Yesterday we appraised you of the baby bonus proposal by Leah Sargent of the Niskanen Center. With the New York Times raising alarm bells about the White House's seeming (and very timid) interest in some form of pro-natalism, it's the sort of proposal to pay attention to. This one is attractive.

The proposal emphasizes several practical arguments for a baby bonus: she notes that parents experience significant income declines around childbirth (up to 30% in income-to-needs ratio) just as their expenses increase for necessities like diapers, cribs, and car seats; unlike the Child Tax Credit that comes during tax season, a baby bonus would provide immediate support when families need it most. The bonus would complement existing programs by providing support to parents who don't qualify for paid family leave due to insufficient work history (approximately 30% of young parents). It would offer flexibility to parents to use the funds for their most pressing needs, whether that's basic necessities, childcare assistance, or effectively functioning as a modest paid leave benefit. Finally, the payment would be administratively simple, requiring parents to designate a recipient (typically the mother) at the hospital when completing other birth documentation.

What's most attractive about the proposal is that it's relatively cheap. The proposal suggests two implementation options: a universal $2,000 payment for all births (costing $7.7 billion annually) or a payment that phases in with earnings at a 20% rate to reach the full benefit at $10,000 of household income (costing $5.3 billion annually). Ms Sargent notes this is a modest price tag compared to other family benefit programs, especially since it only applies in a child's first year.

She also discusses the examples of Australia and New Zealand which have similar programs. Australia introduced its program in 2004 under a conservative government, initially providing AU$3,000 to all mothers without earnings requirements. The program aimed to establish a universal benefit supporting all families regardless of employment sector or family structure, particularly helping stay-at-home parents who couldn't access workplace parental leave benefits. New Zealand's approach evolved over time, beginning in 1999 with a Parental Tax Credit of NZ$150 weekly for eight weeks, targeted at lower-income working families who couldn't claim paid parental leave. By 2015, this increased to NZ$220 weekly for ten weeks (totaling NZ$2,905). In 2018, New Zealand transformed this into the "Best Start" payment, which pays NZ$73 weekly from birth until age one (maximum NZ$3,838) with no income requirements, and continues until age three with means-testing. To Sargeant, both countries' programs demonstrate how baby bonuses can effectively complement other family supports, establishing minimum benefits that reach families excluded from traditional paid leave programs while remaining fiscally sustainable.

Policy News You Need To Know

#Crime #DC — Here's your stat of the day: in DC, only 1.7% of people arrested for carrying a pistol without a license are sentenced to prison. Your correspondent is now old enough that we remember pre-gentrification DC when there were nice areas and no-go areas, then the Obama and post-Obama era when DC was a boomtown, and now the post-BLM area where DC has similar crime and quality of life issues as other big blue cities. Congress should reassert Federal authority over DC. It's a joke that the capital of the greatest nation on Earth has a crime problem. More from Heritage's Cully Stimson at the Washington Times.

#DEI — Most important news today, with more to come (watch this space): White House EO seeking to overturn disparate impact doctrine.

#Fertility — You may recall we recently wrote about one of the most fascinating reports we've read in recent months, from EPPC's Natalie Dodson and Heritage's Emma Waters, discussing alternatives to IVF when it comes to fertility care, which come under the label of "restorative reproductive medicine," and critiquing the current IVF industry. Well, here's a bit of news: "Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed the “Reproductive Empowerment and Support Through Optimal Restoration (RESTORE) Act” into law. The legislation is based on a model bill from the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s (EPPC) Natalie Dodson and the Heritage Foundation’s Emma Waters. The legislation establishes a framework in the state for restorative reproductive medicine, a series of medical protocols that endeavor to treat the root causes of reproductive dysfunction and infertility." This is good news. Alternatives like this should be supported.

#Energy #FERC — One of those important, under-the-radar things: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission commissioner Willie Phillips, a Democrat, has resigned, leaving a seat for President Trump to fill. The move leaves FERC with two Democrats and two Republicans. Given the importance of energy to President Trump's first term agenda, this is a move to watch. Here's an article on the search process for the appointee.

#Healthcare — Important warning from RAND: emergency care in the US is in danger. Emergency care is even more important in the US healthcare system than in other health systems around the world because it provides access to the uninsured. "In this report, the authors (1) assess the current value of emergency care, (2) evaluate challenges to sustaining emergency care, (3) measure trends in emergency care payment, and (4) identify alternate funding strategies for emergency care. To achieve these objectives, they sought expert input in the form of a study advisory board and conducted interviews and focus groups, a survey, case studies, an environmental scan of peer-reviewed and gray literature, and analysis of administrative data."

#Polling #Tax — There's clearly a concerted push to pressure Congressional Republicans into a (full?) extension of the 2017 TCJA tax cuts. Now the National Taxpayers Union has come out with its new survey saying that (surprise) Americans don't like tax increases. To be fair, they probably also wouldn't like a debt crisis.

#AI #LaborMarket — Brookings has a new study out on a question certainly worth asking: what does "reskilling" mean in the era of AI? Your correspondent's view on this issue is that the government should not preoccupy itself with "reskilling." Reskilling doesn't work because the issue is that certain jobs require certain IQ levels and getting some certificate won't change that. Furthermore, if there is a need of reskilling, this seems like a perfect example of something that the market will pay for. If the reskilling program actually works, then there will be employers willing to pay for it, and/or workers willing to go into debt to pay for it (and bankers willing to lend them money to do so because they do make more money afterward); and if there aren't, then it means it doesn't actually work, which means the government shouldn't be paying for it. The government's job should be limited to broad-based policies that ensure the labor market is tight and with rising wages for all levels, which is really what creates the necessary incentives for reskilling, relocation, and so on. With all that being said, that's not the world we live in. In the world we live in, "reskilling" is a neoliberal shibboleth, a propitiatory sacrifice to expiate the sin of offshoring manufacturing jobs, and therefore we have lots of programs on that issue. Therefore, it would be better if those programs were more intelligently run.

#AI #AGI — Speaking of AI, here's an intriguing new report from RAND, arguing against the widely-held-in-Silicon-Valley presumption (one which your correspondent is doubtful of) that just adding more computing powers to the same kind of AI models we currently have, large language models (LLMs) will eventually create some sort of superintelligence. Instead, "This paper is intended to complicate that position, explaining why there are barriers to LLMs hyperscaling to AGI, and why AGI may instead emerge from a suite of complementary, if not alternative, algorithmic and computing technologies. The goal of this paper is to provide U.S. policymakers a clear, nontechnical introduction to the issue of LLM hyperscaling and alternative pathways to AGI. The authors argue that there may be multiple courses to AGI and thus recommend that policy around AI avoid over-optimizing for a given possible future (e.g., hyperscaling LLMs), even while that policy addresses the possible near-term emergence of AGI in the hyperscaling paradigm." Well worth your attention.

#Immigration — USCIS is now asking H-1B applicants for their home addresses and biometrics. We are stunned to learn this wasn't previously the case. Regardless of what immigration levels one supports, it's striking to see how much of the incumbent system is designed, not to further some vision of the American national interest, but to just maximize the number of warm bodies imported to American soil.

#Voting — Here's R Street's Eli Lehrer calling for the repeal of so-called "sore loser laws" which prevent candidates who lose a major party primary from running as independents.