Prior to the last General Election in Britain, then Tory leader, and now Prime Minister, David Cameron made great play out of being pro-family and pro-marriage.

He boasted that bolstering families would be one of his priorities in fixing what he called “Broken Britain” and, specifically, he promised that he would, if elected, deliver a tax cut for married couples.

It’s fair to say that voters who voted for Cameron on the basis of this rhetoric have every right to feel betrayed.

But in the US, pro-family voters may have found a new, and probably more reliable, champion.

Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, has begun to argue that his party needs to do more than simply critique President Obama’s agenda; it needs a positive agenda of its own. And he believes that encouraging marriage is a good place to start.

In a recent speech to US think tank, the Heritage Foundation, Lee said that politicians in both parties needed to acknowledge that there was “another marriage debate in this country — one concerning fatherless children, economic inequality, and broken communities — that deserves as much public attention as the other,”.  

In another recent speech, Senator Lee acknowledged that this debate was “uncomfortable to talk about, and almost impossible to legislate”.  

But he added: “[T]he fact is, the problem of poverty in America is directly linked to family breakdown and the erosion of marriage among low-income families and communities. Implicit marriage penalties in our tax code and welfare programs surely need legislative remedies. But what we’re really talking about is a question of culture, not policy incentives.

“For years, politicians on both sides of the aisle have employed terms like ‘family values’ and ‘marriage’ primarily as partisan wedges, cudgels to attack ideological opponents. This fact did not create America’s marriage crisis – but it hasn’t helped, either.

“And now, seemingly every week, scholars are producing more evidence about the social and economic consequences of this essentially moral question. We now have scientific consensus supporting what were once thought to be merely traditions and intuitions.  

“According to one study, the taxpayer costs of family fragmentation are more than $100 billion per year — a staggering sum that nonetheless pales in comparison to the social and human costs, borne disproportionately by innocent children.”

In response to these issues, Lee is actually promoting a number of policies, aimed at easing the burden on families with children.

He proposes a $2,500 tax credit per child for families with children. This could be offset against income tax or other taxes.

His proposals would also mean making it easier for parents to work family-friendly hours and to commute.

In short, while some of the details of Lee’s proposals may need tweaking, he is beginning to flesh out a comprehensive pro-family agenda, possibly the first of its kind anywhere in the developed world. One might say that it’s about time, but hats off to Senator Lee for beginning the process. Let’s hope that others in his party follow suit before the midterm elections.