(LifeSiteNews) — Some Washington, D.C., city officials have taken an interest in parts of the Heritage Foundation’s recently released pro-family agenda, an official with the think tank told LifeSiteNews.
Early in January, the conservative think tank released its 168-page proposal called “Saving American by Saving the Family,” which lays out a plan to restore the basic unit of society for the next 250-years. The United States is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding this year.
The report calls for a refocus on the importance of the family and, strikingly for a free market think tank, warns about “careerism” infecting society.
While there have been some critics on the political Right, there has also been an openness on the political Left to the ideas, according to the report’s co-author, Delano Squires.
“I’ve had at least one meeting, hopefully more, on this issue of how to strengthen families and particularly in the D.C. context in low-income neighborhoods,” Squires told LifeSiteNews during a recent phone interview. He is the director of the Richard and Helen Devos Center for Human Flourishing at the Heritage Foundation.
“I see that as potentially a model for outreach in other cities to be quite frank,” Squires said. “So, this is not just about red states,” he suggested.
Squires said Heritage plans to work with officials at the local, state, and federal level to push for its policies. Some of this agenda includes providing tax credits to support families who decide to have one parent stay at home – currently taxpayers subsidize daycare but not stay at home parents.
“The dissolution of a marriage is hard on everyone involved, very much including the children,” the report states. “Public policy should provide incentives for couples to get – and stay – married.”
Heritage’s experts said welfare should be reformed to encourage marriage and stop penalizing single moms who get married. Working for welfare benefits should also be encouraged. Ultimately, marriage the is best economic driver and protector of society, the report states.
“Marriage is an all-purpose antibody that protects not just men, women, and children but the entire body of society,” the authors wrote. “Marriage greatly reduces poverty, child sexual abuse, suicide rates, and drug abuse. It also boosts educational attainment, wages, physical and mental health, and longevity.”
Squires, with the Heritage Foundation, reaffirmed this view during his interview with LifeSiteNews.
‘State of crisis’ with the family
Squires addressed criticism from conservatives that the various ideas represent a call for big government.
“Our position … is that the family is in state of crisis. In 1965, close to three-quarters of American households were led by a married father and mother,” he told LifeSiteNews.
“Today, it’s less than 50 percent. In 1965, 7 percent of children were born out of wedlock,” Squires said. “Today, it’s 40 percent.”
America is at a crossroads, and the nation’s next 250 years will rise or fall on the strength of its families. Our new report on rebuilding our most important institution is a must-read. https://t.co/6lBuP3JCSp
— Delano Squires (@DelanoSquires) January 14, 2026
“So, our position is that America is at a crossroads and the nation’s next 250 years will be determined by the strength of its families,” he said.
Squires also affirmed politics plays a role in shaping culture.
“We’re not going to stay on the sidelines as it relates to the decline of the family in order to claim some moral high ground about the ills of big government,” he said. “We’re not saying in this report that the government can fix this entire issue. We’re saying that the government has a limited role to play in, frankly, correcting the damage that it’s done to the American family.”
LifeSiteNews asked Squires to discuss more about the idea that culture can be downstream from politics, instead of the oft-repeated line that “politics is downstream from culture.”
“The Bible says the law is a teacher,” Squires noted.
“I would argue that the law’s been teaching the wrong lessons for the better part of 60 years,” he said, referencing the massive growth in the welfare state beginning in 1965 under President Lyndon Johnson.
“The elected officials can exercise authority, generally speaking, in one of three ways…. They have the pen of legislation and policy,” he said. “They have the purse of taxation and programs, and then they have the pulpit, the bully pulpit, where they express their stated values.”
Squires noted that even liberal Democratic President Barack Obama would speak favorably in support of the family.
“There are things again, ways that the government can aid the decisions of individuals, the influence of families, the influence of communities, and other social institutions, civic institutions in rebuilding the family,” the Heritage Foundation expert said. “There are ways that the government can aid the role of the church and other religious institutions that they can aid non-profit organizations.”
He gave an example of how conservatives might wield money already being spent in a positive way.
“Cities and states spend millions of dollars every year on public relations campaigns, advertisements,” he noted. “There’s nothing that would stop a state or a city from putting some of that money towards ads across whatever jurisdiction we’re talking about that say ‘In this town marriage comes before baby carriage or something to that effect,’” he said.
He suggested conservatives would probably find that a reasonable use of government power.
‘Support for uniform day of rest’
Heritage’s report proposes a variety of practices to promote family and a move away from hyper-focused careerism.
Among them is a return to so-called “blue laws” that allow government entities to establish the days and hours of operation of local businesses in the name of providing a “day of rest.”
Some localities still maintain these protections for rest. “Day-of-rest laws limiting commercial activity are usually found in less densely populated counties, although restrictions on alcohol sales are more widespread,” the report found. “Though greatly diminished, blue laws persist in some form in close to 28 states.”
There is also precedent, in that banks are usually closed on Sundays, Heritage reported.
Other topics included in the report are limiting the spread of pornography, discouraging divorce, and supporting marriage over cohabitation.
