It is often said that elections are about the nation’s future. However, far too often in America, the future is treated as an afterthought – especially when that future is embodied in our children.

Today, our democracy is losing its moral compass when it comes to the widening chasm between:

  1. The clear and urgent needs of children.
  2. The deep concerns held by the American people.
  3. The callous inattention – or even harm – to children by policymakers.

Children are under siege – not metaphorically, but measurably. Their health, education, development, safety, and well-being are worsening, but fortunately, the public is on their side. Voters across the political spectrum consistently express overwhelming support for investing in children and families. They recognize the crisis and want action.

But sadly, instead of meeting this moment with courage, care, and support, many politicians are moving in the opposite direction: slashing supports, dismantling institutions, and endangering the very children for whom they claim to be concerned.

In a New York Times article by Claire Cain Miller, she writes:

As some policymakers have grown concerned about declining fertility rates, and as many Republican-led states have banned abortion, some Republican officials have said the party needs to do more to support raising children. In the presidential campaign, a Trump spokeswoman said he supported the major family policy goals.

But the Trump administration has so far focused on cutting federal programs, not starting new ones.

The Needs of Children

Children are not asking for luxury. They are not lobbying for tax shelters or asking for loopholes. They are asking for stability, safety, and just a chance to thrive. These are basic and urgent building blocks of human development but are being systemically denied and left unmet.

The list of suffering endured by today’s children is staggering — and it’s growing:

  • Infant mortality is rising: For the first time in decades, according to CDC data, infant deaths are climbing. This is not just a public health disaster; it’s a moral failure.
  • Child mortality is rising: This problem is being driven by gun violence, rising suicide rates, and a mental health crisis that has gone unaddressed.
  • Child poverty is rising: After historic reductions due to pandemic-era relief, poverty has more than doubled since 2021 after supports were withdrawn or left to expire.
  • Uninsured rates for children are rising and access to care has declined: Hospital capacities for children were shifted to adults during the pandemic but have not shifted back and pandemic health coverage protections for children have been allowed to expire.
  • The mental health crises is soaring: As noted above, suicide rates are rising.
  • Homelessness is up: Record numbers of children and families are living without stable and affordable housing.
  • Hunger is surging: Food insecurity has returned with a vengeance as SNAP and school meal programs have been reduced.
  • Measles and other preventable diseases are back: The erosion of public health capacity and increased disinformation has opened the door to old vaccine-preventable illnesses and dangers.
  • Child abuse reports are increasing: Families are stressed, services are stretched, and kids are paying the price.
  • Immigrant children are living in fear: Raids, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and exclusionary policies have increased both fear and trauma in children.

These are not niche or isolated problems. These are the foundational issues of childhood and human development going unmet, and worse, symptoms of a country failing its youngest citizens.

The Public Wants More for Kids – Not Less

The American people are aware of these problems and strongly support addressing the needs of children. In poll after poll, voters have made it clear that they support doing more for children, not less. Thes values are not being reflected in many of the policies being proposed by our policy leaders.

First, Americans care deeply about children’s issues.

In a Lake Research Partners poll, voters expressed their concern that we are investing too little rather than too much in addressing children’s policy issues.

For instance, most Americans support increased funding for education and early childhood programs, and consequently, an All4Ed election eve poll found that just 29% of respondents supported efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.

In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll, 83% of Americans said Medicaid should be expanded or maintained, and only 17% believe it should be cut. This finding is critical for children, since Medicaid provides coverage to 37 million children and for 41% of births in the U.S.

Rather than cutting the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a Lake Research Partners poll also found that voters overwhelmingly want to make CHIP permanent (78-14%) in order to protect the health coverage of millions of children.

While much of the focus of the tax debate is about cutting taxes for our nation’s corporations and the wealthiest among us, the Lake Research Partners poll has found overwhelming support (72-21%) for improving and expanding the Child Tax Credit in ways that would dramatically cut child poverty.

Support rises even more (78% favor) when the public is polled about whether there should be “increasing family tax relief for families with children under age 2 since that can often be the time when raising children is most expensive.”

The public also opposes harming babies, such as with proposals to undermine the Constitution’s birthright citizenship clause. In fact, by a 71-29% margin, the American people oppose gutting birthright citizenship, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll.

A YouGov poll also finds that the public supports a whole range of child- and family-friendly policies.

Second, support for children is growing, especially among Republicans.

An American Compass survey cited by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) found that support is rising when respondents are asked whether “the federal government should provide more support for families with children.” In fact, between 2021 and 2024, support rose among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans – but it rose fastest among Republicans.

This shift reflects something essential: when people look past the partisan noise, they understand that kids need and deserve support.

Third, both political parties should recognize that children’s issues are a missed opportunity.

According to a YouGov poll, voters believe that Democrats “do a better job of helping families with children in the U.S.” than Republicans by a 37-26% margin. However, 38% believe the two parties do the same or are unsure which is better. That’s a mandate waiting to be claimed.

Therefore, Republican leadership should consider a change to many of the policy proposals they are currently pursuing. The GOP entered this Administration and Congress with an electorate deeply concerned about how the “American Dream” is faring for children – both in how they are doing in comparison to previous generations and how they will fare in the future. As a poll by Lake Research Partners and Echelon Insights for Common Sense Media found, parents expressed great concern that children today are worse off than they were in the past.

Unfortunately, the President and Republican House leadership are pursuing a set of policies – such as cuts Medicaid and SNAP cuts, cuts to other investments in children (i.e., education, child care, Head Start, housing, etc.), abolishing the Department of Education, attacking birthright citizenship, etc. – that voters oppose and believe will make matters worse. They should perform better by our children and families, as it is in their political interest.

Likewise, for Democrats, exit polling indicates that Republicans made significant gains with the parents of children in the last election. In the 2020 election, voters with children under age 18 living at home voted 52-46% in favor of Biden over Trump, according to NBC News. However, in 2024, that margin flipped to 53-44% in favor of Trump over Harris. All other voters without children at home voted 50-48% for Harris over Trump.

This was not so much a problem with the Harris campaign, as Harris made a strong case for improving the Child Tax Credit and child care in her campaign but likely more about how the party’s candidates for House and Senate offices were largely silent and largely ignored speaking to children’s issues, which seems to have been proven to be a mistake.

In fact, while Democratic candidates left the needs of children and families unadressed, Republicans took the offensive and sought to frame the terms of the debate with a focus on culture war issues, such as attacks on transgender issues, and their messaging and ads took center stage.

To their own detriment, if Democrats fail to make a bolder and affirmative case for a full-throated Children’s Agenda on matters such as child health, education, child care, and child nutrition, they may continue to lose parents.

Voters concerned about the lives and future of their children and grandchildren are open to a Children’s Agenda.

As Common Sense Media writes in their polling report with Lake Research Partners and Echelon Insights on these issues:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, parents across party lines share many of the same concerns and support the same goals to improve the lives of families and children: high-quality education, proactive government policies and investments at the state and federal levels, and stronger families. Parents and young people alike believe that elected leaders and politicians are not prioritizing policies for kids and teenagers enough and should invest more in kids and families.

Parents and their children desperately want policymakers to make “younger people” in this country a greater priority but feel “their voice does not matter in decisions made by the government.”

Rather than prioritizing children and families in decision-making, one party is leaning toward policies that will fail children and families (i.e., abuse), while the other is often absent (i.e., neglect).

The disconnect is not with the public, it’s with those in political power.

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The Government’s Response: Ignoring and Harming the Very Children It Should Protect

Given the dire challenges and the public’s clarity and urgency, you might expect political leaders to act in the affirmative. But instead of stepping up, many continue to ignore or are actively doubling down on policies that harm children.

Here’s some of the proposals being put forth by the Trump Administration and Congress:

  • Medicaid, CHIP, and SNAP are under attack: Lifelines for millions of children face deep and damaging levels of cuts.
  • The Department of Education is facing threats to its very existence: In a strange Executive Order (EO) signing ceremony by the President accompanied with rows of children with their own fake folders, he proposed the Department’s elimination, despite opposition from the public by a 2-to-1 margin.
  • Book bans and classroom censorship: A growing cadre of politicians has been interested in book bans, speech codes, the whitewashing of history, and narrative controls rather than educating students and making sure their fundamental needs are met.
  • Threats to Head Start: Project 2025’s threat to eliminate the program would be a direct hit to the early learning, development, and health of low-income children.
  • Slashing public investment in children across the board: From child health to education to nutrition to early childhood to housing, the DOGE is threatening programs and Congress is threatening funding.
  • Efforts to undermine birthright citizenship: Those efforts specifically targeting babies born in the USA with the threat of exclusion, deportation, and statelessness.
  • Attacks on immigrant families and their children. These growing threats are creating trauma, fear, and instability in the lives of children (1 in 4 children in this country live in mixed family households).
  • Encouragement of child labor: These proposals threaten a return to the past that betrays progress and endangers the lives of children with a rolling back of protections created a century ago.

This is not small government. This is not benign neglect. This is deliberate harm disguised as fiscal discipline. It’s a vision where children are invisible unless they can be conveniently used for a culture war talking point or a prop for political theater.

A Democracy That Ignores or Harms Its Children Cannot Call Itself “Just”

If democracy is supposed to reflect the will of the people, then this moment reveals a dangerous erosion. Americans want to invest in and support our children. They want to improve child health and education, and expand support for children and families to reduce child poverty, homelessness, and child hunger.

And yet, far too many politicians, are pushing in the opposite direction. The result is a government not just failing to act, but actively betraying the next generation.

Children don’t vote. But they live with the consequences of every budget cut, every cruel policy, and every missed opportunity.

As the saying goes, “You can judge the soul of a society by how it treats its children.” Whether in Congress or at the household level, that moral barometer still holds true.

Right now, that judgment is damning. We are living in a moment in which democracy is choosing to fail our children and lawmakers ignore what the public wants.

We need a course correction or a new path – not just in policy, but in political will. A country that claims to care about the future must start by caring for those who are the future.