New Orleans      In these fraught times, this would seem like a minor controversy compared to so many of the outrages around us from war to the economy, but it’s important for the future, especially for children.  I’m talking about what are commonly known around the world as “baby bonds.”  These are gifts from the government or philanthropists in one form or another in an attempt to give children, especially lower-income kids, a leg up in the future, as they become adults.  Sometimes these funds have been designated by states for children to be able to access higher education.  Other concepts are more freewheeling and would allow a beneficiary to cash out the money to buy a house, retire, start a business, as well as education.

ACORN worked on this program for years in Canada.  Generally, this is a good thing, but…the devil is in the details, as it is for any program.  In the US, Trump’s narcissism might have a residual benefit, because he will certainly try to brand this in his usual way.  The program is intended to put aside $1000 for every baby born during his second term.  In a surprise, billionaire Michael Dell and his wife ponied up $6.25 billion to give $250 to most other children, younger than 10 years old.  The money would undergird the stock exchange and be invested in the name of the child in index funds, which chart the general growth of the entire market, hopefully in a positive direction over the 18 years until maturation and the first opportunity to cash out.

Not perfect, but all good so far.  On paper and the press releases, and likely in the intention of the Dells this is a step to equalizing opportunity and creating equity. In other words, this is an entitlement, meaning that everyone who fits the criteria would automatically have an account opened in their name and stand to benefit.  Here’s the rub.  There’s no guarantee, once we get into the weeds, that access will be automatic, as opposed to opt-in.  Forcing all families to go through an enrollment process, as we know based on Trump and Republican plans to erode the entitlements of lower income families for food stamps and Medicaid, means that a significant number of babies will never benefit.

This is as tragic, as it likely is intentional.  The actual law “gives the Treasury Department the authority to automatically enroll children…[but] it does not plan to do that.  When accounts open next year, parents will need to sign up.”  Experts estimate that literally millions of children will miss out.  There’s not any doubt on this score, looking at the experience of state programs.  As the Times reports,

Past experiments have found that when these accounts require opting in, many parents don’t, especially those who are poor. Parents might be uninformed about them, inexperienced with investing or overwhelmed around the birth of a child, researchers said.  In the Oklahoma experiment, accounts were opened for a group of newborns in 2007. Enrollment was automatic unless parents opted out — which only one family did. But in Maine, where a philanthropist gave newborns $500 to invest for college if their parents opened accounts, just 40 percent did. (Maine has since switched to automatic enrollment, and participation is 100 percent.)

This is just plain wrong, even if typical of Trump and Republicans now.  By making the program opt-in, they defeat the entitlement and increase the wealth gap, now and in the future.  So typical that the president will want to call these “Trump Accounts” and waylay the Dell’s generosity to make it harder to the poorest children to benefit.  The best hope for this program is that the Dell’s with so much skin in this game, will insist that Treasury and Trump make it an equal opportunity program, as an automatic entitlement, rather than another gotcha attack on lower income and working families.