Democrats' socialist agenda accelerates full speed ahead.

In addition to supporting such economy-wrecking Democrat-Socialist ideas as "Medicare for all” and the “Green New Deal,” Senator Cory Booker has come up with one of his own proposals to distinguish his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. It’s called the "baby bonds" program, under which all children born in the United States – presumably including anchor babies – would be given a $1000 initial “bond” at birth to be deposited in a trust account. Each year thereafter, so long as the income of the child’s parents remains below 500% of the federal poverty guidelines, the child would receive additional government payments of as much as $2000 into the account until the child reaches the age of 18.

According to the 2019 poverty guidelines, 500% of the poverty guideline for a family of 4 would be $128,750. Senator Booker estimated that his proposed baby bonds program could cost as much as sixty billion dollars a year, according to an article appearing in the New Yorker last December. He would pay for his give-away proposal by, unsurprisingly, imposing more taxes on upper income taxpayers.

Although the program would be structured as racially neutral, the New Yorker article reported that “Booker’s staff has calculated that the average white child would accrue about fifteen thousand dollars through the program, and the average black child would gain twenty-nine thousand dollars.”

Jordan Weissmann, Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent, wrote that while Senator Booker has not expressly called for reparations to fix the disparity of wealth between white and black Americans, his baby bonds proposal “might be the closest thing that we can expect to see from a serious presidential contender going into 2020.” Darrick Hamilton, a professor of economics and urban policy at the New School who worked with Senator Booker on the proposal, is quoted by Mr. Weissmann as telling him, “The most parsimonious way to address racial wealth inequality is a system of reparations. But if we’re not at the political moment for reparations, then baby bonds are a very good mechanism.” In short, Senator Booker’s baby bonds proposal is his weapon of choice with which to engage in a form of combined race-based and economic class warfare.

The baby bonds proposal is not as new a Democrat idea as it may seem. Hillary Clinton was pushing the idea back in 2007. However, in addition to its significant cost, baby bonds would not help families with children struggling to make ends meet while they are raising their children. Instead, it would redistribute wealth to trust accounts for children of parents with incomes of as much as six figures. These accounts would not be available for productive use for 18 years from the child’s birth. On the other hand, child tax credits are already available, which provide money to families while they most need it. A new refundable credit, up to $1,400 if the child tax credit would bring one’s tax liability below zero, was established under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017. Yet today’s far left Democrat party bizarrely dismissed this law, including its real life benefit to help people of need through the expanded tax credit.

Senator Kamala Harris, who is also running for her party’s presidential nomination, wants to turn the tax credit idea into a vast wealth redistribution program, paid for by imposing more taxes on corporations and on taxpayers in the higher income brackets who already pay a disproportionately high amount of the nation’s income taxes. Her proposal would provide up to $6,000 a year per family, in the form of a refundable tax credit, for households earning under $100,000 annually. This government subsidy would be in addition to the public benefits that some people already receive. The subsidy would also be extended to people higher up the economic ladder than is the case today. The cost could amount to as much as $200 billion a year. In short, Senator Harris’s proposal would transform the original intended purpose of the earned income tax credit to incentivize work as well as offset federal payroll and income taxes into a socialist style wealth redistribution scheme. She uses class warfare rhetoric to justify what she would plan to do if given the chance. Senator Harris, like Senator Booker, also backs “Medicare for all” and the “Green New Deal.”

Indeed, Democrats such as Senators Booker and Harris are running to the far left, pushed by the progressive base of the party to mainstream the radical class warfare ideas of Democrat-Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Democrat-Socialist Representat ive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The official Green New Deal Resolution, introduced by Representative Ocasio- Cortez, is a manifesto against what it calls “systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices.” Ranging far beyond its pie-in-the-sky proposals to create a fossil fuel free economy within 10 years, the resolution demands that the federal government “promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities” and of other so-called “frontline and vulnerable communities.” It would provide all people of the United States with “economic security.” As a top adviser to Representative Ocasio-Cortez has now admitted, a "Green New Deal" document posted by her office contained a guarantee of economic security even for those "unwilling to work."

History is littered with failed socialist policies to guarantee everyone “economic security,” which end up sapping the incentives to work and create wealth. The Booker baby bonds proposal and Harris wealth distribution tax credit plan would operate along the same lines. As Margaret Thatcher is quoted as saying, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money.”