Won’t someone get her a calculator?
Our good friend Sarah at Trying to Grok is mad at Hillary Clinton:
But Hillary Clinton’s Throwing Money Around Like We Can Just Print More plan is really infuriating.
“Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 “baby bond” from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.”
So how would one go about figuring out if this is a realistic plan (we’ll let you decide whether it would be a good one)? It’s easy when you don’t want to figure out the details:
Obviously it would be irresponsible to suggest this to voters before she’s had a chance to sit down and crunch the numbers, right?
The New York senator did not offer any estimate of the total cost of such a program or how she would pay for it. Approximately 4 million babies are born each year in the United States.
Oh. She’s just speaking out of her ass then.
Seems like it’s par for the course for everyone involved — dismissing it out of your ass is pretty neat too. Maybe some multiplication would be a good place to start? Let’s see… $5,000 x 4,000,000 = whoa, so many zeros… the childrens… hmm, does that make $20,000,000,000 (let’s just call that a $20 billion program). Would the United States Government be able to launch and finance a $20 billion a year expense? Well, given that it’s planning to spend $2,735 billionses (PDF) this fiscal year, one would imagine that yeah, it’s possible. Sure — an extra 0.73% of annual government spending is a totally huge amount of money. Heck, $20 billion wouldn’t even cover more than a few weeks of the war on whatever the hell you want to call it. [Annie Jacobsen calls it the I have had it with these motherfucking Muslims on this motherfucking plane war.]
Bonus: The comments are precious little things too:
We heard this on the radio this morning. Someone brought up that the government would put it in an investment account for them (and only those who graduate high school would get the money — so what happens to the money that doesn’t get doled out???), at a rate of 2%.
Oh, someone said that! Someone who knew exactly how this “proposal” would be implemented in practice. Ingenious! Yet as always, Sarah wins:
DS — This soundbite that she gave is completely devoid of details. There are major implementation problems! […] What about illegals?
We’re not from there (or here, depending on how you’re looking at this) — fuck it, we’re Canadian, home to the little dollar that could — but even we know what one normally calls children born in the United States: citizens.
Bonus 2: Does this really mean that the rich pay less taxes than the poor, who pay no taxes?
The poor, who don’t pay taxes, will not be contributing. And the rich, who know how to invest their money in such a way that they don’t pay as much taxes but can afford the $5000, regardless, won’t be contributing.
In passing: the notion that the poor “don’t pay taxes” must rank at the very top of the list of total and utter bullshit ever to come from Rush Limbaugh.
Everyone knows that the poor are all shiftless tax evaders who use their friends in high places to create loopholes the size of the Eisenhower tunnel so they can push their shopping carts filled with plastic bags….
Wait, What?
Awww, forget it.
tao2death? Hmm. Probably not a great band name.
The savings you remember as a child? Yeah, your parents did that.
More Sarah: Back then, you could go to a good state college for a nickel a year, which is why the $53.25 my parents saved allowed me to go to State U for four years, where I slept through all my math classes.
Free money? Just for being born? Sounds like socialism to me. On the other hand, if the government bought everyone a pony at birth, we wouldn’t have to spend so much time looking for ponies in Iraq.
Too expensive. Why, $20 billion would allow us to buy off Saddam and avert a $400+ billion plus war 20 times!
http://tinyurl.com/2uasj8
just read that. sheer fucking poetry. the best.
in iraq i understand that sadaam gave every child a WMD at birth.
RG-
Is that English? Or something like Spanglish? ROTCish?
‘Cause I think some vital parts of speech may be missing from that page.
Maybe if Sarah had been given such a head start, she could have moved from clueless fucktard dumb to merely fucktard dumb. Poor girl.
56. To Prove Jeb Bush is all in my house with disease.
Okay, I’m giggling.
I overheard some geezers at the AirTran terminal at Logan talking about this same thing on Saturday. One of them said that this proposal alone should disqualify her for office. Interestingly enough, they were on my flight back to ATL and I almost told them they ought to stay in GA where their wingnut views would be more at home.
BTW- If I hear one more asshat spout off about how the poor don’t pay taxes or about the f*cking fair tax, I am going to shove my head up my own ass so I can live like them. WHY WHY WHY does every winger think they know something about fiscal policy without ever taking a public finance class??? ARGHHHHHH
Somehow Hillary, who has been acting like Bush in drag as it pertains to the war in Iraq, and her promises, rather than comforting me, seem to be scaring the hell out of me. It’s not the amount that concerns me. It just feels so much like a bribe for parents.
Hillary sounds like a conservative and that’s what has so many anti-war people protesting her. But to me, she’s still the same old liberal, pandering for votes. To me, she’s just:
The Ghost of Clinton Past
Dr BLT c 2007
http://www.drblt.net/music/GhostOFClintP.mp3
Beautifully done, as usual.
One thing we know for sure: Those poor people don’t have anything bigger to worry about than these hilarious political eviscerations.
The ranks of teh stupid are too large to overcome, I fear. (Which not coincidentally is why I think F. Thompson has a chance; every time he talks he reveals himself to be completely uninformed. He’s the perfect GOP candidate, what with his voice and “handsome manliness” (?) and acting chops and ignorance and all.)
Hillary’s proposal struck me as silly, at first, more like a Russian attempt to spread whitey around more fully, but what the hell? Obama just said he’d fight for a nuclear-free world.
I like idealism as much as the next guy, but confess that it is to me mindless gibberish without some grounding in what some of us once knew as “reality.”
Thanks RG!
From that I gather it’s rather difficult to have sex when people are spying on your dead body… or something.
This policy is a direct copy of Gordon Brown’s Child Trust Fund.
Just as it was with El Gordo, Hillary’s announcement’s basically an electoral bribe.
Hey, Doc!
At least she would be a competent Republican, which is the only reason I can think of that anyone would vote for her in a primary.
Well, not just that. I have a sneaking suspicion our generally patriarchal world-view (not just Americans) is working on the psyche of a lot of voters. They think Bill will have a lot of influence.
Don’t waste your time with this idiot — another idiot (cough. Blackwater. cough.) but up this completely independent blog:
http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/
And left the comments open.
Damn it! He’s on to us!
Wow, Robert Green’s link is what I would’ve expected from a Dr. Bronner campaign. Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence ( All Three ) !
On the plus side, he HAS solved all crime going back to before the time of Christ, i.e. 15 years ago. On the minus side, his Mom is apparently a zombie.
“At least she would be a competent Republican, which is the only reason I can think of that anyone would vote for her in a primary.”
For many of you here, wouldn’t that be tantamount to being a competent Hitler?
Considering the war’s costing $3,850 a second…oh! and here’s the war on drugs clock http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm (gads, $15+ billion by the feds so far this year)
oh the toilet is full of bills and the flusher keeps jamming.
The ranks of teh stupid are too large to overcome, I fear. (Which not coincidentally is why I think F. Thompson has a chance; every time he talks he reveals himself to be completely uninformed. He’s the perfect GOP candidate, what with his voice and “handsome manliness” (?) and acting chops and ignorance and all.)
You forgot the (?) after the “Acting Chops”…
“Considering the war’s costing $3,850 a second”
What about all those billions upon billions of dollars you guys promised we would be getting from oil in Iraq. That should more than cover the cost of the war. That is the real why we went to war, isn’t it? Well, where’s all the oil money? Maybe Bush is hiding it in the caves, along with all of those weapons of mass destruction.
The fact is, you are envious of the success and hard work of Blackwater employees. This deniggration of contractors is the latest tactic of the Cindy Sheehan wing of the Dem party to scare us into socialism and surrendering to Islamists. Please stop being biased, use facts and reasonsed discourse, sna dcut the hysteria and denunciation of all good American things.
Amen!
“Please stop being biased, use facts and reasonsed discourse, sna dcut the hysteria and denunciation of all good American things.”
But Gary, these are liberals. Perhaps we should adjust our expectations just a bit.
LOL, JoeBuddha. You’re absolutely right.
But, more confessions, I have never watched a single episode of Law and Order. No small feat.
And no, I don’t think Hillary is in any way Hitleresque. I’m calling a Godwin’s Law violation.
“What about all those billions upon billions of dollars you guys promised we would be getting from oil in Iraq.”
Who’s “you guys”?
So “recovering” means, knocked down but now up and at ’em?
This deniggration of contractors
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but, um…
The fact is, you are envious of the success and hard work of Blackwater employees.
You got it Gary. I’m envious of the Blackwater soldier who got drunk, blew an Iraqi soldier’s brains out, and got fired. Man, I wish I was that guy!
Hey Gary? It doesn’t take courage to carry a weapon in a combat zone.
It’s kinda like wearing a tie in corporate america. De rigeur, I think they call it.
What takes courage is getting the fuck OFF the trigger when you don’t have a target. Holding your position, doing your job while innocent civilians run every which way, trying to get out of the kill zone. Knowing the difference between just another indig and a righteous target. Most of our soldiers can do it. Blackwater mercs don’t have to, because there is no accountability for murder.
They just put rounds downrange, and go home and get a beer. At $965.00 a DAY! They’re the worst kind of human shit. Mercs have been sucking at the tit of human fears and hatreds for tens of thousands of years. That don’t make it right. Believe me, the world can see the bush/cheney cabal is paying mercenaries to fight their wars. Even the reviled french brought them under the umbrella of legitimate military with the Foreign Legion. But we just deploy them, hell it’s only money right?
And the lives they take, the way they behave, resonates far beyond Baghdad. American fear and racial hatred is easy for the world to see. And if you think this is contributing to american security, or even advances american interests, you are not just deluded, you are blind…
mikey
BLT?
All those millions in oil moneys?
Check the profits from Exxon and the other oil companies lately. Who said the oil money would go to the US Government? I mean, besides liars like Rumsfeld?
mikey: word.
It is just so touching that you still read my blog after all these years.
Um, I paid federal income taxes back when I was an 18-year-old dishwasher making $3.35 an hour. True, I think I got a total refund on my tax return, but not before the government had held my money for a year, no doubt earning interest on it the whole time.
The poor, who don’t pay taxes
Right. I hear that, if you’re poor, you just tell the cashier at the 7/11 here in LA, and they knock that 8.25% sales tax right off your purchase.
to scare us into socialism
You goddam socialists! You want even our military to be employees of the federal government!
“The poor, who don’t pay taxes, will not be contributing.”
Really? Poor people don’t pay taxes?
*checks my paycheck*
Huh. So what are all these deductions on this for?
“And the rich, who know how to invest their money in such a way that they don’t pay as much taxes but can afford the $5000, regardless, won’t be contributing.”
Ignoring his claim that rich people are rich cause them’s smart; Poor people don’t pay taxes. Rich people don’t pay taxes. Where the fuck is all this revenue coming from?
Oh, right, China.
If I had my algebra textbook with in easy reaching distance (12 feet away is a lot of feet, man) i would work out exactly how much interest that $5,000 would be after 20 years, assuming a 2% yearly interest rate. I would guess it would be to the order of roughly of $7500. (5000 x 1.02^20 right?)
Ignoring inflation and the constantly rising cost for higher education, that’s like, half of the one semester at college. Or maybe a good chunk of a down payment on a house, assuming your REALLY LIKE Kansas.
the latest tactic of the Cindy Sheehan wing of the Dem party to scare us into socialism and surrendering to Islamists.
Err…. I slept late this morning. I must have missed something? Did the Chavezlamic Wiccafascists come ashore?
People who talk about “Government” money seem to forget it isn’t the Govs money, its American taxpayer (including poor people, especially the poor) money. Most sane americans would be happy to help a little baby be assured of a decent education. Key word: sane.
TI-83 pwns t3h wing|\|ut5.
They also hate The Math over at Captains Quarters.
surrendering to Islamists.
Yikes! That sounds awful!
Good thing we already surrendered the government to Christianists. I feel much safer already.
The fact is the Iraq endeavor is saving the country money.
One 9-11 cost us trillions. Just one, six years ago…trillions.
If the jihadis were not so occupied, they would have been trying their black hearts out for those last six years to incur numbers two, three, four and etcetera.
The damage would increase exponentially, as fear would mount with each successful attempt.
The cost of Iraq is a pittance by comparison. And the better skilled we become at it, the less it will be.
70. RELIGION PROGRAM TO WORK AMERICA. The program has solved everything in the world such as 1. All the crime 2. The lack of world peace 3. All the poverty 4. All communications 5. All prejudice 6. All phenomenons guaranteed to be true by the United States Army. This is a U.S. Army FBI ROTC religion program. This made all of my Doctor’s degrees.
Wait. Your family doctor’s degrees are made of this? Or you have multiple doctorates? Just checking. Because I’d love to have a president this well-educated.
All is solved for Mr. Mercer:
Due to a football [brain] injury, I was unable to compete in football during my senior year.
If there is a god, then s/he will be sure to set up a Steel Cage Death Debate between Alan Keyes and Lee Mercer.
Dammit, Gary! Would you at least clean off and sterilize your facts before you throw them around like a trophy wife?
If the jihadis were not so occupied, they would have been trying their black hearts out for those last six years to incur numbers two, three, four and etcetera.
“black hearts”, I call fake Gary
Hmmm… I have one of Gordon Brown’s baby bonds for my son. We have invested it in one of the many approved guaranteed-return baby bond products that is being sold commercially here in the UK and are supplementing it with a small monthly payment to grow the bond.
The final amount when it pays out won’t be spectacular. I imagine it’ll be enough to buy a second-hand car or pay for a year’s backpacking around the world or do whatever my baby boy decides to squander it on. (He’ll still be a teenager when he gets it, and we all know what teens are like!)
Lord knows I have many complaints about my Prime Minister–his championing of PFI being first amongst them–but the baby bond was and is an excellent idea.
I find it interesting that conservatives–always ready to champion families, babies and investments–would moan about such a scheme, even though it benefits many of them. It adds to my conviction that the United States is no longer the Home of the Brave but the land of the whiny, petty, selfish shits. (You nice progressive types excepted, of course.)
Lee L. Mercer Jr. should get Dr. Gene Ray of “Time Cube” fame to be his vice president. He’ll need a sane, older white guy to offset his radical program.
It’s kind of a shame we have the intarto0bes. I used to enjoy reading things like that, handwritten, copied for 3¢ a page, then pasted on the traffic light control boxes at major intersections. We’ve gained so much from this new technology, yet [wipes moisture from eye] we’ve lost a part of America, too.
Yes, but these folks are not interested in babies after they emerge from the womb. Once delivered into the world children are an inconvenience and subject to the same savage law of the jungle as the rest of humanity.
Time Cube is the gift that keeps on giving.
Gosh, Percyprune, I hope you don’t really think that buying a second-hand car or backpacking around the world would be “squandering”. I’d be very happy if my son used his money so wisely. As it is he spends everything on computer games. I just hope he grows out of it.
Wow, you got a personal visit from Sarah. You must be one of the internet friends she was talking about a month ago, the ones she needs because “I don’t even have any friends in my real life anymore.”
Thanks for keeping us up to date on her private world, since I can’t bear to read her site anymore. It’s no longer even funny.
I’m calling sock-puppetry on the Dr., this Gary and mikey. The all sound the same and the timing of their posts is just too convenient.
On the other hand, I laughed so hard at Mercer’s writing that a piece of Red Vine came out of my nose.
Curse you, Robert Green!
“I’m calling sock-puppetry on the Dr., this Gary and mikey.”
If you’re calling sock-puppetry on mikey, I am forced to declare that every comment on every post on every blog on the internet is written by me. I am also Ann Althouse.
Free money? Just for being born? Sounds like socialism to me.
Try this on for size, then.
Actually, this sounds a lot like the idea from a book by a couple economists called The Stakeholder Society which was based on the idea that people participated and succeeded if they felt they truly held a stake in the society. The plan in the book was to give each child a $100,000 lump sum (the stake) at the age of 18. They could buy a house, go to college, squander it, etc., but it would create a mentality geared toward future planning, participation in civic life, and responsibility. In order to fund it, each person had to provide $100,000 from their estate when they died (or something close, I read the book in law school). It was an interesting premise and it sounds a little like what Clinton had to propose.
i would like to take this opportunity to point out that there is a difference between Sarah and sarah. i also am not very impressed by hillary clinton, but i am pretty good at multiplying, and i know from experience that poor people do, in fact, pay taxes.
you may now return to your regularly scheduled gary/fake-gary discussion. thank you.
Excellent. Dollars spent on computer games are dollars in my pocket.
For what it’s worth, I’m a computer games designer by trade, so I have a financial interest in ensuring our youth squanders their wealth on my product.