Lawmakers seek bipartisan path on paid leave, newborn tax credits

Republicans and Democrats argued Thursday that Congress still has work to do to support American families, pointing to expanded paid family leave access, tax credits for newborn children and other policies aimed at easing financial pressures on parents.

The discussion, labeled the “Future of Supporting American Families,” was sponsored by the American Policy Ventures Foundation in partnership with The Hill and featured a bipartisan lineup of lawmakers and policy figures, including Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Blake Moore (R-Utah), and Kellyanne Conway, who was one of President Trump’s former campaign managers.

Houlahan and Boozman are co-lead sponsors of the More Paid Leave for More Americans Act, bipartisan legislation that would “expand access to paid leave through an innovative state-driven, public-private partnership model while creating a national framework that empowers employers to administer this benefit efficiently across state lines,” according to a press release.

Houlahan and Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) introduced the House version, while Boozman and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced the Senate companion.

Houlahan said the legislation is designed to take incremental steps toward making paid leave more widely available, arguing that businesses can also benefit from offering the benefit to workers.

“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.”

Houlahan pointed to data showing businesses can be more successful and profitable when they offer paid-leave programs, while acknowledging employers should retain the ability to determine what works for their workers.

“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 is hopeful lawmakers will revisit the legislation during the lame-duck session following the November midterm elections.

Boozman argued that while there are some differences to work out, the legislation has support from both sides of the aisle and across both chambers.

“That’s a good recipe to start out with,” he said. “That doesn’t happen very often.”

Also part of the conversation was the Supporting Newborn Parents Act of 2026, co-sponsored by Dingell and Moore, which would create a tax credit of up to $2,000 for families bringing in a newborn child.

“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 echoed those sentiments, arguing that “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.

“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, along with Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and David Valadao (R-Calif.), introduced the legislation in May. The bill has yet to be taken up by the lower chamber.