Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., outlines her plan to help finance Americans’ retirements, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007, in Webster City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
by Frank James
Reporters on the trail with Sen. Hillary Clinton are reporting that she has dropped her “baby bond” idea, the notion that the federal government would give each baby at birth $5,000 to be used later for college or to help purchase a first home.
Clinton, the front runner in national and many state polls among Democrats seeking the presidential nomination, caught a lot of flak from former Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and others for the idea, which her campaign is saying was only a concept, not a policy position.
As AP reports today:
… Clinton said she has given up another idea for a savings incentive — giving every baby born in the United States a $5,000 account to one day pay for college or a first home.
She made that suggestion last month before the Congressional Black Caucus, saying it was just an idea and not a policy proposal. The idea was criticized by Republicans, and she told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Tuesday that it’s off the table.
This development led to one of those I-wish-I-had-said-that quips from the campaign of John Edwards’ campaign. According to AP:
The campaign of her Democratic rival John Edwards suggested it was an example of Clinton setting her positions by polls. “Apparently, new polling data seems to have pressured the Clinton campaign to throw out the baby bond with the bathwater,” said Edwards spokesman Chris Kofinis.
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This is an interesting turn of events for a few reasons. Often when presidential candidates float a trial balloon, someone other than the candidate does it so that if the idea explodes, the candidate is a safe distance away. White House’s do the same thing.
That Clinton herself floated it, and is now backing away is noteworthy.
Another reason it’s striking is due to Clinton’s well-known tendency towards hyper-caution and being tightly scripted.
This is the politician who in a recent debate couldn’t choose between the Cubs and the Yankees in a hypothetical World Series. (Fortunately for her, both teams’ abysmal post-season play saved her from having to decide.)
This would be a rare instance where Clinton took a flier, when she seemed not to have calculated the situation out to the nth degree, where she seemed actually to be spontaneous.
Of course, she may have calculated this whole thing in order to make herself appear more improvisational. But that would, admittedly, be a very cynical way of looking at it.
Meanwhile, Clinton has come back with an idea, nay, a policy that would whereby she would offer to annually match $1,000 in the 401(k) accounts of American workers with money from the federal treasury.
The federal government would get the money by raising taxes on wealthy families with a tax worth of at least $7 million.
According to the AP:
Clinton said she wants to create “American Retirement Accounts” in which everyone could put up to $5,000 annually in a 401(k) plan. The federal government would provide a tax cut to match 100 percent of the first $1,000 for anyone who makes less than $60,000 a year and 50 percent of the first $1,000 for those who make $60,000-$100,000.
She said she would encourage employers to have direct deposit from paychecks into the accounts.
Clinton said less than half the families in the United States have retirement savings accounts and those who have them aren’t saving enough. She said she often meets people working even into their early 80s because they don’t have enough savings.