Show Me the Money

Hillary Clinton said on Friday, September 28 that she wanted to set aside a $5,000 bond when any child is born in America, to help with college savings or a down payment on their first homes as described in this article. What happened to my money? The young person would get their money when they had got their high school diploma. I agree in principle that this is a great idea that would help teach the younger generation to save and hopefully give young people incentives to graduate high school since high school graduation is one of the stipulations Clinton said to acquire the money.

Clinton however throws this idea out without giving any kind of feasible plan on where this money would come from. There are approximately 4 million babies born in America annually. That comes out to $2 billion dollars per year. Where does Hillary propose we get that money from? Clinton says that this money will be given to those that graduate high school, and she also says that this proposal will greatly help the poor class in American society. As far as I know, in poor urban areas in America, high schools resources are extremely limited. Poor teachers, lack of funding, and overcrowding of schools leads many young people to drop out of school. I propose investing some of that $5,000 dollars into redeveloping schools and hiring adequate teachers needs to be done as well.

Once someone graduates high school and gets this bond, Clinton does not go into any kind of details on what this money can be spent on or how one can even regulate what the money is spent on. Some young people in America, especially those just graduating high school who have not had very much money in their lives, will want to spend this money on material items such as cars, clothing, or even drugs. Another possible negative affect this bond proposal may have is if low income parents see this money as their money for raising a child and force the young person to hand over the money to them as soon as they get it. Clinton throws this idea out to get young peoples votes, but does not back this proposal up with any kind of concrete research on where, how and when this money will change hands from the government to the young people who earn it.