Friday, September 28, 2007

Hillary's birth bonds

I can't find a link to it yet, but earlier today, I caught a clip on TV in which Hillary Clinton discussed a $5,000 government endowment (for lack of a better term) for each child born. Theoretically, the money would be held in some type of account until the child reached the age of 18, when the money (plus 18 years of interest, presumably) could be used for the child's higher educational needs.

Based on facts from the CIA's world fact book on America's birth rates, I put this at around $21.3 billion (the news report on TV said $20 billion...close enough).

On the surface, $21.3 billion annually sounds like a reasonable amount to invest in our nation's educational future. But that just covers the actual hard dollars to be paid out by the taxpayers to fund the program. Do you really think that a Democrat-controlled government would just give every new parent $5,000 of THEIR money to hold in escrow until their kid turned 18? You silly peon...you can't be trusted with that!

No, this would require a whole new bureaucracy be created, probably under the already dysfunctional and incompetent Department of Education. Then, additional funds would have to be flowed to every state's department of education to manage the program. Figure on something closer to $100 billion. Annually.

Back to the drawing board, Comrade Hillary.

Update: Finally found a link...there are plenty of them if one just uses the right search words.

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