November 1, 2007
Baby Bonds Revisited
It turns out that Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t the only politician who has had to abandon the idea of setting up federally financed accounts for newborns to give them and their families a head start on saving for college or other major expenses.
A new book reveals that President Bush had considered pressing a similar plan, which — like Ms. Clinton’s proposal — got quashed after being slammed by fiscal conservatives, according to The Washington Post.
On the campaign trail earlier this fall Ms. Clinton, a Democrat, threw out the idea of giving every child born in the United States a $5,000 “baby bond” that could be used to pay for college or for buying a house.
The proposal was ridiculed by Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, who criticized it for being an expensive government giveaway. Ms. Clinton quickly backed away from the idea, saying it was not something she planned to formally pursue.
A similar dance apparently occurred at the White House in 2004, according to a new book, “Heroic Conservatism,” by Michael Gerson, President Bush’s former senior adviser and chief speechwriter.
Mr. Gerson wrote that he had advocated a KidSave program that would have set up a tax-free savings account for every baby born to a low-income family as a way to “begin to equalize the wealth gap in America,” according to the Post.
He sought to include the idea in the president’s State of the Union address in 2004, but he says it was struck from drafts of the speech after members of the president’s economic team “objected to ‘free money’ for the poor.”
Mr. Gerson argues that conservative politicians need to embrace efforts to help disadvantaged members of society if they have any hope of competing in electoral politics, according to the Post.
Sara Hebel | Posted on Thursday November 1, 2007 | PermalinkComments
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Along with “privatizing Social Security”, this is just one more attempt to engorge the private financial markets through the United States Treasury. Just one more clue that Hillary is just George Bush in makeup and heels. Go Yale!
— marci Nov 1, 04:20 PM #
A former Administration speechwriter now off licking his wounds and creating excuses so that historians will understand why he couldn’t come up with cogent arguments to support his concept of compassion blames the defeat of tax-free savings accounts for poor children on “members of the president’s economic team [who] ‘objected to “free money” for the poor.’”
Where were these alleged fiscal conservatives on the economic team when this Administration put through tens of billions in “free money” for Katrina survivors, medicare prescription-drug recipients, AIDS victims in Africa, and many other expensive, sometimes-worthwhile causes? I’d bet that Gerson will leverage his previous position as a White House speechwriter forever to sell books and earn speaking fees without once admitting that, perhaps, it was his fault for not finding strong-enough arguments to support what sounds like a good idea.
Incidentally, equating tax-free savings accounts for poor children with Clinton’s $5,000 entitlement (as both the Chronicle blog piece and the original Washington Post story do) further illustrates the need for requiring all journalists to state their economics training in some clearly visible location — the elevator, the bathroom door, etc.
— S. Britchky Nov 1, 04:55 PM #