WASHINGTON ― The federal Department of Transportation has issued a memo ordering programs supported by the agency to prioritize funding projects for communities with “marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”
The unusual four-page memo also directs thousands of employees to give special priority to projects and activities that improve transportation for “families with young children.” The directive applies to all Transportation Department-supported grants, loans and contracts, including existing agreements.
“I’ve never seen a memo like this before,” said one congressional aide who works on transportation policy and requested anonymity to speak freely.
“Considering fertility rates when prioritizing federal grants? We obviously have no idea what the full impact of that will be,” said this aide. “It’s absolutely creepy. It’s a little ‘Chinese government.’ [The Trump administration] would hate that comparison, but I don’t know where else I’ve seen a policy of ‘we need to incentivize baby-making.’”
A Transportation Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Here’s a copy of the memo:
While it’s not clear who came up with the language for this directive, it certainly supports the ideas being pushed by Vice President JD Vance and by Elon Musk, both of whom talk obsessively about wanting women to make more babies.
“I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said last week at a National March for Life rally. “I want more happy children in our country and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”
Musk, the richest man in the world and father of 12 who has managed to insert himself into President Donald Trump’s inner circle, has spent years making dire, if inaccurate, claims about humanity collapsing if women don’t get to more baby-making. He’s said people should relax about how much it would cost to raise a family and just start having more kids: “It’ll work out.”
Newly confirmed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy buried his agency’s oddly specific requirement by describing the memo as focused on economic growth ― rather than population growth ― and echoed Trump’s criticisms of programs to improve diversity, equity and inclusion.
“The American people deserve an efficient, safe and pro-growth transportation system based on sound decision-making, not political ideologies,” Duffy said of the memo, which was signed hours before a military helicopter crashed into a passenger plane in Washington, D.C., killing everyone on both aircraft and sending Duffy and other transportation officials scrambling.
States with both marriage and birth rates higher than the national average include Utah and South Dakota, according to 2022 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In those predominantly white states, cultural or religious norms may encourage marriage and family-building.
The congressional aide suggested people should be watching to see if language like this starts popping up in other government funding, whether it’s tucked into directives at agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services or inserted into government funding bills. There are plenty of other ways directives like this could have a more immediate effect on people’s lives than at the Department of Transportation, said the aide.
“On some level, the idea that ‘I think I’m going to have a baby because I’m going to get a better road outside’ doesn’t make sense to me,” said the aide.
In addition to its directives related to marriage and babies, the Transportation Department’s memo blocks recipients of federal money from implementing “mask mandates,” a reference to requirements that transit agencies followed to limit the spread of infection during the height of COVID-19.
The memo also requires recipients to comply with federal immigration enforcement in order to receive funding — the latest effort by the administration to target undocumented immigrants, conduct mass arrests and deportations, and deny federal transportation funds to so-called sanctuary cities.
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A second congressional aide who works on transportation policy, who also requested anonymity to avoid getting into trouble at work, predicted politically driven policies like Duffy’s will backfire on the Trump administration because they will end up hurting Republicans, too.
“When you have a policy based off of a stupid talking point, there’s going to be negative repercussions for millions of people in red states,” said this aide.