What if each American newborn were given a onetime gift of $6,000, at birth, as a down payment on a productive life? This is the amount that would be required for all Americans to have approximately $20,000 in their own capital accounts by the time they reach their eighteenth birthdays. Given the number of babies born each year in the United States, such a plan would cost surprisingly little —about $24 billion annually— and if the program were means-tested, it would cost even less. But the potential rewards could be astonishing.
(Halstead & Lind: p. 100)
Can we truly consider US $24 billion a year to be "surprisingly little"? That would be roughly $100 billion per presidential term, and I didn't notice the authors explaining where the money would come from. Sure, the idea sounds intriguing and it might even do wonders for millions of American kids who (as in any other developed society) are sentenced to a life of relative deprivation and low expectations. After all, our governments already give tax credits and use other policies to promote natality. This idea to give a down payment to newborns wouldn't be, in a sense, but a variation of the traditional policies, with the additional advantage that it has a far more important long-term impact. Still, one cannot avoid the feeling (with this and several other proposals put forward in this book) that the authors are behaving a bit like divine figures who can afford to discuss about the topics without a need to pull up the sleeves and go down in the mud. It always happens that wonderful ideas get all blurred when someone tries to implement them. The devil is usually in the details, and Halstead and Lind never have to deal with that. They can just look from a distance and give advice, which is at the same time this book's strength and major weakness.
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