Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for further action in Congress to help American families cope with the financial demands of raising children and caring for relatives.
The lawmakers spoke on Thursday at a bipartisan discussion titled “Future of Supporting American Families,” organised by the American Policy Ventures Foundation in partnership with The Hill.
The event brought together lawmakers and policy figures from both parties, including Sen. John Boozman, Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, Debbie Dingell and Blake Moore, as well as Kellyanne Conway, a former campaign manager for President Donald Trump.
Among the issues discussed was expanding access to paid family leave, providing tax relief for families with newborn children and addressing the wider challenges faced by parents and caregivers.
Houlahan and Boozman are co-lead sponsors of the More Paid Leave for More Americans Act, a bipartisan proposal aimed at expanding access to paid leave through a state-led public-private partnership.
The legislation would also establish a national framework allowing employers to administer paid-leave benefits across state lines.
Houlahan and Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice introduced the House version, while Boozman and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the Senate version.
Houlahan said the bill was intended to make gradual progress towards broader access to paid leave while highlighting potential benefits for businesses.
“With Stephanie and I, our mantra is ‘more paid leave for more people,’” Houlahan said. “Incrementally, anything that we do opens that door so that more people recognize that, again, that the businesses empirically, objectively do better if they allow things like paid leave.”
She said businesses that provide paid-leave programmes could benefit from the arrangement, while acknowledging that employers should have flexibility in deciding what works best for their employees.
“While I understand that we want to make sure people have the free will to choose this, and they should, the reality is that this will end up eventually being all people having this because it’s just the right thing to do, and it’s the right thing for businesses to do,” she said.
Houlahan said she hoped Congress would return to the legislation during the lame-duck session after the November midterm elections.
Boozman said differences remained to be addressed but pointed to the bipartisan backing for the proposal in both chambers of Congress.
“That’s a good recipe to start out with,” he said. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
The lawmakers also discussed the Supporting Newborn Parents Act of 2026, a bipartisan bill backed by Dingell and Moore that would provide families with a tax credit of up to $2,000 when they have a newborn child.
Moore said policymakers needed to examine measures that could support families amid declining birth rates and the growing financial demands associated with raising children.
“It’s tough. We’re seeing declining birth rates, and so we’ve got to look at the data and say, what can we do to target this? There’s tax credits abounding for multiple different things in this world. Why not focus something on what’s one of the most important things for our culture and our economy is to help those, you know, just brand-new starting families and to give a little bit of relief tax-wise to these families that are going through a lot of expenses,” Moore said in a video interview shared at the event.
Dingell also called for lawmakers from both parties to work together on caregiving issues, saying the challenges affect families regardless of political affiliation.
“Caregiving, being a parent, taking care of seniors — none of that’s Republican or Democrat.”
“Those are just real issues in our community that we need to work together on,” Dingell said.
She described caregiving as her top priority and highlighted the difficulties faced by people simultaneously caring for children and ageing parents.
“Caregiving is my number one issue, as you know, and we don’t understand how broken the system is until you have somebody that you love that you want to make sure is taken care of. And many people are finding themselves caught in the sandwich generation of having to worry about childcare and long-term care for their parents,” she added.
Dingell and Moore, alongside Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi and Republican Rep. David Valadao, introduced the newborn tax credit legislation in May.
The bill has yet to be considered by the House.
