Of all the people who are so strapped they could receive $5k and not immediately blow it on visa bills and rent, parents aren’t even close to the list. $5k into investments? Most of them are either flirting with bankruptcy or engaging in some heavy petting in a corner booth.
Not on its face, no. I think it’s still a band-aid attached to a bigger problem of generational inequality. Public housing, education, and a large competitive public hiring sector would have gone much farther in rectifying poverty in the US.
But the extra insulting aspect of “Baby Bonds” is that they’re an idea dangled over a public hungry for economic reforms which never actually gets delivered. When liberals lose, they get to nag centrists and insist “We had all these good ideas but you were too racist and stupid to accept them”. When they win, we get an earful about how the federal courts, the super-majority Senate, the prior administration’s mid-level bureaucrats, the state legislatures, and two dozen of DC’s biggest lobbying firms all have to agree to go along with it or the reforms can’t pass.
Seems like Republicans are getting in on the same act, now that kitchen table liberalism is experiencing a popular resurgence.
In Bill Clinton’s defense it was intended for the child, not the parent.
From the article: “I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time,” said Clinton, “so when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to put that down payment on their first home, or go into business.”
Personally I think the policy is a good idea, especially since it doesn’t encourage unwanted children from a short-term desire for cash. It would be great along with medicare for all, free tuition, a livable minimum wage, government housing for all, UBI…
Clinton Floats $5,000 Baby Bond
~ September 28, 2007
It’s nice to know these two are still in touch.
put into an index fund over the last seventeen years, that $5k is now $30k. it was not a terrible idea.
Of all the people who are so strapped they could receive $5k and not immediately blow it on visa bills and rent, parents aren’t even close to the list. $5k into investments? Most of them are either flirting with bankruptcy or engaging in some heavy petting in a corner booth.
Don’t judge me. I got kids to feed.
Not on its face, no. I think it’s still a band-aid attached to a bigger problem of generational inequality. Public housing, education, and a large competitive public hiring sector would have gone much farther in rectifying poverty in the US.
But the extra insulting aspect of “Baby Bonds” is that they’re an idea dangled over a public hungry for economic reforms which never actually gets delivered. When liberals lose, they get to nag centrists and insist “We had all these good ideas but you were too racist and stupid to accept them”. When they win, we get an earful about how the federal courts, the super-majority Senate, the prior administration’s mid-level bureaucrats, the state legislatures, and two dozen of DC’s biggest lobbying firms all have to agree to go along with it or the reforms can’t pass.
Seems like Republicans are getting in on the same act, now that kitchen table liberalism is experiencing a popular resurgence.
It’s really gonna help to pay for diapers in an index fund.
In Bill Clinton’s defense it was intended for the child, not the parent.
From the article: “I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time,” said Clinton, “so when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to put that down payment on their first home, or go into business.”
Personally I think the policy is a good idea, especially since it doesn’t encourage unwanted children from a short-term desire for cash. It would be great along with medicare for all, free tuition, a livable minimum wage, government housing for all, UBI…
I think it sounds like a way to give a bunch of money to Wall Street so they can gamble with it
Totally original idea
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/15/nx-s1-5077776/kamala-harris-child-tax-credit-housing