DOT says it will tie funding to birth, marriage rates

Dive Transient:

• A brand new, undated memo from the DOT urges the division to give grant preferences to “communities with marriage and start charges larger than the nationwide common.” 
• The motion comes after the DOT introduced that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy — who was confirmed to the place on Wednesday — had authorized a series of actions to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda to “rescind woke insurance policies” and roll again laws.
• Jessica Tillipman, affiliate dean for presidency procurement legislation research at The George Washington College Regulation College in Washington, D.C., stated she and her colleagues don’t consider they’ve ever seen a federal authorities coverage tied to marriage and start charges, and stated it’s not clear how it will be enacted.

Dive Perception:

The federal authorities can successfully wield spending to enact an administration’s insurance policies, Tillipman stated. That may embrace setting preferences for deprived companies, women- or minority-owned companies or areas in want of financial growth.

“The way in which that this may be finest defined is that the federal government has extraordinary energy with its purse to influence socioeconomic coverage,” Tillipman informed Development Dive. “That is to my data the primary time I’ve ever seen what I name a collateral choice for marriage and start charge.”

She stated it’s additionally not clear how it will likely be applied, because the memo doesn’t present definitions, nor the place it’s going to safe knowledge.

“How are you defining marriage? Is it the place the place ‘the married couple’ resides? Or the place the wedding came about? As a result of the highest state for marriage is Nevada due to Las Vegas,” she stated.

The DOT declined to supply remark or reply questions concerning the memo.

Although it stays murky, areas that may very well be most negatively affected by this coverage would come with states like Oregon, Colorado and California which have a number of the nation’s lowest fertility charges, in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. South Dakota, Texas and Nebraska have a number of the highest.

Duffy isn’t the one administration official centered on the nation’s start charge. Vice President JD Vance stated in a speech this month that he needs Americans to have more babies.

“We’d like a tradition that celebrates life in any respect phases, one which acknowledges and really believes that the benchmark of nationwide success will not be our GDP quantity or our inventory market, however whether or not individuals really feel that they will elevate thriving and wholesome households in our nation,” Vance stated.

The memo additionally prohibits DOT assist recipients from imposing vaccine or masks mandates and requires native compliance with federal immigration enforcement.