.

00:09:21.900 And our fellow traditional Catholic family say,

00:09:24.060 y'all are kind of pulling up the caboose, Robert.

00:09:25.720 Kind of hurting the average.

00:09:27.300 So what does it say, Rob?

00:09:28.800 Oh, wow.

00:09:29.840 Really?

00:09:30.320 The number is 5%.

00:09:31.440 I love that.

00:09:33.360 I wonder, can you ask the question of what that number looks like the last 10 years?

00:09:38.680 The last 10 years, what that number looks like.

00:09:40.700 So maybe if we do five, yeah.

00:09:42.980 What do you think about that system?

00:09:44.340 To incentivize third, fourth, and fifth kid of husband and wife staying together.

00:09:47.520 We're enamored with that idea.

00:09:49.220 We didn't propose that in our paper because we want to do more research.

00:09:52.140 So two things I will say.

00:09:53.160 What you described is basically Hungary's system.

00:09:56.420 And the second thing is we see this family policy paper as sort of a launch point to commence conversations like what you and I are having.

00:10:04.980 We thought, especially given the news cycle, that we would get a lot more blowback on this paper, including from some conservative circles.

00:10:11.920 While there are truly legitimate critiques of using government policy.

00:10:16.540 What is the argument?

00:10:16.740 That as a conservative organization, we shouldn't be talking about government programs for anything.

00:10:22.280 Okay.

00:10:22.700 And while that is a good faith, legitimate argument.

00:10:24.860 That's the only argument?

00:10:26.080 Yeah, for the most part.

00:10:26.840 Okay.

00:10:27.300 Got it.

00:10:27.620 Our response is, well, you're not going to be able to afford what we're doing if you don't have more kids as a civil society.

00:10:33.240 And so what we will continue to do is do research on programs like what you've described.

00:10:39.160 The second point I will say is I think there's a real opportunity here for states to participate.

00:10:44.620 In fact, as a conservative, I would prefer states to do most policy.

00:10:48.820 State legislatures could receive block grants from the federal government to go innovate and see over 5 or 10 or 15 years with incentives for them if there is an improvement in both the marriage and birth rates.

00:10:59.360 Yeah, I think that would be one way for somebody to think about it.

00:11:04.160 I think the other part is also universities.

00:11:07.000 You're seeing more women are going to college, getting four-year degrees. 0.98

00:11:10.300 I mean, I think the number is 64% versus 36%.

00:11:14.220 So some could say that's a pro or a con because they're also being brainwashed longer with more the woke way of thinking when you're going to college.

00:11:21.860 So I don't know if that stat is even a positive thing.

00:11:24.840 No, we don't believe that it is.

00:11:26.000 There's obviously good for anyone graduating from college, whether men or women, but we're really concerned about the war on and the crisis of manhood in the United States, which doesn't come obviously at the expense of women.

00:11:37.780 The complementarity of men and women should cause us to really be concerned about the thing that sticks out for me, having a then-teenage brother who committed suicide when I was nine, is the quadruple, four times as likely for boys and men in this country to commit suicide than women. 0.89

00:11:53.940 We have a real crisis here in culture, in the economy, in policy, and what we're saying at Heritage is because we're conservatives, not libertarians, all due respect to our libertarian friends, we can see a role for the common good for federal policy to play.

00:12:11.480 Four times more likely, so sorry to hear that.

00:12:16.560 I read that somewhere.

00:12:18.200 He was 15 years old when, yeah.

00:12:22.640 You hear the stories.

00:12:24.020 It happened in our school to one of my kid's classmate, and he came home explaining.

00:12:29.540 I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

00:12:30.640 No, babe.

00:12:31.020 I'm like, are you serious?

00:12:32.000 Yeah.

00:12:32.240 What are you talking about?

00:12:33.300 Yeah.

00:12:33.600 It's just so common.

00:12:34.600 It is a tough conversation to have.

00:12:36.280 So why do you think that's happening today?

00:12:37.560 You think the main reason is parents allow social media to, you know, be available to them too early?

00:12:42.900 Well, we know that social media has a huge role to play.

00:12:45.540 In fact, one of the most common critiques that we at Heritage make of social media, especially TikTok, is the effect that it has on young women, especially TikTok on young women.

00:12:53.820 But broadly defined, social media, the breakdown of the family, of course, affects both boys and girls.

00:12:59.020 But also institutions have no longer served any young American well, but I think young men have felt that particularly profoundly.

00:13:07.840 And so this goes hand in hand with the big chunk of our family policy paper, Pat, that focuses on the diagnosis, where we get into a lot of these cultural and social factors.

00:13:16.980 At Heritage, we believe very much not just in articulating policies that we'll go fight for, but shoulder to shoulder with fellow Americans, things that we as individuals can change through individual action or at our local level.

00:13:28.620 And each of us needs to sort of pick up a little bit of the burden to make sure that whether it's suicide, mental health broadly, the dramatic concern that both young men and women have about the inauthenticity of our institutions,

00:13:42.740 that we're doing what we can in our individual, family and local lives to improve culture, because no policy can offset these cultural trends.

00:13:53.160 Your parents, did they raise you guys conservative?

00:13:55.400 They did. They got divorced when when I was young, but both remained conservative.

00:14:00.040 My grandparents spent a lot of time raising me. They were Reagan conservatives.

00:14:03.860 I was the first registered Republican in my family because growing up, although we were all conservatives, because growing up in Louisiana at that time,

00:14:11.880 it was actually hard before I was born for people who were conservatively minded to literally go register as Republican in that Democrat state.

00:14:19.140 It was just hard, period, or for people to know?

00:14:22.820 No, it was very difficult to actually go into the county clerk or the parish clerk and register as Republicans, the Democrat.

00:14:27.860 Because they would know because you're going to get judged. And so they're going to why would you register a Republican?

00:14:32.160 Exactly. And there's no Republican Party as an institution after Reconstruction.

00:14:36.400 Were your parents, did they get the divorce after your brother passed away or was it pre?

00:14:43.940 Before.

00:14:44.820 Before. Oh, okay. Got it. So my parents married and divorced each other twice.

00:14:51.320 Really?

00:14:52.160 They got married. My sister's born. They got divorced. They got remarried. I'm born. They got divorced.

00:14:57.680 That's probably the best thing that ever happened. They couldn't be in the same room together.

00:15:00.680 It was a challenge. But as a kid going through it, oh my God, there was a lot of pressure on me as a young boy.

00:15:07.460 Because I love my dad and I love my mom and I love my family.

00:15:11.360 And to lose that, seeing the steps when he's coming up.

00:15:15.060 And we had a glass door and I know my dad was home at 8.30 in Iran.

00:15:18.020 And I never experienced that again since 1989.

00:15:21.780 It was hard on a young man to go through it.

00:15:23.960 It had to have been.

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00:16:21.360 I'll see you next time.

00:16:37.300 Bye.

00:16:40.000 Bye.

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00:16:48.440 Bye.

Valuetainment - February 23, 2026

“A Real Crisis Of Manhood” - Heritage Foundation CEO BLAMES Birth Rate Crash On Culture WARS

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