In Reply to: Trump accounts are not voluntary posted by russsmith on October 08, 2026 at 10:13:11
I don’t understand why you’re complaining about free money, especially when these children are also being given access to a tax-deferred investment vehicle that families haven’t had access to before.
Michael Dell is funding the entire program, so there is no government money going into these accounts.
This is one of the Trump administration’s experiments that I think has real potential. The bigger question is: how many of the lower-income parents who are the intended beneficiaries of these accounts actually know how to invest the money wisely?
What Dell is doing is essentially an act of philanthropy. He is putting up his own money and trying to encourage other billionaires to do the same—which, frankly, very few have done.
I think we should be willing to let positive experiments like this play out and see what happens rather than immediately assuming there is some hidden agenda or becoming so damn conspiratorial about it.
I also think this model has much more long-term potential than Social Security. Social Security faces a fundamental demographic problem. When the program began, there were roughly 159 workers for every beneficiary. Today, there are only about 2.6 workers per beneficiary, and by 2050 that number is projected to fall to around 2.
That is an enormous structural difference. A system based on giving young people an opportunity to build wealth and participate in the growth of the economy has the potential to create benefits that compound over generations.
It could also have another important effect: getting more low-income young people financially invested in the success of the country. If you give someone a real financial stake in the growth of the U.S. economy, they may have a very different relationship with that economy and its future.
This is a very inexpensive way to create a safety net for young people.
Sometimes, I just don’t understand the extreme partisanship from Democrats. This seems to have many of the characteristics of policies Democrats traditionally support: transferring some wealth from the wealthy to lower-income young people, encouraging greater economic participation, and creating a financial safety net that takes advantage of market growth and the power of compound interest.
You would think there would be at least some bipartisan appreciation for an approach that gives young people a financial stake in their own future rather than simply providing another government benefit.