Worst Idea Ever?
Written by Sean on September 29th, 2007The junior Senator from New York is now proposing that every child born in America receive a $5000 bond. The proposal would cost about $20 billion per year and include all children, regardless of their parents’ income. Clinton offered no explanation of how she would pay for the idea.
Consider this a test for the American people, and for Republicans. Will anyone ask or care about where this money will come from? Will people make the connection between tax dollars and dollars spent by the government? If she becomes President, how many Congressional Republicans will go along with the “free money” proposal?
In case anyone thinks this is a throw-away suggestion, consider this. The President’s approval numbers are rock bottom. Clinton holds a huge lead in every national poll among Democrats. The Iraq war is unlikely to get much, if any, better by the elections. Democrats are likely to pick up at least a couple of seats in the Senate, and House retirements could make it difficult for us to hold our own, never mind actually regaining the Majority. That’s not to say that next year’s elections have already been decided. It’s only meant to illustrate that this actually could pass.
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This is even more stupid than the Santorum-Schumer plan from a few years ago that would have given every new born $500. Hillary just threw on an extra zero.
While we’re at it, why don’t we just give every person a house once they turn 18 and how about a car too. How about throwing in a free college education too. Life will just be one big free ride with all that imaginary gubmint money.
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“all that gubmit money”
That’s a disgusting racial slur. Frankly, I don’t even understand why your party bothers to keep up the pretense that they’re not racists.
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Just multiply $5,000 per the population size of the United States and you’ll arrive at what Hillary’s proposal would cost us towards the front of the next generation.
I strongly support cutting federal taxes on new parents, however.
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McCarthy — If I cut $5000 off your tax bill, that’s the same as leaving your taxes the same but giving you $5000 in cash. Did you not learn arithmetic in elementary school?
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It’s not the same. Instead of me telling you why, I’m gonna make you think about it.
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What an incentive this creates to pick up the pace on illegal immigration. This’ll bring back the illegals who’re leaving this country right now.
Publius, how many angels can dance on your head? When the government collects tax money and distributes $5,000 of it to each child born in America, that forces the taxpayers to subsidize people having children. It’s the equivalent of taking $5,000 from each taxpayer and forcing him or her to give it to someone’s child. (The idea that people should take responsibility for their own children and not force their neighbors to pick up the tab is now, I suppose, passé.) When the government cuts taxes by $5,000, that’s not redistributing wealth; that’s taking less wealth away from taxpayers.
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So if a car dealership reduces the price of the car by $5000, that’s different than if they’d left the price the same and gave you $5000 in cash? Please explain how reducing your bill is different from leaving your bill the same and giving you the equivalent amount of cash.
I oppose this proposal on different grounds. I’m tired of all these tax benefits and giveaways to people with children. Having children is a CHOICE; parents should owe a higher tax bill, not a lower one. I’m tired of people without children having to pay higher taxes to pay for public services for little brats that YOU chose to have, while you actually get a tax rebate for procreating!
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One difference is that no matter where you live, you have a choice whether or not to deal with the car dealership. You don’t have a choice whether or not you’re going to pay taxes. The government of the country where you live, unlike a local car dealership, doesn’t force you to pay taxes to it every year. On Publius’ logic, there’s no difference between (a) a mugger giving you $50 and (b) a mugger robbing $50 less from you than he usually does. The financial outcome of those two possibilities certainly is the same, but those two possibilities themselves aren’t even similar in principle.
But this is extremely dishonest of you because the analogy that Joe and I challenged was an analogy between a tax cut and a subsidy. You’re trying to do a bait-and-switch, changing the analogy. Even if your car-dealership example is sound (and it’s not), that certainly isn’t a defense of your original analogy. When the government picks out a special interest and subsidizes it, it’s forcing every taxpayer to pay for the subsidy. A tax cut isn’t an act of spending; it doesn’t require anything to pay for it, and thus, when we cut taxes, nobody is paying more as a result of it. Suppose we cut taxes only for the rich. In such a case, no money paid by the poor or the middle class is going to the rich; the poor and the middle class are not made any worse off by the tax cut for the rich. So it’s stupid to call the tax cut a subsidy–nobody’s paying anything to make the favored group any better off.
I hope you don’t have any kids, Publius, because stupidity is genetically heritable.
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I am thrilled that HRC has made this proposal. It will provide whoever the Republican candidate is the opportunity to clearly point out what is wrong with the Democratic Party. It is pandering at it worst.
Keep it up Hillary–but please hold off on the crazier stuff until after you have won the nomination, please.
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Alan –
Your analogy works fine, assuming that you get mugged either way.
1. Mugged for $500
2. Mugged for $550 and the mugger gives you $50 back.
Those two are indeed the same. My point was only that a $5000 bond for every child is the same as a $5000 tax break for every child.
I agree with you on the redistributive aspect. As I explained, I oppose this proposal because it redistributes money from childless people to freeloading parents who want everyone else to pay for the public services that their little idiots use.
On your last point, you can take it to the bank that my IQ is at least 20 points higher than yours. It’s *because* I’m bright that I’m not having children. It’s the idiots in their trailer parks who breed like rabbits.
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Publius, if you were as smart as you claim to be, you’d have realized by now that nobody here really cares what your IQ is. As far as your last sentence, I can only say that it demonstrates a staggering degree of discrimination, elitism, and ignorance. Thank you for illustrating that far better than anyone else ever could.
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Are you going to criticize Alan for calling me stupid? He initiated the name calling. I didn’t insult anyone, just made a point that he disagreed with.
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I’m well aware that your point was that a $5,000 bond for every child is the same as a $5,000 tax break for every child. My argument is, that’s a stupid point–because of the redistributive aspect. To say that you agree with me on the redistribution issue, while nonetheless insisting that a $5,000 bond for every child (which requires redistribution) is the same as a $5,000 tax break for every child (which does not require redistribution) is like saying “A and not A.”
So it’s because you’re bright that you’re not having kids? So intelligence means not having kids? Well, if THAT isn’t the non sequitur to end all non sequiturs. Real smart reasoning there, moron.
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Alan — You still don’t get the point. BOTH are redistributive. The $5000 tax giveaway to only people with children is redistributive in the same way as a $5000 bond is redistributive.
If I scan paragraphs from ten economics textbooks that make this exact point, will you believe me then? The problem is that a targeted giveaway has political baggage attached to it that a targeted tax break does not. You are apparently unable to see past your own political biases and separate out rhetoric from logic.
I oppose ANY redistribution to people with children — either by providing targeted tax breaks only to those people or by providing subsidies to them.
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Publius-”Are you going to criticize Alan for calling me stupid?”
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Alan, don’t call Publius stupid.
There. Alan has been scolded.
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Check out http://www.rasmussenreports.com it looks like the baby bond is widely unpopular
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Why not call him stupid? He’s the one who started with the name-calling in post #2–making an obviously baseless, and therefore stupid, accusation of racism. If he’s going to hurl unfounded insults at people on this site, why shouldn’t I hurl well-founded insults at him? If he can’t take the nastiness, he shouldn’t dish it out.
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Re: #14–no, they’re not both redistributive. Taking less money out of the taxpayers’ hands is not redistributive. You can say it all you want, but it’s still false.
That’s not rhetoric on my part. By definition, redistribution means taking from one to give to another. A tax cut isn’t a taking of anything.
You accuse me of being blinded by rhetoric and ignoring logic, but you’re the one who’s ignoring plain English here. When the government cuts taxes, from whom is money TAKEN? You’ve never answered that, though you act as though you have.
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Alan –
Here’s the first text I grabbed from my bookshelf. From Public Finance (Rosen — Princeton University), pg. 378:
“Failure to include a particular item in a tax base results in a loss to the treasury. Suppose that as a consequence of not taxing item Z, the treasury loses $1 billion. Compare this to a situation where the government simply hands over $1 billion of revenues to those who purchase item Z. These activities are equivalent as both subsidize purchases of Z. It just so happens that one transaction occurs on the expenditure side of the account and the other transaction occurs on the revenue side of the account. The former is referred to as a tax expenditure, a revenue loss caused by the exclusion of some item from the tax base.”
(the text by Stiglitz, another well known and very pro-market economist, has a similar statement)
The tax cut is redistributive in exactly the same way as the expenditure — by shifting the burden of taxes away from people with children to people without children (”item Z”). You apparently never picked up from the first day of ECON 101 that an implicit and an explicit cost are no different fundamentally.
Get a PhD from Harvard and a full professorship at Princeton. Then you can criticize Rosen’s economics. Lest you criticize his ivory tower mentality or lack of “real-world experience”, note on his CV that he consults for corporations and does extensive work with the fed:
http://www.princeton.edu/~hsr/cv11-06.pdf
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Publius, I disagree with your premise that it is the Government’s or as Rosen puts it the Treasury’s money. It is the people’s money. Your analogy fails on your premises.
I must ask this, are you really advocating that no one have children? Who will pay for future generations Social Security Benefits? For Medicare? For Medicaid? For HillaryCare? Inquiring minds want to know.
I find it ironic that someone who makes his living teaching is so against having children.
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Michael C –
1. I presented an argument. You responded with a slogan. “It’s the people’s money” is not responsive to the question of how a tax deduction of $100 for purchasing item X is different from leaving your taxes the same and then getting a $100 check for purchasing item X. In fact, it’s not responsive to much at all.
2. On this issue of children, you have a valid point. I will respond on the merits when you stop using idiotic tag lines like “HillaryCare”. I don’t refer to the Iraq was as “The Bush Slaughter” in everyday conversation.
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I’d also like to add that I do not “make my living teaching”. Like most academics, my primary job is research. Wasting 5 hours a week teaching idiots who can’t add without a calculator or write in coherent English gets in the way of my real job.
A recent conversation with a colleague:
Me: “I hope we don’t end up coteaching this course”
Colleague: “Why?”
Me: “Can’t you see our coming to blows over things at some point?”
Colleague: “You disappoint me. Remember, we need to be united against our common enemy — the students.”
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Publius it sounds to me like you are admitting to being part of the problem in higher education.
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No, the problem is that too many people are getting undergraduate degrees. The vast majority of these jokers with political science and sociology degrees have no business in college and learn nothing useful from their time in college. Half of my intro classes can’t do basic math without a calculator. People who are that stupid at the beginning of the semester are not going to learn anything in an economics class that will contribute in a positive way to their lives.
The liberal arts model works well only for people with very high IQs, with the ability to integrate information and think critically. The rest of the population should focus on acquiring job skills and not spinning their wheels for four years.