Caught this over at Drudge today, I figured it had to be a joke:

WASHINGTON (AP) – 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.[...]

“I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home,” she said.

Right. And who’s going to pay for that? With 4 million babies born each year, that’d be a $20 billion annual spend.

Except it’s not really a spend. It’s a loan. What would happen is the Federal Reserve would buy $20 billion of US treasury bonds on the open market, and assign the rights over to newborns. The Federal Government winds up $20 billion richer, and the currency gets inflated by the same amount. But because the bonds are never redeemed by the Fed in return, the currency stays in circulation forever. Basically, it’s free money for the federal government via inflation. A clever ploy to make government even bigger without a tax increase.

And then there’s this:

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” said Rep. Stephanie Stubbs Jones, an Ohio Democrat who attended the event and has already endorsed Clinton. “Every child born in the United States today owes $27,000 on the national debt, why not let them come get $5,000 to grow until their [sic] 18?”

Yes. Until THEIR eighteen. Gotta love the AP.

Better yet, let’s burden every child with $32k in debt instead of $27k in debt, and then pat ourselves on the shoulders for being so wonderful while we’re at it.

Read the whole miserable thing here.

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