CORY BOOKER’S MAGIC MONEY INITIATIVE

Cory Booker, a nondescript former Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who is now a nondescript first-term U.S. Senator running for President of the United States (and, according to the polls, gaining exactly no traction among Democrat primary voters), has come up with a great new plan – one that is sure (he apparently thinks) to thrust him into the pantheon of presidential contention.

Magic money.

That’s right.  Magic money.  For every newborn child in America.  The more the merrier.  And the poorer you are – i.e. the less you are able to pay to have and raise a child – the more magic money there is.

Here’s how it works, via the following excerpts from Hunter Walker’s article at Yahoo News:

One of the most dramatic policy initiatives by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in his presidential campaign is a plan to provide $1,000 grants to every baby born in the U.S. The money would come in the form of a “baby bond” that would be added to during childhood, on a sliding scale depending on the family’s income. 

The Booker campaign’s analysis, which was crafted based on data from the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), provides details on how much Americans of different income levels would receive through the policy. Money from this policy could not be withdrawn before the account holder turns 18, and could be used only for specific purposes, including college expenses, home purchases, entrepreneurship and retirement. According to the analysis, “account size would range from just over $1,700 for individuals growing up in affluent households to nearly $50,000 for individuals raised in very low-income households.”

How interesting.  Now, let’s do some math.

For that “affluent” household (in quotations because we do not know what the definition of “affluent” is), every child who reaches 18 will wind up with slightly over $1,700; the starting $1,000 plus $700 interest.  That comes to 3% a year.

But for “poor” households (quotations for the same reason as above)?  Every child winds up with almost $50,000.  That is 70 times as much interest as the “affluent household” child.

This means the government would have to either be…

-investing extremely poorly for “affluent” households compared to the astoundingly profitable investments it would have to be making for “poor” ones (why wouldn’t it make the same kinds of investments for everyone?);

-investing the same for them all, but handing over almost all the resulting interest to “poor households” (i.e. massive wealth distribution);

-or government that has no way of accumulating this level of interest, and it is just another socialist entitlement program which redistributes tax money – in this case, to reward poor families for having children who, based on their income situation, they cannot afford (which means the government is already going to be kicking in money throughout those 18 years even without Booker’s proposal).

There you have it, folks.  The brilliance of United States Senator Cory Booker, right out there for all to see.

I would hope this goes some distance toward explaining why virtually nobody cares about his presidential run.

And I would hope just as fervently (but less confidently) that some of the more popular Democrat presidential candidates aren’t shaking their heads in exasperation and saying “Why didn’t I think of that”?