Rep. Riley Moore of West Virginia is one of the most interesting freshman Republicans in the House.

In some ways he embodies the kind of "new right" politics that is emerging. He's from West Virginia, perhaps the most emblematic state when it comes to blue collar politics that are generally conservative but not ideologically pro-free market. After high school he did an apprenticeship in welding and worked as a welder for several years, before moving on to college. Before his election to Congress he was West Virginia State Treasurer and, in that position, he was the first state treasurer to pull money out of so-called "ESG" funds, sparking a nationwide trend in big business-skeptical Republican politics.

So it shouldn't be surprising that Rep. Moore has also been at the forefront of pro-family policy. We were particularly receptive to two bills he has cosponsored, because they have the kind of narrowness that makes passage plausible, rather than being messaging bills.

The first bill, the Fairness for Stay-at-Home Parents Act, co-sponsored with Senator Mike Lee, tackles a particularly egregious loophole in the Family and Medical Leave Act that has trapped countless new parents in an impossible financial bind. Currently, employers can "claw back" health insurance premiums—averaging $25,000 annually for family coverage—from employees who choose not to return to work after childbirth. This policy effectively forces parents back into the workforce even when they would prefer to stay home with their newborns, creating both financial stress and emotional guilt for families trying to make the best decisions for their children. The legislation doesn't create new spending. It could be argued that it creates new business regulation, but we don't see it. After all, health insurance and paid leave are a part of employee compensation. Once the employer has paid it, it's paid it, and it's paid it in exchange of work that has been presumably rendered.

The other bill, the Respecting Parents' Childcare Choices Act, is more ambitious. The bill significantly increases funding for the Child Care Development Block Grant while fundamentally restructuring how families can use these resources. Most notably, it allows parents to use vouchers to compensate themselves for staying home or to pay relatives for childcare, eliminates burdensome regulations that have made it difficult for families to choose relative care, and removes marriage penalties that discourage family formation. The bill also includes protections for faith-based childcare providers, recognizing that many conservative families want childcare options that align with their religious values.

This is a very clever bill because it addresses a key nuance in these debates. Democrats and liberals and perhaps some pro-business Republicans like to talk about "childcare" but they mean it in a way that reifies the two-earner-model of the family, ie childcare outside the home. Pro-family and new right Republicans want to at least not disadvantage, if not favor, families in which one parent wants to stay at home or, for example, work part time. This is a key issue. Promoting the two-earner model is arguably bad for birth rates, an issue of increasing importance, and it's a penalty on families that seek to make different choices and who are, of course, predominantly conservative or religious families. Even more worryingly, the real reason why Democrats seek to promote "free childcare" (as they did programs like "Head Start" even well past the point that anyone could argue with a straight face that they provide benefits in excess of costs)

The bill significantly increases annual authorized funding levels for the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) by $5.25 billion. Currently, the CCDBG is funded at about $8.75 billion for FY2024, and the bill aims to raise this funding substantially. It's not a huge amount of money relative to the size of the Federal budget, but it's still ideologically interesting. There are also potential avenues for efficiencies: the current CCDBG system has significant regulatory burdens for using the vouchers for relative care, which presumably entail increased administrative overhead to process, monitor, and enforce.

All in all, these are very intelligent bills that don't just move the discussion forward, but are good and healthy bases for policy change. More of this from your friendly neighborhood Republican Congressman, please.

Policy News You Need To Know

#CBO #BigBeautifulBill — Time to play CBO score sweepstakes again! CBO has released its dynamic score of HR1 as passed by the House of Representatives. All those words matter. It's a dynamic score, so it takes into account growth effects and macroeconomic changes from the bill, but it takes into account the bill as written, meaning including provisions that are set to expire in the law (even though we know they're probably not going to expire) and it doesn't take into account executive actions, such as tariffs which may boost revenue, or regulatory reforms that might boost growth, and thus help reduce the deficit. And anyway, that's just HR1, not the BBB as it will emerge from the Senate sausage-maker. With all that being said! Here's the headline: "The economic effects of H.R. 1 would decrease the primary deficit by $85 billion over the 2025-2034 period, primarily reflecting an increase in economic output; and the bill would increase interest rates, which would boost interest payments on the baseline projection of federal debt by $441 billion. Accounting for those budgetary effects, CBO’s estimate under House Rule XIII(8) is that H.R. 1 would increase deficits by $2.8 trillion over the 2025-2034 period." So, a slightly smaller sea of red ink.

#BBB #IRA — Shuting Pomerlau of American Action Forum has a good overview of the Senate's proposal on repealing IRA energy credits. It's not great. "Like the House’s proposal, the Senate’s would significantly pare back the IRA energy credits, including a repeal of all clean vehicle credits and residential clean energy and energy efficiency credits, and an elimination of clean electricity credits for wind and solar by 2028." However, the proposal would also "dial back some of the House proposal’s restrictions on baseload energy sources, such as nuclear, geothermal, and hydropower, to allow them easier and extended access to the relevant credits." Apart from nuclear which requires enormous upfront costs that are largely the result of regulation (and therefore a market distortion), we don't see how any of those energy sources need subsidies.

#Immigration — In 1989, the National Science Foundation proposed encouraging foreign Ph.D students in order to suppress wages for Americans. The high number of foreign students in STEM fields today is the result of deliberate policy. UC Davis professor Norman Matloff goes over this history for Compact magazine. "In 1989, the NSF issued a dire warning that America was facing a STEM labor shortage. It did not materialize. Believing that the NSF had been deceptive in its shortage projection, Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-Mich.) held investigative hearings. Among the documents produced by the hearings was an internal memo from the NSF that fretted that wages for doctorate holders in STEM fields were becoming too high." Yes, you read that right.

#Immigration — Speaking of far-reaching policy mistakes when it comes to STEM students, over at Substack, Kevin Lynn has an important article criticizing President Trump's newfound appreciation for Chinese students. He points out that what is going on is "not merely an educational exchange but a systematic intelligence-gathering operation orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party," and backs it up with evidence.

#FamilyPolicy — Fascinating article from Wendy Wang at the Institute for Family Studies. The birth rate is dropping precipitously and worryingly, we all know that at this point. There's increasing evidence that this is in large part due to a lower rate of coupling. "The biggest hurdle for Americans who desire children but aren’t having them is not money or careers but finding the right person," writes Wang. The first step is to encourage young people to adopt a "cornerstone model" for marriage. She explains: "There are two ways to think about marriage. One is the capstone model, where marriage is the last piece to complete a successful life. You get your ducks in a row—education, some professional success, and a clear adult identity—before marriage." Meanwhile, "The other approach to marriage is the cornerstone model, the one many of our parents and grandparents followed. This view sees marriage as a foundation to start with, where two people commit to each other, support each other, and grow together as they build a life." If nothing else, the capstone model severely delays the decision to marry, with obvious implications for fertility. Very interesting other finding from Wang in the data: "Married young adults who met their partner in person (whether at church, religious gatherings, parties, or school) are much happier with their marriage, compared with couples who met online."

#TheEconomy #KingDollar — Jesús Fernández-Villaverde is (take a deep breath) Howard Marks Presidential Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and John H. Makin Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He's also a consistently interesting economist to read and pay attention to. Which is why you might be interested in these slides (PDF) from a talk he gave on the future of the dollar. His own summary of his talk: "the dollar continues to dominate globally for another 10 years, but with regional pockets where this dominance weakens significantly."

#Space — Speaking at a recent conference, Jay Schwarz, chief of the FCC’s space bureau, outlined a series of ongoing reforms whose goal is to make it easier to launch satellites, Space News reports. The FCC’s space bureau oversees the licensing of satellites and ground stations, manages spectrum allocation for both geostationary and non-geostationary satellite systems, and regulates how U.S. companies operate in space. The key driver of the changes is national security. The FCC is working to expedite licensing processes that can otherwise take years and hinder the deployment of both commercial and defense-related satellite services. Schwarz said the space bureau has reduced pending applications by 35 percent since January, including those for new space stations and ground infrastructure. Exciting stuff.

#LGBT — The Supreme Court has ruled (PDF) 6-3 in US v. Skrmetti that Tennessee's law barring certain medical care for transgender minors (such as puberty blockers and hormone treatments) is constitutional. Specifically, the Court held that the law is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause and satisfies rational basis review. A good day for the rule of law, a good day for children's health, and a good day for sanity.