Beverly Hallberg has helped conservatives craft their policies and messages for over 20 years. As president of a training firm, District Media Group, she’s often the one behind the scenes prepping faith-based and conservative influencers and lawmakers on how to get ready for prime time.
So when she heard that the Trump administration wants to start paying welfare to parents who stay at home to raise their children—and that some longtime GOP activists were celebrating the idea—she felt betrayed.
“Work requirements have been a big push by Republicans for years,” Hallberg told CT. “For those of us who have been fighting for work requirements for welfare for so long … it’s a really shocking reversal.”
Hallberg is not the only Christian reacting with dismay to the Trump administration’s latest gambit to court pro-family advocates. The New York Times reported recently that the Trump administration is weighing a proposal that would allow parents below a certain income to tap into federal childcare subsidies if one of the parents stays at home.
It’s unclear what the program would look like in practice. The draft proposal has not yet been publicly released.
So far, what is known is that the proposal would divert funds from a Health and Human Services Department program created during the Clinton administration to help low-income parents afford childcare so they could get back into the workforce.
The vast majority of recipients of the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) are single, working mothers. They can apply the money toward childcare centers, church-run childcare, or even relatives providing care, like grandparents. Parents who qualify get around $9,000 per child annually on average until the child is 13.
While the current program applies equally to single and married parents, the draft proposal would apply only to married couples.
Childcare subsidies have been a source of debate in the past, but policy wonks agree that the way Congress wrote the law prevents parents from receiving the money. That’s because the express intent of the law has been to keep people in the workforce.
Limited-government conservatives say they are concerned about federal influence on family choices.
Hallberg acknowledges there are “good-faith disagreements” on the right side of the political aisle about the role of the state in people’s lives. But “fundamentally, as a Christian, I think it’s very dangerous for the government to be involved in family formation,” she said.
Rachel Greszler, a research fellow at Advancing American Freedom, is wary of the strings attached to federal dollars. For providers to qualify to receive childcare vouchers, the CCDF has rules and requirements around state licensing, health and safety standards, and criminal background checks. She questions what kind of scrutiny the government would put on parents who are receiving the benefit.
“And if there’s zero rules, then that’s going to lead to problems also,” she said. Critics have raised questions about the potential for fraud in the proposed program.
Greszler is also uneasy with programs that would incentivize capable adults to stop working. “They’re looking at using an existing program that is decidedly pro-work, decidedly pro-independence,” she noted, “and they are completely upending that.”
“I see faith, family, and vocation as our primary callings and also gifts from God,” added Greszler, who is Presbyterian and a mother of six. “There is great dignity in work.”
Some voices and groups on the right have praised the White House proposal on the grounds it would end what they view as discrimination against stay-at-home parents who are unable to access federal funds that working parents can use.
“It would be a welcome change to see equal treatment between commercial day care and the contribution stay-at-home parents provide in caring for and raising the next generation,” Roger Severino, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who authored Project 2025’s childcare section, told the Times. Severino was unavailable for an interview with CT ahead of publication.
Some conservatives dislike the proposal but praise the goal of supporting families.
Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, likes the idea of more federal support for families. But he also thinks this particular proposal would leave more parents in worse shape.
“This idea of ending discrimination against stay-at-home parents I think does resonate with a lot of conservatives,” said Brown, who is Catholic. But “helping moms get to work is probably an important policy goal that we should not be undermining.”
Josh McCabe, director of social policy at the Niskanen Center who focuses on work and family policy, also believes the government could take less polarizing steps to support families. He supported expanding the child tax credit and indexing it to inflation last year.
But he said the math for this proposal doesn’t add up.
That’s because the pot of money allocated for the CCDF—$12 billion—is already stretched too thin for the current program. According to the latest available federal data, from 2023, the program serves around 994,000 families. But only 1 in 7 of the children who qualify are able to access the program. Seventeen states had waitlists or had to freeze intake for childcare assistance last year. The program uses a lottery system for those who qualify but haven’t been able to access the funds.
John Shelton, vice president of policy at Advancing American Freedom, said he’s seeing increasing comfort on the right with the philosophy that “rather than think about what’s the best policy for the country, let’s do the proposal that gets us elected.”
He pointed to President Donald Trump’s recent proposal to send Americans $5,000 rebates if Republicans retain control of Congress. He mentioned the impression that the rebate proposal, alongside this one, raises that the GOP are “buying the votes of married parents” ahead of the midterm elections.
“It’s bad policy, and it doesn’t have to be socialism for me to think, Wow, this is a waste of taxpayer money,” Shelton said. “It’s a stupid expansion of the safety net.”
The changes to the childcare subsidy would still need to be published by the White House and be subject to a public comment period before going into effect.
