The right-wing think tank behind Project 2025 is now crafting new policy suggestions, including an incentive for married couples to have more children, according to a report.
Following its controversial 900-page blueprint for President Donald Trump’s second term, the Heritage Foundation is now drafting a new position paper that includes calls for a “Manhattan Project to restore the nuclear family,” referring to the program to develop the first nuclear weapons, the Washington Post reported.
The forthcoming paper, titled “We Must Save the American Family,” reportedly urges the government to pour funds into individual families rather than child care programs, like Head Start, according to the Post.
The Heritage Foundation is also urging the president to issue orders that require all proposed policies to “measure their positive or negative impacts on marriage and family.” If a program scores poorly, it should be revamped, according to the Post.
“For family policy to succeed, old orthodoxies must be re-examined and innovative approaches embraced, but more than that, we need to mobilize a nation to meet this moment,” the paper reportedly reads.
The Heritage Foundation could not confirm the veracity of the executive summary obtained by the Post.
However, Roger Severino, the group’s vice president of domestic policy, told The Independent in a statement: “We have been developing novel policy ideas to address the family crisis with internal experts and external partners to do what we do best—generate and implement effective, principled solutions to seemingly intractable societal problems.” He added: “While the Washington Post will have to wait until next week to see the fruits of our labors, we thank you for generating buzz ahead of the rollout.”
Severino previously served as the director of Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services during Trump’s first term.
Speaking at a conference Tuesday, Kevin Roberts, the group’s president, seemed to echo some of the paper’s reported position.
“Prudence recognizes that the interests of the family and the national interest are not merely aligned; they are one and the same. It demands that we ask of every policy, every proposal: Will this strengthen the American family?” he said.
To address the country’s declining birth rate — which plummeted to an all-time low last year — the paper also allegedly critiques “extraordinary technical solutions” to combat declining birth rates — like freezing eggs, in vitro fertilization, surrogacy and genetic screening — as part of “a world of artificial wombs and custom lab-created babies on demand,” according to the Post.
The group recommended “the answer to the problem of loneliness and demographic decline must begin with marriage,” casting blame on “free love, pornography, careerism, the Pill, abortion, same-sex relations, and no-fault divorce,” the outlet reported.
On the campaign trail, Trump declared himself the “father of IVF,” promising to expand access to the medical procedure — plans that the White House has reportedly abandoned in recent months. The Heritage Foundation has recommended regulations around the IVF industry and promoted a growing alternative process to curb infertility called Restorative Reproductive Medicine, which critics have slammed as “unscientific.”
As the Trump administration is reportedly seeking ways to boost the country’s birth rate, several prominent Republicans have recently espoused views that align with “pronatalism,” a belief that encourages having children for the betterment of society.
Vice President JD Vance, who once branded his predecessor Kamala Harris as a “childless cat lady,” has long set out to increase the nation’s birth rate. In January, the vice president put it simply: “I want more babies in the United States of America.”
In April, the president praised the idea of giving a $5,000 “baby bonus” to new moms.
That month, House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News: “The way popular culture has developed in recent decades, they de-emphasize the family, they de-emphasize the merit of marriage, strong, steady, stable marriages between one man and one woman that produce children. This is part of the uphill climb that we have in working against the culture, but we’ll continue to do that, and public policy should reflect it.”
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” he said last August in a Truth Social post.
However, not only has Trump placed several of the conservative blueprint’s authors in his administration, but he’s also made numerous policy decisions that closely follow the playbook.
For example, the president’s anti-immigrant agenda, order eliminating the Department of Education, orders to end diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and decision to slash funding for public broadcasters, like NPR, all align with Project 2025’s proposals.
