Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rustin, president of NC Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy DeVett-Griggs. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters.
If you try to listen to both sides of every debate on political issues, as I do, you've had a flood of information to wade through on President Trump's legislation recently passed by Congress entitled One Big Beautiful Bill Act. As with most laws, this one is filled with lots of knowns and unknowns and a healthy mix of good, bad, and room for improvement. But who do you listen to to get some clear-eyed, not-too-partisan information on it? Today, we're joined by Patrick T. Brown to help us work through what this piece of legislation means for American families.
He's a fellow at Ethics and Public Policy Center, where his work with the Life and Family Initiative focuses on developing a robust pro-family economic agenda and supporting families as the cornerstone of a healthy and flourishing society. Patrick T. Brown, welcome back to Family Policy Matters. Oh, it's great to be on. Thanks so much.
All right.
So, for starters, what do you think should be our main takeaways for pro-family Americans after the passage of the, I think Trump calls it, one big, beautiful bill? Yeah, the one big, beautiful bill, and it is big. And maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There's so much going on with this bill that it's hard to come up with a one-letter grade for it. On the plus side, there's some stuff that's really going to be helpful for families, bumping up the child tax credit by a couple hundred dollars.
So most families will be able to deduct $2,200 per child off their federal income taxes. Most states will see an expansion of school choice. There's a federal school choice scholarship program for the first time. That was included in this bill. There's other things along the way that a one-year defunding of Planned Parenthood, which is already leading to the closure of a lot of abortion clinics around the country.
That's like a great thing that a lot of pro-lifers have thought for a long time. On the other hand, there's some, you know, a mixed bag of some other provisions that we can talk about. It also increases the size of the federal deficit by almost $4 trillion over 10 years.
So there's a lot going on and it requires some unpacking to really come away with exactly what Congress was trying to do here.
Okay.
Well, we only have 15 minutes, but as quickly as we can, let's try to unpack some of those things that you just mentioned.
So, first, I think, was the child tax credit. How important was that and what kind of impact will that have?
Well, it's huge because the child tax credit is the federal government's primary way of recognizing the cost of having a child and in bumping it up $200. You know, it's not a massive game changer. You know, during the campaign, Vice President Vance was talking about how he would like to see a $5,000 child tax credit. That was always probably unrealistic, but you could imagine a much bigger number being a priority for some in Congress that didn't come to fruition. And so, $2,200, it's a modest step.
It's nice to see. It's also indexed for inflation.
So, now every year as the cost of living goes up, that amount will go up by a couple dollars each year.
So, that's nice to see. It's kind of the bare minimum that I would have wanted to see from a Republican Congress, but they did it. And that is to be celebrated. Lower income families may not see as much of a Benefit. If you're working class, maybe working $30,000 to $40,000 a year, you may not see the full amount of that.
That was a missed opportunity. But for most families, especially two-income families or those making in the high five figures or six figures, you'll see a real benefit at the end of the year when you value your taxes. There was about $16 billion in tax credits for childcare specifically that did get included in the bill. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama was a leading voice. She's a working mom.
She knows a lot of women struggle with balancing work and family and want support with child care. And so she fought to include that in the final bill. It does rub some people the wrong way because they say, well, why are you giving money to families that use paid child care when families who rely on a grandparent or have a parent stay home don't have access to that same support? That's why I'm a big fan of the child tax credit because it recognizes that families have different preferences, different values, different situations, and is a more even-handed way of supporting families. But again, if you're a working family and you use paid childcare, you'll see some relief through an expanded child care tax credit next year, thanks largely to Katie Britt.
Right. Another thing that people, especially here in North Carolina, think is pro-family is the school choice. Of course, North Carolina is big into school choice, and you say there's some federal help on the way as far as that's concerned. Yeah, and it's going to depend state to state. Every state is going to look differently, but North Carolina being a school choice state already is going to be able to kind of supercharge some of those efforts with a new federal tax credit.
If people who have, you know, some means want to donate to a scholarship granting organization, they'll be able to deduct some of that from their federal taxes at the end of the year. Those organizations could then take that money, turn around, and make sure that lower-income kids have access to school choice.
So North Carolina is already a school choice state. You guys have been on the front edge of trying to expand educational choice to families from across the income spectrum. A lot of states haven't, though. And so the one big beautiful bill for the first time is going to be a federal school choice tax credit, allowing those states to also expand. Expand school choice to families who might not have been able to pursue it private or parochial or religious education.
For the first time, they'll have access to that because of this tax credit. And that's going to be beneficial for a large number of families.
So, let's talk about what happened with Planned Parenthood funding because that was, I think, you would argue one of the most controversial aspects of this bill. And it's had some interesting play among federal judges as well.
So, talk a little bit about what happened there. Yeah, the Planned Parenthood provision went through a lot of sort of congressional gymnastics to get to where it finally ended up. It was originally proposed to be a 10-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood. That would have, I think, decimated the organization, frankly. Because of the sort of arcane rules of the Senate, I won't bore people with the details, but that ended up getting winnowed down to a one-year funding ban for Planned Parenthood.
So currently, in all the states of South Carolina right now, Planned Parenthood is able to access federal Medicaid dollars. This provision is a one-year moratorium on that, meaning they now have to go to private donors or state dollars or philanthropy to try to. Keep the doors open and keep providing abortions and other services. That's a huge pro-life win. Unfortunately, a federal judge decided in her infinite wisdom that she knew better than Congress and placed a temporary hold on that.
Hopefully at some point in the near future, that one will be lifted and that provision will go into effect. because we're already starting to see Planned Parenthood agencies around the country feel the pinch. And I think it could be a massive win for Pearl Lifers to be able to say, look, let's put this money towards centers and clinics that actually help women and actually provide the services they need, not ones that only more or less exist to provide abortion care and the other stuff that's just sort of ancillary around it. You're listening to Family Policy Matters, a weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. This is just one of the many ways NC Family works to educate and inform citizens about issues that impact faith and family here in North Carolina.
Our vision is to create a state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished. For more information about NC Family and how you can partner with us in pursuit of this vision, visit our website at ncfamily.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts, and Family North Carolina magazine. You can also follow us on social media at NC Family Policy. That's at NC Family Policy. That federal judge that ruled that the law was illegal because, in, I don't know what the exact words were, but that was based on animus, or basically, you know, it was too mean.
Talk a little about that because I think that just shows the clash of world views here. That a judge would think that Congress didn't have the right basically to make this kind of a new law. Yeah, it's almost hard to explain because it is such an almost illogical exercise of judicial power. She basically said this would have such grievous harm to women who have gotten services from Planned Parenthood, that Planned Parenthood essentially has a right to be funded by the government, and that Congress, you know, sort of, you know, like you said, acted out of animus or out of hatred for Planned Parenthood that that was unfair. This is completely ludicrous because there's no organization in America that has a right to be funded by taxpayer dollars.
This was a bill that was passed through Congress. Like any other bill that was signed by the president into law, it should have taken effect. It will take effect at some point. There's no way that, however, high up this case needs to get appealed, there's no way the Supreme Court would stand by her decision on that.
So, at some point, this law will take effect. It's just a question of how long she can kind of delay the inevitable because Planned Parent is trying to find every trick in the book to keep their doors open. And I think, again, we're going to have this fight next year. It's only a one-year ban.
So, already, you know, it's going to be important for pro-life advocates and pro-family voices to encourage Republican congressmen and senators to say, look, this was a great one-year victory, but we're going to have to do it all again because of the congressional fine print that restricted this to a one-year ban rather than a 10-year ban. All right, let's talk about Medicaid because, in this state of North Carolina, we had one of our congressmen that has announced he's Tom Tellis that he is not running again. And one of the main reasons was because of the changes that were made to Medicaid.
So, what's the deal on this? You know, it could be a whole different conversation, but in short, the concern is the changes to Medicaid are going to make it very difficult for hospitals that serve low-income populations to continue to do so. And especially true for rural hospitals. I think that's where Senator Chillis's main concerns were: rural hospitals and parts of the state that rely on Medicaid dollars. And by attaching new strings to this federal money, also requiring that Medicaid recipients show that they're working.
It's one of those policies that sounds good in theory, but in practice, when we've seen this implemented in other states, most of the people who lose Medicaid coverage aren't not working. They just had a difficult time filling out the paperwork or they didn't jump through the right administrative hurdles and that sort of thing. It's going to be, there's a little bit of a buffer before this takes effect.
So we may not see the effects overnight. There's time for them to kind of address some of these concerns before the regulations are supposed to kick in. But if it does go into effect the way it was written, it could have pretty significant. Significant consequences for especially rural and sort of inner city hospitals that rely on Medicaid for a lot of their reimbursement. That's going to be a political vulnerability for Republicans going forward.
So, I love the way that you talk about this. You don't seem afraid to criticize something that the Trump administration has done. Talk about that as a Christian, as a public policy analyst. How is that important for you to do? You know, I think it's really important for all of us, regardless of our walk of life, to care about getting things right.
And whether that's analyzing public policy or designing a widget or whatever it happens to be in your profession, we have a duty to bear witness to the truth. And what that truth looks like is the dignity of the human person and also, you know, the respect that we're due as fellow citizens and brothers and sisters of the Lord, right? And so part of what I try to do in my own work is call it like I see it, right? And it's not putting on a partisan hat and saying, well, you know, this is going to make it easier or harder to win elections, therefore it's good or bad, but to say, look, let's think about how the way that we design policies in Washington, D.C. trickle down to impact people's real everyday lives.
And cutting funding for Planned Parenthood is a great thing. It's going to make it harder for people who might be considering abortion to find it. That is a win in my book. Expanding the child tax care will make it easier for people to have kids. That's a win in my book.
Some of these other provisions that I don't think are necessarily going to be helpful, we have to be able to. Call it, you know, like we see it, call balls and strikes and take the good with the bad. And if we lose sight of that, if we're not able to, you know, offer some friendly criticism where it's due, but also celebrate what's good, then we're losing our ability to be participants in a democracy, right? We're just turning into sort of partisan cheerleaders rather than careful evaluators of what our elected representatives are doing on our behalf. I think that's our duty as Christians and as believers to be able to bring that skill set to bear and to think about not just did it own the libs today, but what is this going to do for people over the long run?
And how can we help, you know, encourage them to live lives of self-sufficiency and experience the joys of family life and all the rest.
Well, thank you very much for that insight. Patrick Brown, tell us where our listeners can go to find out more about this topic and follow all of your good work.
Well, we have our website, eppc.org, that has all of my writing and my fellow scholars as well. I have a weekly newsletter called Family Matters that's on Substack. If you want to sign up for that, at ppbrights.substack.com. Also on X, formerly noticed Twitter at ppbrights. All right, Patrick T.
Brown, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. Anytime. Thanks so much, Racy. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review.
To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
