So apparently JD Vance wants to tax "childlessness" Make America Fertile Again: The strange bedfellows of the new baby boom agenda

https://reason.com/2025/09/22/make-america-fertile-again-the-strange-bedfellows-of-the-new-baby-boom-agenda/

217 points · 99 comments · view on lemmy.world

99 Comments

Weirdfish@lemmy.world · 63 pts · 333d (10 replies)

Nothing, and I mean nothing, can convince me to have a child.

Bbbbbbbbbbb@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 333d (2 replies)

Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 332d

And air fryers are the new plants.

TronBronson@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 332d

He understood us.

supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz · 18 pts · 333d (6 replies)

What if we trapped JD Vance in the body of an immortal baby you could endlessly neglect?

trigg@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 333d (3 replies)

I'd like evidence he isn't currently an immortal baby.

Valmond@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 333d

He sure is an immoral one.

supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz · 7 pts · 333d

He is clearly going for the "immortal baby" look, I'll give you that, but it is obvious he is just a poser and not a real immortal baby.

JD is no Danny Devito.

Real immortal babies emerge naked from couches, fake ones try to nakedly penetrate into them.

Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 331d

I would be willing to test the immortal claim with a sledgehammer

Weirdfish@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 333d (1 reply)

See, I'd still have to see, hear, smell the thing.

There is no element of a child under the age of say 10 that I enjoy at all.

That horrible shriek they make, happy or sad sounds exactly the same to me, makes my skin crawl.

No babies, not ever. Death before diapers!

Stern@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 333d

The only thing I like about kids is I can take them to whatever goofy place I want and get them to give it a shot. Got my nephew and niece hooked on hotpot and dumplings.

Being an uncle kicks ass. Would I want kids of my own though? Questionable.

infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net · 58 pts · 333d (24 replies)

This isn't how you get me to have a kid. This is how you get me to dodge taxes.

Triumph@fedia.io · 8 pts · 333d (3 replies)

Off to gulag, then.

infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net · 23 pts · 333d (1 reply)

Oh well that's happening regardless.

Triumph@fedia.io · 5 pts · 333d

Then we may cross paths again.

zarathustra0@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 333d

Sex gulag?

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 333d (17 replies)

I may be misremembering... because we're in the process of "correcting" our history but:

Wasn't "no taxation without representation" kinda a foundation on which this nation was formed? Just sayin'

ech@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 332d (16 replies)

Unless you live in a US territory or DC, you have representation.

pivot_root@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 332d (11 replies)

Depending on where you live, "representation" means less than the paper it's written on.

Do you oppose AI-powered surveillance in your local city? Golly, that's swell and all, but they already made up their mind months ago! Everything else is just a formality, and they're more than happy to make it as difficult as possible for you to be heard during public meetings.

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 332d

This genuinely does parallel early american colonial plights surprisingly well. Also: I'm not sure if you picked that example intentionally - but I have to say it's pretty topical ;) 📎

ech@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 332d (9 replies)

Argue against representative democracies, then. Claiming it doesn't exist is just wrong, though.

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 332d (8 replies)

Your comments have a certain vibe about them, don't they?

They hold elections in Russia.

Based on your logic - I imagine they have a great deal of choice then, as well.

Breathe easy! I don't expect a response:

Government is flawed in all forms and corruption can fundamentally prevent any flavor of it from working as intended.

There are infinite circular arguments that can spin up from nitpicking any obvious issues... available to anyone seeking the low hanging fruit. Your comments here do a fine job of providing examples.

ech@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 332d (7 replies)

"Vibes" are not evidence, and "Bad thing exists that claims to do good thing, so good thing must actually be bad!" is not a reasonable argument. I never claimed any democracy is perfect, or even suggested as much.

If you hate being "nitpicked" over your unfounded arguments, maybe don't make them, then.

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 332d

... and if you have something meaningful to add to a conversation or post: I'd suggest something more substantial than "Nuh, uh - prove me wrong" or some other equally low effort form of trolling. It's practically textbook. At least attempt to mask it.

I digress.

Topically - I enjoy discussion. With that said: only one of us attempted to polarize an observation into a black and white topic. Curious. Vibes seem to check out.

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 332d (3 replies)

"If you have an issue with the tea taxes please direct your concerns to your representative in the house of lords"

ech@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 332d (2 replies)

Did colonists get to vote on their representative every 2 years? No? Ok, not the same then.

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 332d (1 reply)

It should be noted that the colonies did have their fair share of English apologists. Thank you for offering up an example that can be used in the present day.

While "ack-shu-ally" history does not repeat itself - it does tend to rhyme.

ech@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 332d

Feel free to explain how anything I've said qualifies as being an "apologist".

Furbag@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 333d (1 reply)

Yeah, I'll just start claiming nonexistent dependants. Or I'll start claiming my pets as my children on all legal documents.

Probably isn't that hard to get forgeries of all sorts of documentation like birth certificates, etc.

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 331d

You probably don't even have to try very hard. My cat, which I had when I was a kid and died of old age decades ago, regularly gets preapproved credit card offers sent to my father's house. Still.

Yes, literally a cat. Like, furry, pointy ears, tail, and meow?

I have to think it would be fairly trivial if I put my mind to it and had larceny in my heart to eventually build up enough documentation to get at least some state entities to believe my dead cat is actually a living human, and then do any old thing with that identity.

nemith@programming.dev · 40 pts · 332d

We have this already. It's called dependant deduction.

ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works · 37 pts · 333d (8 replies)

This sort of America-centric analysis neglects the fact that birth rates have also dropped to well below replacement in other countries with governments and cultures very different from those in the USA, and that neither expanding the welfare state nor attempting to restore traditional values has reversed this trend in the countries that tried that. Thus a discussion of either potential causes or potential solutions which focuses specifically on the USA is fundamentally incomplete.

zout@fedia.io · 30 pts · 333d (5 replies)

potential solutions

Birth rates below replacement is the solution imo. It may not be wat the rich want, but I think a population of 8 billion is not sustainable.

shalafi@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 333d (3 replies)

I agree that the answer to humanity's most pressing issues is lowering our population, but don't think it's a non-issue.

The old keep aging out of the workforce, there's not enough young to keep a viable tax base, utter collapse. Here's where someone says tax the snot out of the rich. I'm down with that! But in a shrinking population, they won't be rich long. Directly or indirectly, all of their money comes from us.

TronBronson@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 332d (2 replies)

Right, so we’re all going to have to adopt some form of austerity, however, most of us are already down there. So I mean the sooner we scrap those yachts to build schools and homes the better

shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 332d (1 reply)

You say austerity, I say mass starvation. Depopulation is going to be an order of magnitude worse than, "Do with a little less." And global warming may well accelerate all of that.

TronBronson@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 331d

Hell ya brother I’m a farmer, you’re preaching to the choir. All my crops died of drought and blight this year.

Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 331d

Global population is still growing, I think I read it's predicted to keep increasing into late mid century to around 11 billion before it plateaus and starts slowly falling.

The numbers get very optimistic from there will predictions of rebounds and other nonsense that is unlikely but the people claiming it will be long dead.

People who were raised as a single child are far more likely to only have one child so my bet is the population dwindles more quickly than these models indicate.

RandomlyGeneratedName@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 333d
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Hawke@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 333d

This comment presupposes that “below replacement rate” is a problem in need of a solution.

Yes, in a few thousand years it might be a problem. However, population growth is a problem for the next few decades at least.

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 35 pts · 333d (13 replies)

Counterpoint to JD:

I am autistic.

Surely you don't want me generating more autists, right?

betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 333d (4 replies)

Just don't eat tylenol, apparently.

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 333d

Right right, my stupid autism brain is still stuck in 'reality' where there is pretty strong genetic inheritance, a heritability component to autism.

Ok, so new instructions are... apparently... generate a child by some arcane means, natural or unnatural, BUT, under no circumstances allow the target of my impregnation powers to use any Tylenol for 9 months.


I phrase this as cringily as possible to convey the concept that this is an incel tax.

It is a tax on incels.

....The only way this could even theoretically work is if it was also paired with a uh, Nazi style Aryan broodmother / assigned wife type program.

So, I guess, get ready for that soon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn

Somewhat of a sticking point:

The Nazis aborted pregnancies from the racially impure and those suspected to be born with a disability.

So... not quite sure how the theocrats will feel about that.

Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 332d (2 replies)

...Eat?

betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 332d

Yeah, it has no nutritional value.

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 332d

Yes. No. ... Kind of.

njm1314@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 332d (1 reply)

Don't worry you'll be "relocated" soon.

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 332d

Well, if I go like a month without posting... I dunno, send a recon team to look for me on one of RFK Jr's psychward/detox/farm labor camps.

shawn1122@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 332d (3 replies)

I can assure you this is directed at white able bodied "normies"

I'm a minority with a professional degree in a profession that has more job openings than candidates, especially in rural areas like JD had grown up in. I know in my heart he would deport me without question, regardless of if I were American born, to the homeland of my ancestors. I'd imagine he would find my humanist values quite disturbing.

They want an Aryan nation as Hitler envisioned it. They're convinced it will be utopian. If not, it'll at least allow them to deify themselves as the white people they've sold the "master race" lie to are loyal to them to the point of self immolation.

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 332d (2 replies)

Yep.

This is for white incels.

All other hues and tones of incel can gtfo or die trying, or be made into literal slaves, one way or another.

Yeah.

Yep, that's basically their plan.

Totally horrifying.

Would be neat if people uh... did something.

To resist that.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 332d

tell me when someone important to the fascist movement comes within 300 miles and we can start (don't actually tell me that i fight with music not actual fighting) i'm not pulling an astronaut style road trip

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 332d

tell me when someone important to the fascist movement comes within 300 miles and we can start (don't actually tell me that i fight with music not actual fighting)

4am@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 332d

No see it’s fine as long as no Tylenol is taken during pregnancy

HubertManne@piefed.social · 1 pts · 332d

no worries your mom just popped a tylenol.

ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de · 34 pts · 332d

Families and having dependents already gives you tax breaks, ergo not having kids already is taxing childlessness.

abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 33 pts · 332d

Ok. So let's talk about the two scenarios here if you can't afford kids.

  1. You're taxed for childlessness, likely at an amount above the cost of a child or two, to "encourage" you to have children. You are now unable to afford that tax and thus, risk jail.

  2. You have a child when you can't afford it to avoid the tax, and now have to bring up a child you cannot afford to raise in a government that actively doesn't want to help you in any way.

In short. You're fucked either way.

Treczoks@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 332d (1 reply)

Ahh. Lebensborn. I should have made a bingo card with all the keywords of Nazi Germany. The Trump administration has it all. Censorship, GeStaPo, apartheit against minorities, Reichsparteitag, ignoring the law, using emergency laws to ursurp the rule, concentration camps...

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 332d

No doubt tax credits for white blonde children.

0ndead@infosec.pub · 21 pts · 333d (2 replies)

Stop paying taxes altogether, you say?

Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 333d

that's how I read it...

renrenPDX@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 332d

How? It's automatically deducted from my pay.

Valmond@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 333d

Small government in action.

Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 332d (1 reply)

When the communists got the same idea in Romania, it failed spectacularly, filling orphanages with abused orphans

Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 332d

Yeah, we kinda need to go the other way on this one. A tax deduction for anyone under the age of 30 who uses long-term birth control.

wavebeam@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 333d (1 reply)
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biotin7@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 333d

So basically all you single people are fucked. Tradcons are a blight on this planet

4am@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 332d

Losing the incel vote will for go well for them

TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 332d

Taking a page from Putin's playbook. Anything but to alleviate the cost of living crisis, which is the main reason for people not having children. It is also a thinly veiled attempt to reassert dominance on women.

Zier@fedia.io · 11 pts · 333d (1 reply)

They need everyone to pop out a ton of babies so we can have child labor replace the migrant farm workers they deported.

pivot_root@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 332d

Child labor has a years-long lead time. The only way this would actually work is if they planned on staying in power for at least 7 more years.

So... yeah, that checks out.

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 11 pts · 332d

You know who this punishes more than just childless heterosexuals?

That's right. Couch fuckers. Unless his Chesterfield gets pregnant with an ottoman... 🤔

TronBronson@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 332d (2 replies)

Can’t wait for my government assigned trad wife

Sarie@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 332d (1 reply)

Are you sure about that?

TronBronson@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 331d

Ya she looks better than JD Vance. Couple a beers and she’s a beauty queen

TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 332d

I've always thought it's insane we pay people to have children, but sure let's take that even further and tax those who don't.

the_q@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 333d
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SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 332d
WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 333d

The article is worth a read and is not about jd Vance. That's just a anecdote from the article. They touch on the different approaches and motivations behind the pronatalism movement. The article ends on a non-apocalyptic and non-proscriptive note.

GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 332d

1000002045

iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 333d (2 replies)

Did JD Vance have kids by fucking his couch before his wife sat on it?

Cort@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 333d (1 reply)

That's the problem, his wife won't sit on it, so he fucks couches instead

iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 333d

Is a plastic couch cover that old people have a condom, or is is more like a diaphragm?

YeahIgotskills2@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 333d (1 reply)

It makes political sense for them to demonise certain groups. The childfree movement has been quite vocal (or at least well publicised) of late, and it's super-easy to cherry pick some of the more extreme viewpoints from that 'community' and weaponise it against 'normal' people, conflating those opinions with the so-called left (as if deciding wether or not you have kids defines who you are politically). It's easy fodder for the media and, as always, successfully distracts much of the population from the fact that they're being bled dry by billionaires.

Revan343@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 332d

as if deciding wether or not you have kids defines who you are politically

Which decision you choose doesn't define your politics, believing in the choice in the first place does.

frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 5 pts · 333d

Fun fact: humans are capable of parthenogenesis. No cases have been known to survive to birth, but they can induce miscarriages like sexual fertilization does. Since most early miscarriages happen before you are aware and would not be distinguishable from normal periods, there's no way to tell if you are experiencing one of these events at any given time. Therefore, I will be filing my taxes to reflect the 12 dead children I lost over the year. Does it matter that I have no fallopian tubes, and therefore would never have an egg implant into my uterus in the first? Not if every conception is sacred!

TwinTitans@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 331d

If only people could afford to have them…you dumb fuck.

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 333d

Look- just because he went through all that work and finally had an ottoman doesn't mean he can push those unrealistic expectations on the rest of us.

blarghly@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 333d

Really good article, imo. A quote I liked:

"When people see phenomena unfolding in plain view being denied…their reaction is not to turn away from the phenomena," as Anastasia Berg, author of What Are Children For?, noted in April. "Rather, it is to turn away from the deniers and toward those whose starting point is acknowledgment, regardless of their motivations or political ends. What this might look like in the case of denialism about birth rates is not hard to imagine."

SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 332d

We need homegrown cheap labor to replace the immigrants we kicked out.

SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 332d

White babies?

acchariya@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 331d

You are already taxed on not having children because you cannot write them off if you don't have them.

frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 1 pts · 333d

Same in Texas, wanting to reward married heteros with children. I respond by not buying anything extra, depriving the economy of my single person dollars.

chunes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 331d

And if you are infertile through no fault of your own? Surely they would be thoughtful enough to recognize that taxing you would make no sense, correct?

roserose56@lemmy.zip · -18 pts · 333d (2 replies)

Another community for me to block!

StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 333d

God forbid you see us politics on (checks) c/uspolitics

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 333d

Everything will be happy and good if I only look at cute puppies all day, la la la la la la-

Oh, whats that, the largest voting block in the US is non voters?

Huh.

Dang.

Seems to be a losing strategy, but puppies though!