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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11242 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Trumps proposing to pay families with SAHP $9,000.

Dana Loesch, former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, called the program an example of the "new socialist right." Conservative personality Tomi Lahren likened it to the money that was sent out during the COVID-19 pandemic that "destroyed our workforce and supply chain" and raised the possibility that it could create a "giant fraud boondoggle."

Am I the only one who thinks the proposal is excellent, and that it is an inherent good to support families (even if its limited to more traditional ones)? Its probably better for us to support some families than not? The payment is certainly not ideal, perhaps an argument could be made for support working parents as well. But I think this is at least on the right track. We hear people complain about the cost of raising children all the time, (though I suspect this isnt a genuine complaint for most - many who are saying this probably wouldn't have children even if the cost were $0) but I think this may encourage the few who do actually think like this to go through and continue with more.

My only other complaint here is if Trump and JD Vance are primarily concerned with boosting the overall birth rate alongside helping working families, targeting male income and raising it should be paramount.

I'll say one thing, this is a beautiful example of how modern "conservativism" has completely erased itself in pursuit of nonsense cultural war grievances and virtue signaling. They're taking already appropriated money set aside for working parents meant to encourage them to be productive members of society and putting it into doing the exact opposite and promoting welfare dependency. Government money has to come from someone, so we're taking from people who actually contribute in order to create more leeches? That's crazy. But of course, socialist welfare thought is the default now, we can all just coast off the rich if we ban trade, nationalize their companies, give infinite subsidies (especially to the old), and keep ramping up on debt.

But ok maybe birthrates would be worth it, but this is a policy that is very unlikely to actually promote any new childbirths, given the failure of similar ideas wherever they've been tried.

Government money has to come from someone, so we're taking from people who actually contribute in order to create more leeches?

Assuming you arent being sarcastic - Cmon, SAHP aren't leeches. Having and raising a child in a loving marriage to adulthood is a worthy and valid contribution. You cant have people working if there are no people to start with. How are stay at home moms/dads not "contributing"?

Being paid welfare by the government to stay at home instead of working is the literal definition of a leech here.

This is almost certainly not driving anyone out of the workforce- the amount is simply too low.

I don't think you are thinking of this right - you aren't adequately considering the costs of a job vs being a stay at home parent.

Let's say you have two kids and are trying to send them to even a decent quality daycare. That's $2k a month easy (vast understatement in a lot of cities). Then there's gas and depreciation on the car you drive to work as well. And all of that is net dollars you are spending. So let's call it $24k plus $3k gas/depreciation a year to get to your job.

Now maybe you make ok money, $50k or something. Now that gets taxed, and if your spouse makes similar it's hitting the highest marginal rate of the two of you, but if you qualify for this it isn't getting taxed a whole lot, let's call it you net $42k a year. So even with all the daycare and everything you are making a bit of money, $15k a year, minimum wage ish. This is a pretty shit deal, but you are at least net positive.

Now if a $9k subsidy comes along, suddenly instead of netting 15k to have your kids sick all the time, get poor quality care particularly <1/2/3 (depending on the study), spend your days sitting in traffic and working a meh job, you can net 9k to do none of that. That's a pretty tempting offer.

obviously all numbers approximate, but hopefully it gets the idea.

Now in some ways this subsidy already exists, it's called "married men make more money than anyone else" for a variety of reasons and let their wives stay home".

It also freed up the non working spouse to do more non paid but valuable work (eg make meals, build community)

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