While there have been no shortage of policy proposals in recent years that are supposed to make life easier for families, and even encourage family formation and child bearing, there is little consensus about what exactly will accomplish these aims. But a compromise recently reached by a House Republican and a Senate Democrat could make a real difference. The editors of the Washington Examiner write:

The deal modestly expands the child tax credit while not going so far as Democrats did in Biden’s first year, when they transformed the credit into a large monthly child allowance. The deal indexes the credit for inflation [and] increases the amount available as a cash payment to low-income families, but preserves work requirements.

The worst thing about the . . . fix is that it is temporary. The changes expire in 2025. Temporary tax breaks are almost always bad policy, and short-term moves are particularly inapt when it comes to family policy.

Raising children is a long-term project. Marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment. Raising children is at least an eighteen-year commitment (but really, it’s a lifelong thing). Millennials are extraordinarily risk-averse, and that’s a reason they aren’t having children. This is all exacerbated by laws that create a future in which the tax code might or might not count children as people.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.