By The Staff
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Save Jersey readers are well-acquainted with Cory Booker’s 2020 presidential pre-campaign pitch for low-income kid savings accounts. The catch: it’s all taxpayer money. The young Americans (and their children) don’t actually need to save anything. How is that helping the country? Specifically, the development of these minor citizens into responsible adults?
Ryan Bourne of the D.C.-based Cato Institute — America’s leading libertarian think tank — is out with an op-ed in the Washington Examiner panning Booker’s plan:
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“There’s a crucial difference though between this proposal and child trust funds that have been previously tried in countries such as the United Kingdom. Under Booker’s plan, families would be prohibited from adding to government contributions with their own private funds. In the U.K., the government merely opened the accounts and administered two small payments at birth and at age 7. But the bigger idea was that parents and grandparents would scurry up to $1,000 more away each year, on top of the government deposits, valuing the tax advantages and the self-discipline of being unable to draw down the funds.
Booker’s proposal is entirely different. Being solely a public scheme, it amounts to pure redistribution — transfers from taxpayers to those on low incomes. As such, it has little to offer conservatives. The argument it will encourage saving or show children the power of investment is bogus. Saving is about deferring consumption — sacrificing today to fulfill other goals tomorrow. But this is pure taxpayer support: taxing or borrowing to take from Peter to pay Paul, with no sacrifice on the part of those enjoying the rewards.”
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Click here to read the full op-ed.
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