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Speaking to a crowded living room, Booker wrapped his proposal in familiar campaign themes of appealing to the country’s higher morals and tucked it in after 20 minutes of his more traditional stump speech.
But the in-depth policy discussion, aided by the rare presence of a note card in Booker’s hand, reflected an increased focus on policy specifics in his campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, which has focused largely on sweeping upbeat oratory and calls for unity to salve the country’s growing political divisions.
He hinted at such a shift in a speech to the National Action Network in New York on Friday, telling the crowd, “Not just sentiments, I’m fighting to deliver substance.”
At his Saturday event here in the home of a local state senator, Booker delivered a broad lesson in economic policy and the racial wealth gap.
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“When a child is born in America, and they become 18 years old, their ZIP code and their family income is a powerful determinant of their destiny,” Booker said, as he cited statewide birthrate statistics and how they would be affected by his proposal, reading from an index card. “We would actually take our stratifications of wealth in this country and begin to give people in the lower rung the ability to create wealth and grow.”
Booker was introducing the audience to what is becoming a central component of his emerging platform, an economic proposal known as baby bonds that would create a government-run savings account for every child born in the United States. The program is designed to aggressively address the nation’s growing wealth gap, and the government’s contributions would increase based on a family’s economic standing.
Although Booker introduced his baby bond proposal in 2018 in the Senate and has made passing reference to it in his stump speeches and town halls since, it had not yet played a central role.
While other campaigns have enjoyed early surges, Booker has largely trod an under-the-radar, workman’s path of reaching out to voters. One of the most prolific travelers in the crowded Democratic field, having visited at least 28 communities in March alone, Booker has attracted packed rooms at most events. But he has not had any breakthrough moments or introduced meaty policy proposals that have helped propel other candidates at least temporarily into the spotlight.
In choosing to focus on his baby bonds proposal, Booker is seizing on an issue that has come to define the early primary race: inequality of wealth and income. While many other candidates paint broad agendas to combat the growing wealth gap, such as calls for “Medicare for all,” Booker’s baby bonds proposal is among the most complex and specific offered by a presidential candidate.
On the campaign trail, Booker touts a Columbia University study from January that concluded that baby bonds “would dramatically reduce racial wealth inequality.”
A broad rewriting of the social contract, Booker’s proposal calls for every child born in the United States to be given a $1,000 bonded savings account that is run through the Treasury Department. Each year, the federal government would contribute to the account on a tiered basis; those who come from a family of four making less than $25,100 a year would be given $2,000. The contributions would be lowered as families move up the income ladder, and any family of four making more than $125,751 would receive no contributions.
The proposal estimates that children from the nation’s poorest families would receive roughly $46,000 when they turned 18. But the money would carry restrictions; it could only be spent on “wealth-building” transactions such as paying for college, buying a home or starting a small business.
Booker’s office estimates that the program would carry an annual price tag of about $60 billion and would be paid for by restoring the estate tax rate to its 2009 levels, closing loopholes in the capital gains tax and adding a surtax rate for estates worth at least $10 million and at least $50 million.
But just before Booker was about to delve into the more intricate details of his baby bonds proposal, he was interrupted by one of the home’s residents — Sadie, a golden lab.
“What are your questions,” he said, pausing his remarks to rub the dog behind the ears. “I am the leader in the Senate on animal issues.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.