When President Donald Trump was recently asked about giving new mothers “some kind of bonus” to increase the declining birth rate in the United States, he said that it “sounds like a good idea to me.” Vice President JD Vance has endorsed a $5,000 child tax credit, saying, “I want more babies in the USA.”
Trump has often expressed an interest in increasing the birth rate, even calling himself the “Father of IVF” on the 2024 campaign trail. And, in February, he signed an executive order designed to increase the availability of in vitro fertilization.
“My administration recognizes the importance of family formation, and as a nation, our public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children,” he said in his executive order expanding access to in vitro fertilization.
But for all the interest in making it easier for Americans to have children, the Trump administration has only made it harder for Americans to raise children. A recent report by ProPublica investigative journalists calls the administration’s DOGE cuts a “War on Children.”
“The administration has laid off thousands of workers from coast to coast who had supervised education, child care, child support and child protective services systems, and it has blocked or delayed billions of dollars in funding for things like school meals and school safety,” according to the report.
In the land of plenty, Trump’s elimination of funding for Local Food Purchase Assistance and the Local Food for Schools programs means more children will go hungry. These funding cuts — which affect food banks and school meal programs — also will make it tougher for small local farmers to survive.
After the mass firings at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and reports that funding will be cut altogether, Head Start is at risk, with some programs already shutting down. The report states that this will affect “1 million working-class parents who rely on Head Start not only for pre-K education, but also for child care, particularly in rural areas, with nowhere to send their kids during the day.”
HHS staff cuts and the closing of regional offices have eliminated or threatened to eliminate programs that promote minimum health and safety standards for child care, help states reduce the cost of child care, oversee child protective services and help runaway and homeless teens.
The Justice Department has removed $400 million in grant applications for programs that investigate internet child exploitation, assistance for abused children, mentoring programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters and the appointment of court advocates for victimized children.
And the Medicaid cuts being advocated by House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans would be devastating for children. As many as “4 in 10 children — including more than 8 in 10 children in poverty” could lose coverage, according to a recent article published by Johns Hopkins’ “Public Health on Call.”
First Focus on Children, a bipartisan advocacy group for the nation’s 70 million children, recently addressed the toll that current and proposed federal budget cuts will have on children. In a February issue brief, it called them “acts of harm against the children and families who rely on these programs to survive. … Budgets are moral documents, reflecting our priorities as a nation. When we decide where to allocate resources, we reveal what — and who — we truly value.”
The brief continued: “Children don’t vote. They don’t have political action committees or lobbying power. They rely on adults to make decisions that safeguard their well-being and invest in their futures.”